Greg, I allways apreciate your thorough descriptions on your approach to your technique. Not having visual references in my situation- not seeing players on youtube/myspace- I'm looking foward to one day catching a seminar by you. Both you and Steve come across as great teachers- and allways reenforce my own personal discoveries. At least I know I'm on the right track!

Marty

Hi Marty,

Both Steve and I have DVDs available:) Mine is a bonus disc in the Ether Ore disc.

Seriously, take what resonates with you and use it. No one is a guru looking for followers here.

Hi,

I just wanted to add to Greg's comment about Bob Culbertson's positioning of the Stick:

When Bob came out here a few months ago, I was amazed at the number of different positions in which he held his instrument. He did mention that he used to hold it almost vertically, but noted that he now generally prefers a more angled position. He's also one of the very few teachers I've ever come across (on any instrument), who recommends changing the position of the instrument on a regular basis. Bob's theory is that being too "rigid" and always playing at the same angle could cause problems like CTS, RSI, tendonitis etc.

It's an interesting point of view, whether or not you agree with it.

Cheers,
Andy

Very interesting...the key thing for me is not being too hung up on it and maintaining a level of self-awareness for signs of fatigue and stress.

Back to the 3-finger vs 4-finger ... I'm predominantly a 3-finger guy on the right hand, but I do use the 4th finger for certain polyphonic sequences. My problem is that my short 4th finger comes in almost in the same plane as the strings, so it will often knock against the adjacent string. My solution was to jam the web between my thumb and first finger into the board for those instances only; it seems to work. Not exactly comfortable, sure wouldn't want to play like that all the time.

Changing the subject slightly, I used to think that the 4th finger would be necessary for chromatic playing, but I've been working on the chromatic pattern Emmett showed me: 1-2-1-2-3 (switch string) 1-2-1-2-3 etc. I thought it might be cumbersome, but after working with it for a while I found that you can get it surprisingly smooth and quick. Ultimately, I want to incorporate a few Steve Morse-style chromatic speed runs into my soloing style. I've got a pretty good exercise for chromatics: Flight of the Bumblebee, by Rimsky-Korsakov. Come to think of it, the exercise itself will be pretty flashy, once I've got it up to speed ...

Greg,

Please say a little more about this bonus disc.

-Curtis