Bonzai Death Grip

[Eric Iverson]

This morning I mentioned to my violinist co-worker that I saw Joshua Bell on Tavis Smiley with his $3 million Stradivarius, and Tavis asked if he could hold it. So Josh handed it to him, and Tavis held it VERY gingerly!

 

My fiddler friend said she thought that it would be better NOT to handle it gingerly, but to hold it normally, like you would a book or something. Less chance of it falling!

 

I mentioned to her that I didn't hold any of my instruments gingerly, but I didn't hold them with a Bonzai death grip either, since it's counterproductive!

 

Leading (finally!) to my point: do any of you guys have a problem with pressing too hard on the neck, or picking harder than you need to to get a good tone?

 

There's an interesting book, "The Art of Practicing" by Madeline Busher. It's written from a classical perspective, but she has some very interesting points about practicing in a way that doesn't overstress our bodies, which can actually lead to injury! And I'm told that singers sometimes ruin their voices by pushing too hard.

 

Curious as to your opinions.

[Billster]

Too tight a grip limits your flexibility and range of motion. It also will lead to tendonitis eventually.

[The Geoff]

.....I'm still trying to figure what a miniature tree has got to do with a death grip.......

 

 

G.

[Guitarzan]

Ninjas will leave them at your home to ambush you.

[soggybomb]

i use a very light touch on my fretting hand, unless i am bending a note or adding vibrato. picking attack varies as needed, but i certainly don't overdo my attack.

[Big Red 67]

This morning I mentioned to my violinist co-worker that I saw Joshua Bell on Tavis Smiley with his $3 million Stradivarius, and Tavis asked if he could hold it. So Josh handed it to him, and Tavis held it VERY gingerly!

 

My fiddler friend said she thought that it would be better NOT to handle it gingerly, but to hold it normally, like you would a book or something. Less chance of it falling!

 

I mentioned to her that I didn't hold any of my instruments gingerly, but I didn't hold them with a Bonzai death grip either, since it's counterproductive!

 

Leading (finally!) to my point: do any of you guys have a problem with pressing too hard on the neck, or picking harder than you need to to get a good tone?

 

There's an interesting book, "The Art of Practicing" by Madeline Busher. It's written from a classical perspective, but she has some very interesting points about practicing in a way that doesn't overstress our bodies, which can actually lead to injury! And I'm told that singers sometimes ruin their voices by pushing too hard.

 

Curious as to your opinions.

 

Only when I am out of practice.

[Eric VB]

There's an interesting book, "The Art of Practicing" by Madeline Busher. It's written from a classical perspective, but she has some very interesting points about practicing in a way that doesn't overstress our bodies, which can actually lead to injury! And I'm told that singers sometimes ruin their voices by pushing too hard.

 

Curious as to your opinions.

I'll admit I'm not perfect.

 

Eric, I know you can appreciate this as you are also a multi-instrumentalist. But I do have to work a little harder to play (fret) my acoustic mandolin than my acoustic guitar, which is obviously a little more than the electric. Probably because I've been playing it so long bass is actually somewhere between acoustic and electric guitar. (Perhaps because I am least familiar with it, mando is the most stressful?)

 

I picked up some bad habits along the way with regards to digging in too hard (plucking) when playing bass which I attribute to trying to keep up with a Marshall half stack when I only had a 100 W solid-state 1x15 bass combo. This used to lead to blisters but in time I learned to tell when they were just hot spots and played with a lighter touch (and more amp volume).

 

On guitar I have a similar overly aggressive style of strumming. As I mentioned a while back I do snap the tips off of medium picks while playing. [i broke two picks at the Chicago 3 Day as well as a D string (but it was old).] This has actually lead to an interesting kind of injury. From time to time a wildly vibrating string gets caught too close to the nail on a fretting fingertip and then does its best to pull the nail from the finger. This seems to be permanent and I have shortened nails on all of my fretting fingers, some with extra white as I don't/can't clip them any shorter.

 

I may be on a path to ruining my vocal chords. It's not from pushing too hard but from using improper technique.

 

In all cases the "cure" would be to have professional instruction as a beginner to learn proper technique. I'm pretty much self-taught on everything except bass, but my best private lessons were in college. When I teach bass now I make it a point to stress technique so my students are faced with fewer injuries down the road.

 

This is also why I often stress the need for private lessons to beginners.

[Gifthorse]

Funny you bring this topic up. I was thinking about it at work today.

 

I mostly play my 12 string acoustic lately. I was playing my Taylor Big Baby for a bit but it is like playing and electric for me so I switched back when I felt my technique for my 12 was slipping.

 

Anyways, I was practicing alot of scales and challenging stuff for me with my not so big hands. On 12 string if you play fast scales you really have to work alot on hand strength and endurance. Chords of course are even harder.

 

But though I can really go sick on my big baby with shredding, the other day when I was at GC I picked up an electric and it felt like a cute bunny rabbit. Only I was an elephant with a sore foot.

 

My technique is very strong in terms of hitting the notes I want to hit. But I really strike them with conviction. Electric is a different animal. You have to be more delicate. Also you have to play around distorted tones.

 

I dicked around with that amp for around 30 min (low volume so the people who work there don't think I am a fartface) By the end of it I think I was feeling the electric more.

 

I just couldn't adapt immediatly to the feel of it because the strings feel like rubber bands to me. I use 10's but would be happy would near acoustic guage on my electric if it didn't make the low end flubby. I used to use a hybrid set, but now I am happy with 10's even though they are super light.

[Caevan O'Shite]

It's new Army-Band G.I.-Joe with Windmill-Action and KUNG-FU GRIP!!

 

Sometimes when I'm not paying attention I drift into gripping and playing too forcefully with my fretting-hand; at the least, it makes my playing too stiff and not fleet and nimble enough, and at the worst I'll get cramped feelings in the big muscles at the base of my thumb if do that too much while chording (ESPECIALLY when playing lotsa big barre-chords).

 

I've developed a lighter touch with both hands over the years, and I'm sure that it could and should be lighter still.

 

I actually use a very light touch most of the time with my picking-hand, which gives me a far greater range of tonal shading and dynamic variance than I'd have otherwise; much more and finer control.

[Danzilla]

Ninjas will leave them at your home to ambush you.

http://www.thetick.ws/images/ninjahedge.jpg

 

[Goalie Blues]

I find that I do the same thing. After one or two songs my hand hurts and I have to shake the pain out bafore I can continue. I'm actually thinkinng of getting a lighter set of strings. Right now I'm using a set of EB acoustic .12s. When I play electrics at the store I have a similar situation. I play EB power slinkys (.11) and all the guitars with 9s or 10s feel like I'm playing a wet noodle.

Now THERE'S a visual for you!

[Eric Iverson]

.....I'm still trying to figure what a miniature tree has got to do with a death grip.......

 

 

G.

 

You're right, of course! LOL I guess I was thinking of the Japanese battle cry "banzai" or something!

 

But still, my point is valid I think. There is such a thing as trying TOO hard, and we sometimes need to lighten up - and not just on the guitar playing!

[Caevan O'Shite]

I find that I do the same thing. After one or two songs my hand hurts and I have to shake the pain out bafore I can continue. I'm actually thinkinng of getting a lighter set of strings. Right now I'm using a set of EB acoustic .12s. When I play electrics at the store I have a similar situation. I play EB power slinkys (.11) and all the guitars with 9s or 10s feel like I'm playing a wet noodle.

Now THERE'S a visual for you!

 

Short answer: cultivate a lighter touch, ESPECIALLY on your fretting-hand.

 

It may or may not take a lesson or two with a good instructor who has a good working knowledge about these kinds of things.

 

Also- if you're playing a lot of big, full barre-chords, try to find some different grips to break that up somewhat; it'll give your hands a brek, and it might even help your music, too.

 

Ninjas will leave them at your home to ambush you.

http://www.thetick.ws/images/ninjahedge.jpg

 

http://twistedhumor.tripod.com/The_Tick/wacky_ninja.gif

 

 

[Terrell]

Apply the Bonzai super ninja action grip only once you've found the prefect note. You don't want to let that one go!

[Eric Iverson]

Is the "perfect note" part of the "magic scale"? Or maybe the legendary "scale of one to ten" that I hear so much about, but no one has ever showed me .... selfish ##$##@!

[Rampdog]

Try doing about 5 minutes of hand and finger stretching before playing... I find that having my fingers and wrist loose keeps me from reefin' down on the fretboard...

[Terrell]

Is the "perfect note" part of the "magic scale"? Or maybe the legendary "scale of one to ten" that I hear so much about, but no one has ever showed me .... selfish ##$##@!

 

It's an elusive and mysterious single note that, once played, render's all other notes erh uhm, un-noteworthy... I'm not sure if it's related to the one to ten scale, but I have my suspicions that it moves up the scale as you consume alcohol and closing time approaches just like the 1-10 curve.

 

See other threads to learn less about the prefect note, but more about it's importance...

[Caevan O'Shite]

Goalie Blues-

 

It occurs to me that the positioning and posture of your fretting-hand in particular, and of your whole body (in relation to the guitar, dictated in part by how its strap is adjusted), could be directly related to your fretting-hand crampiness.

 

Try alighning your thumb more or less with the neck, with a little gap between the neck and your palm and the heel of your thumb, and with a light touch, too; you should be able to play what you're playing without touching the back of the neck, with your thumb in the air alongside the neck, pointing towards the headstock. There will be times that you need more of an anchor with the thumb touching the back of the neck and a little pushing-off effort put there, but most of the time loose and light is just-right. Study the way Classical and Jazz musicians position and hold the guitar, their hands, etc. There are specific reasons that they do these things the way they do.

 

Is the "perfect note" part of the "magic scale"? Or maybe the legendary "scale of one to ten" that I hear so much about, but no one has ever showed me .... selfish ##$##@!

 

It's an elusive and mysterious single note that, once played, render's all other notes erh uhm, un-noteworthy... I'm not sure if it's related to the one to ten scale, but I have my suspicions that it moves up the scale as you consume alcohol and closing time approaches just like the 1-10 curve.

 

See other threads to learn less about the prefect note, but more about it's importance...

 

It's the 33-&-1/3rd degree of the scale spelled out by the mystical and legendary Lost Chord's being double-stacked, with heroic vibrato applied liberally while tremolo is applied conservatively (works well for Red State or Blue State settings but avoiding Solid State is recommended).

 

This is the Hole-Lee Gray'l "One Note" touted, prized and sought by many a Bloozeman hitchin' to the Cross-Roads; as opposed, as it were, to the Cool Million notes cited and reeled off by many of those cloistered in service to the Shreddar creed...

[Terrell]

Seriously... My Dad is a track coach with several Olympians under his belt... That's a serious party in his pants! LOL, Ok, really serious now...

 

His advice to me was, you're muscles cannot perform unless they are relaxed. You build them up by tearing them down, and you need to build them up to the point, to where they are relaxed when you perform. So, pushing them to the point of pain is your cue to stop, rest and start again when the pain stops. Your strength will increase naturally through this process.

 

Proper angle and pressure to address the fretboard changes by the skill or technique. However, if you feel pain you should stop...

[Caevan O'Shite]

Concerning the effect of a death-grip on intonation and set-up:

 

"Anyway, I took the 325 out to Pete the luthier and he advised me that things weren't as bad as they seemed. He dressed the areas that were dragging my fingers a little and apologised for not getting them right the first time. As for the re-fret itself he didn't think it necessary at the minute, but agreed that it's my opinion that counts and said that if I'm still really unhappy with it after a couple of weeks we can talk again. The job itself he said would be simple enough thanks to the lack of binding.

 

Something else came up though, whilst playing he commented that what I had thought to be minor intonation issues when playing chords up the neck were actually caused by my playing ( again ) a combination of playing in Eb, the shorter scale length compared to my trusty Tele and my exceedingly heavy grip was messing with my ears all along. When he played the same things it sounded fine.

 

So, we adjusted the intonation to better suit my death-grip and I learned that I can induce such subtle vibrato by varying the pressure applied to the strings, hey, a new technique for me to master! Shame I haven't even got around to mastering any of the existing ones yet! He also said I should think of trying a set of 12s to better suit my heavy hands and get a similar tension to that of the Tele. I might well give this a go in the coming weeks, for now I'm certainly more content than I was with the guitar."

 

"...it took me a good ten minutes of playing for Pete until I began to actually play how I do in full flow. He stopped me and immediately diagnosed the problem, the more relaxed and into it I get, the harder I pick and fret. So I definitely have a lighter touch in me, but it's not a natural thing for me to use it with the band and our tunes."

[Michael.Saulnier]

I find a lot of beginners struggle for proper finger positioning, which leads to pushing HARD to make the notes ring out properly.

 

It's sort of the idea that if someone doesn't understand what you're saying... saying it LOUDER will help.

 

There's no question that the lightest possible touch to perform smoothly is desired... but it takes quite a bit of practice to do this well.

 

I've played a scalloped neck a few times, and it's a great lesson in controlling your fretting hand pressure.

 

More than enough pressure makes you go sharp for sure. It's fun to do that for a while, then return to a regular neck.

 

M

[Caevan O'Shite]

Hey, it's the guit-artist formerly known as Guitplayer!

 

Good to see ya! How ya doin'?