Help - Right hand wrist speed question

[ertdwyer]

Hey all,

Just wanted to see if anyone is in the same boat as me/want to see if anyone can offer help.

I find that when I practice 16th notes to a metronome, I can hit it at like 126 BPM's max (cleanly with the notes)...then I find I can't do it until its very very fast. When I get going really fast , its almost as if my "tremolo" muscle memory comes into play. I don't seem to have the ability to slow down my tremolo to play at say 150 BPM.

Anyone else have this issue?

[terzinator]

Yes.

There's something to it, at least.

Let me know if you find a solution, or a pill, or an exercise, or an exorcist.

Because I haven't found one.

[MandoJason]

maybe try picking a fiddle tune youre really comfortable with along to the mandozine tabledit file program (mandozine.com). In this program/window you can change the tempo and you're watching the notes go along w/ you. This way you don't have to work against a metronome, its more like youre in a session. Make sure the pick direction is correct of course. From there you'll be able to identify your tempo limitations and sort out the snag in your even 16th note playing at fast tempo. There are a lot of fiddle tunes that are even/consistent 16th notes all the way through an AA/BB so you get plenty of time to try it over the course of your practice. This is what I do to raise my speed and improve clarity.

[roysboy]

I have exactly the same right hand issue . It's like shifting from first to third gear . No second gear . Very frustrating cuz third gear is not clean ...

[Toni Schula]

I have exactly the same right hand issue . It's like shifting from first to third gear . No second gear . Very frustrating cuz third gear is not clean ...

Could it be that first gear is out of the wrist and third gear at least involving the elbow? At least that happens to me and I try to get away from that third gear habbit.

[JeffD]

Could it be that first gear is out of the wrist and third gear at least involving the elbow? At least that happens to me and I try to get away from that third gear habbit.

Like different modes. That is interesting.

I am not sure if its addressing the same issue, but my noticed my right hand was a lot faster when my left hand was not changing position or note. It was a coordination between hands thing. I could coordinate both hands playing a tune at one speed. But if my left hand was holding a note, it was like my right hand was free to go nuts and tremolo.

A guy showed me a kind of trick, where I finger something very familiar while thinking tremolo, and kind of "disengage" my right hand from the left and not worry about coordination. With lots practice it helped.

Another trick was when I was learning Irish tuples. I decided it was like starting a tremolo, but only for three pick strokes. So mentally I would go into and out of tremolo mode quickly. It confused up the system pretty well so that tremolo mode kind of developed its own range of speeds and I can play tunes in a slow tremolo mode which is faster than general picking mode.

Or something.

[terzinator]

I am not sure if its addressing the same issue, but my noticed my right hand was a lot faster when my left hand was not changing position or note. It was a coordination between hands thing. I could coordinate both hands playing a tune at one speed. But if my left hand was holding a note, it was like my right hand was free to go nuts and tremolo.

This. This. This. This. This.

I will try your exercises.

But mostly, I will enjoy the company of your misery.

[ertdwyer]

Great stuff guys, glad I'm not alone

Roysboy: Great analogy. And third gear is definetly not perfect, but it gives off an illusion that it is.

JeffD: I like the exercise you mentioned. Can you explain it more or give me a brief synopsis on your experience with that certain "process of practicing" (How long you do it for, what tricks did you figure out, things to think while "disengagin", etc...)

[Cody Beck]

You know what's worse??? Being a lefty that plays right handed and trying to work on this! Haha.

[foldedpath]

There are a lot of fiddle tunes that are even/consistent 16th notes all the way through an AA/BB so you get plenty of time to try it over the course of your practice. This is what I do to raise my speed and improve clarity.

I might be nitpicking here, but are there actually many "fiddle tunes" that are 16th notes all the way through? At least in the OldTime/Irish/Scottish genres where we usually call something a fiddle tune.

The place where I most often encounter 16th notes in a fiddle tune is when playing Scottish/Cape Breton strathspeys, where the main flow of the tune is in dotted 8th notes, and then you have these little bursts of 16th note runs. That's a great way to practice 16th notes in context, but you need some familiarity with the dotted "snap" rhythm of the tune.

Usually it's a single run of four 16th notes, but occasionally there is a tune like "King George IV Strathspey" that inserts a double run of eight 16th notes in a row, and that's wicked hard on my right hand. I still can't do that one (yet) at full dance tempo.

[David L]

Fiddle tunes are often written as continuous sixteenth-notes instead of continuous eighth-notes. They are played the same, just notated differently. I think that's what MandoJason meant.

[foldedpath]

Fiddle tunes are often written as continuous sixteenth-notes instead of continuous eighth-notes. They are played the same, just notated differently. I think that's what MandoJason meant.

Interesting... that's different from the notation I see in the OldTime and Irish etc. fiddle tune sheet music that I'm familiar with.

When you run into actual 16th notes, like that strathspey example I mentioned above, you'd have to use 32nd notes. I think 32nd notes would probably scare off most "folk" musicians. I know it would scare me.

[crisscross]

Interesting... that's different from the notation I see in the OldTime and Irish etc. fiddle tune sheet music that I'm familiar with.

In most sheet music resources, fiddle tunes are notated in eighths notes, but for example in Bob Grant's "Fiddle Tunes for Flatpickers" they are notated in sixteenth notes. To me, that makes more sense, I tap my foot rather 100 times a minute than 200 times when listening to a fiddle tune..

[JeffD]

JeffD: I like the exercise you mentioned. Can you explain it more or give me a brief synopsis on your experience with that certain "process of practicing" (How long you do it for, what tricks did you figure out, things to think while "disengagin", etc...)

I hope this helps. I am not a good explainer.

For an example, I can play up a major scale, lets say in first position from an open string. I can do this easily single note picking down down down down. Then I do it down up down up down up, and its not hard. Then I start going faster and faster.

And what would happen is I would reach a ceiling where above which everything would fall apart.

So I did this. I just tremolo on the open string. Just a good solid consistent tremolo. (That alone represents a lot of work, but I was already way down that road when working on this.) Then with that tremolo going, I would just fret up the scale with the left hand. It sounded like crap of course, but I just kept fretting up the scale faster and faster while keeping the tremolo going.

For some reason with this method I eventually (more than a couple of weeks) hit a point where I was fretting up the scale at roughly the same rate as my tremolo. So somehow, soon after that, with a combination of micro adjustments with each hand, magic happened, CLICK, and I could run up the scale at tremolo speed, one note per pick strike. I remember it clearly, I was looking down and thinking "whoa there, that's cool".

So I use that with a lot of things now. Mostly phrases and runs, where I do them to the tremolo and speed up till that synchronizing magic takes over.

There is a French Canadian reel called Pays de Haut, which is full of fun little mechanical thingies. I played with that and eventually got it up to tremolo speed, and click. I remember, I just stood there watching my hands, just gawking.

Well that was then, this is now. I have figured out a way to go from that insane ridiculous speed and bring it down to a fast but not idiotic speed. It is faster still than I can get to by working up from below a note at a time - I have to start with the "tremolo mode", but I can get where I want to for stuff that is not too finger buster to begin with.

Its a real hoot.

And it sure feels like cheating.

[foldedpath]

In most sheet music resources, fiddle tunes are notated in eighths notes, but for example in Bob Grant's "Fiddle Tunes for Flatpickers" they are notated in sixteenth notes.

Um... a guitar player transcribing fiddle tunes. Okay, got it.

Not trying to make too much of this, but I think this isn't something we should consider a standard practice. Especially for newbies encountering fiddle tunes for the first time.

[Jess L.]

Fiddle tunes are often written as continuous sixteenth-notes instead of continuous eighth-notes. They are played the same, just notated differently.

Agree, that they're played the same. At least that's been my understanding.

There was some fiddle book I had a long time ago that had a bunch of tunes written in 16ths, seems like it was Cole's 1000 Fiddle Tunes or something similar.

Appearance comparison, first two measures of random Irish fiddle tune in both 8ths and 16ths, I think I did this right:



An aside, off-topic:
I never much liked the appearance of all-16ths, seemed like a waste of ink for a publisher to print all those unnecessary extra (double) lines. And when I used to write music by hand with India ink and tiny calligraphy points (before computers) I found it annoying to write in all-16ths, after a few dozen pages of trying to make all the little double-lines parallel, too tedious.

Whereas 8ths just somehow seem more user-friendly, both from a writing and a reading point of view, and they seem to have a less-cluttered more 'open' appearance.

[crisscross]

Um... a guitar player transcribing fiddle tunes. Okay, got it.

Steve Kaufman also uses eighth notes when transcribing fiddle tunes.
I agree, that eighth notes are more pleasant to look at and not such a waste of print ink as sixteenth notes.
But still, sixteenth notes are more musically correct.
Or would you turn your metronome to 300 bpm at a fast BG tempo?

[foldedpath]

Steve Kaufman also uses eighth notes when transcribing fiddle tunes.
I agree, that eighth notes are more pleasant to look at and not such a waste of print ink as sixteenth notes.
But still, sixteenth notes are more musically correct.
Or would you turn your metronome to 300 bpm at a fast BG tempo?

Well, here we get into a quirk of fiddle tune tradition, in that reels are usually notated in 4/4 time, but they're played and heard by musicians in 2/2 time. It might have something to do with being able to hear the pulse better when the tempo gets up to full dance speed, or that it's easier to read the notation that way... I dunno.

So when you're looking to play a fiddle reel at a typical dance speed, you set your metronome to 2 beats per measure and aim for 112 bpm, not 224 bpm. Bluegrassers might think of all this differently, but we're talkin' fiddle tunes here.

The best way I've seen and heard this explained is in the following clip by Jamie Laval, where he relates the number of notes to the natural human walking tempo:





If you're brave enough to bear 214 posts arguing over this issue over on thesession.org, here's a link to the discussion "Reels 2/2 or 4/4? Arghhh, Not again!" Although I think the point about why we use 112 bpm as a dance tempo and "feel" a 2-beat pulse, is better established in that video clip above.

[crisscross]

So when you're looking to play a fiddle reel at a typical dance speed, you set your metronome to 2 beats per measure and aim for 112 bpm, not 224 bpm.

Agreed! But if you do so, you play four notes per beat, hence sixteenth notes. The notation in eighth notes seems more like a convenience to me. It looks more pleasant and saves ink. Musically correct would be to write reels in sixteenth notes.

[Simon DS]

Here’s an exercise:
This helps you to rethink the picking hand.
Take the TAB for a tune you know reasonably well, cross out all the numbers(!)
Now put your fret hand at the 7th fret gently to play harmonic or preferably just damp the strings.
Now ‘learn’ all of the half measures simply as strings. You will be playing groups of four eighth notes on the same string and ones with half measures of two eighths on one string and two on the adjacent string below etc.

Try to learn the whole tune by ear but as patterns of picking hand on the mandolin. Hum the tune at the same time. Fret hand motionless. Always with a metronome and go ahead, play them really fast (but clean).

That’s it.
Do this for an hour. You will be glad you did.

[Mike Buesseler]

“That’s it.
Do this for an hour. You will be glad you did.”

I don’t quite understand your instructions....and that laughing emoji makes me wonder if you are serious. If you are, could you explain it again? Thanks.

[Simon DS]

Hi Mike, just damp the strings with your left hand and play a tune using the TAB and right hand. You’re trying to play the tune without thinking about the fret hand, just the patterns and movement in space of your right pickind hand and the pick itself. Good luck !

[Mike Buesseler]

I just read through this whole thread. I only understood about half—or maybe an 1/8th of it. Or was it 1/16th?

But, thanks, Simon. I guess you were serious. So, you’re just playing beats for each note? Right. Thunk-thunk-thunk-thunk, maybe thunkity thunk? Or something? Not sure I see the point. Maybe get the rhythm of the tune down before the melody?

[Beanzy]

This Vivaldi one (RV425) is one where I had to spend a lot of time just doing what Simon describes.
It wasn't the speed but the transitioning between note values & patterns that took the drumming in for me;

it was too easy to get the length of the first semiquaver different to the remaining pair in each group.
Also getting the emphasis within groupings was difficult if the left hand was trying to flash between note changes.
By eliminating the note twiddling it let me set up a proper grid structure for the right hand to work, then the left hand had a definite solid metre to lock int to.
UntilI had that it was too easy to stretch the timing to fit the difficulty & things would fall out of time.
I think of it as getting the drumming right then adding the notes.

[DavidKOS]

When I get going really fast , its almost as if my "tremolo" muscle memory comes into play. I don't seem to have the ability to slow down my tremolo to play at say 150 BPM.

If you can play a good tremolo, all you need to do is slow it down to match the faster passages like you mention.

Begin with deliberately playing tremolo....then find the lowest speed you can do a measured tremolo and begin playing moving passages at that tempo. begin slowing the BPM little by little.

As a complementary exercise, play the 16th passages at a tempo you can execute then cleanly...and very gradually increase the BPM.

There's no magic trick to this...you just have to work with concentration and take the time needed to get the two techniques to "meet in the middle".