Hello!

I recently acquired my first Stick ... it's a 10-string Railboard with RMR tuning. I've had it for about 3 weeks and have been diligently practicing away.

But I'm running into trouble with the bass strings. I'm a long-time guitarist (mainly acoustic, mainly rhythm), and have never played the bass, and also, my hands are, I'd say a bit smaller than average. Not tiny. So I'm not surprised my left hand needs as much work as it does, but I'm finding there are some really basic exercises that I just can't seem to do. For example, today I attempted the "Inversion Arpeggios" exercise on page 3-6 of The Stick Book ... there are four chords, and the fourth one is fingered with the 1st finger on the 4th fret, 3rd finger on 6, and 4th finger on 7. It takes me several seconds to position my fingers to be able to play the chord at all, and I haven't yet managed to play all 3 notes with clean intonation. So at this stage there is no way I can play through the exercise smoothly, even if I take it very, very slow.

Of course it's possible to put aside the exercises I can't do, move on, come back to it later. And that's what I've been doing. But it's very frustrating to be unable to master such a basic exercise. And I'm wondering if anyone can suggest a more organized approach to the problem of my small and weak left hand - or specific exercises I should focus on to overcome this issue as quickly as may be.

Thanks!

HI there, I don’t have the book here at hand but from the description it’s a major chord, 2nd inversion (5th at the bottom) right? Don’t worry, it is a hard position it will come with time - the hands have to learn new positions and sometimes they just need time (sometimes a lot of time!). I’m still perfecting the correct technique for the first song I ever learned!!!


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I saw the title, "smaller hands"..... no Trump jokes yet?

Just FYI, my hands are not that small.

it is just a matter of practice..may need a bit of a stretch dompared to bigger hands.

Stickista Irene Orleansky has small hands -where my finger starts her whole hand end - didn't stop her for being great stick player.

just keep on practicing

Think of the neck as being a bigger target where the frets are easier to find . You are not used to the scale length yet as you say you never played bass. A couple months ago I had discussion about this subject of being able to transition from one instrument to another with a local teacher who plays upright and electric bass, guitar and piano quite fluently. He showed me an exercise that really helps. Try this arpeggio pattern:

132435465768... etc. near the lowest area of the neck, then work it backwards a few times. Then repeat starting a fret or two a note higher. Keep working your way across the fretboard. Also do this with your guitars and switch back. Takes some patience but it really worked well for me. I can now pick up my guitars, basses, Sticks and trade off without much warmup to get used to the different scale lengths. Before that pattern Inised to do similar with scales, but the arpeggio pattern definitely worked better for me.

Also, stick positioning, height and arm/elbow angle may be issues. Have you considered Skype lessons with Greg Howard? He may have great pointers to help move you through these setbacks more quickly!

Brett

You got some fine advice here from these great players, I'd just like to say, "Give yourself sometime on the instrument". Explore and relax. experiment with attack and approach. I would suggest taking to Greg Howard or watching his Free Hands Video on Youtube and start with Hand Movement. If you are just using the mechanics of "fretting" from your guitar playing, this might be an issue. Hand Movement gives you a better attack, better sounding notes and is much easier and more relaxed approach. Hand movement is the key. WHAT BRETT SAID!!

Here ya go...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2tNFmXFQ4kU&t=186s
You can get the whole thing @ grehgplaysthe stick Youtube channel

Coming from the bass to the Stick, with small hands, (and I played upright also) my experience on both 10&12 strings, my left hand didn't wish to co-operate. It comes. Eventually...