This week I've got a quick overview on the pros and cons of what I think of as the three main hand positions used for playing the Stick: crossed, half crossed and uncrossed. I've got exercises with each of the video examples at http://www.patreon.com/jgoldbergmusic, I hope you enjoy it!
Joined: Sat Dec 22, 2007 3:07 pm Posts: 7088 Location: Charlottesville, Virginia, USA
Re: Tap Theory - Positional Overview
Hi Josh, I love the little Afro Blue clusters. excellent.
One thing I like about crossed is that both hands are more in a common field of view. Also, it's much more comfortable to play at the extreme ends of the instrument. playing the right hand on the bass strings near the nut is really uncomfortable, for example.
Just as an alternative, I would refer to this as hand relationships or orientations, since positions already has such a strong context with where the notes are.
That's a really good point to the pros of crossed and the cons of uncrossed. I find each method has its uses depending on what sound I'm trying to evoke.
I thought a lot about what to call them aside from "positions." Coming from guitar especially, that connotation really holds. In guitar, the position is the lowest fret that your first finger would play, followed by the subsequent three frets covered by the rest of your fingers. However I don't think it's quite as relevant on the Stick. I'm not sure anyone is talking about "15th" position for things in the right hand etc. With the inlays set up in 4ths as they are, one note will only appear in one octave once per quadrant, so I know that if I say B4 in quad 3, in MR tuning that's always going to be the 14th fret on the 4th string.
I chose "positions" because it reminds me a lot of the different positions one works from in Brazillian Jiu Jitsu. The whole martial art is codified through moves that one works off of a broader body position. The similarities between that and the hand positions seemed very striking to me (no pun intended). However, I do see what you mean and I suppose the name doesn't matter too much so long as people know what the techniques allow for.
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