Get ready for some newbie questions

I'm having a bit of trouble with scales. I play piano and guitar as well as about a week on the stick. Didn't get as much time to practice the first week as I'd have liked, but when I did play I tried to focus first on running through scales in the right hand and basic major/minor chords in the left hand as a daily routine before doing a bit more 'goofing off'.

My question is with descending back up as scale on the melody side (C-B-A-G-F-E-D-C, etc.) Ascending down the strings isn't a problem, and of course there is no finger already down on the string getting in the way of the next note so of course it would be easier. I have a lot of trouble getting the notes after the first note on the string to sound. If I go very slow, no problem, but as I speed up, they tend to hit around the same time. Is this just something that takes a lot of practice or is there a better technique?

I ask because I have no issues doing pull offs and I see a lot of people in videos using that technique when working back towards the nut on a string. I wonder if perhaps I should be doing minor pull offs as just a better technique working back up the scale or if I should concentrate on lifting my fingers directly off and working on the timing of those two fingers...?

There are different approaches that vary among the instructors' literature. For instance, Steve's Stickology has exercises aimed at improving this when using 4-finger technique, while Greg's material addresses it from a 3-finger/hand movement perspective.

Either way, though, yeah- it calls for practice.

Hey Snoitan.

Nice to virtually meet you.

Mate, did you get the grammar mixed up with ascending - descending on melody side? If you did then you've painted a problem we've all learned to face. If not then you've already got unique approach to technique and something you might be able to use creatively down the track!

In my first lesson with Bob C he described the coming down the scale issue. Greg Howard's dvd is also great in getting you moving in such a way as to even out the motion between notes through movement of the hand and forearm.

Just enjoy the ride, I know you will.

Gotta use hand movement. The "fingers only" method of articulation is going to kill your tone...
And hurt your fingers.

When the hand moves, the finger is kind of an extension that is the focus for the energy that is coming from the arm... When you play that way, there is no distinction between ascending or descending, the note is just played...

Now, you CAN work up a pretty decent RH legato using just your fingers (Digitizations?), but it's innefficient. Trust me, I am an expert on doing things the long, arduous, wrong, hard way, lol...

Greg Howard is gonna come and post in this thread and explain it a lot better than I just did...
Good luck, friend...

Definitely get Greg's DVD.
I have the same problem

Thanks. I didn't want to get too far if there was some technique I was missing that I should be working on. I've tried to avoid buying the dvd mainly because I don't buy dvds anymore, but I might have to go that route.




It can be confusing to explain because you ascend back up the strings as you descend the scale and vice versa. Of course, from a piano perspective, you simply go left and right 8)

Thanks to everyone for all the kind comments about the DVD. It's very focused, specifically on this hand-movement approach to tapping, and is the only resource I know of that teaches this specific approach.

My philosophy about melody is this:

Any change from one note to the next in a melody is one of 4 things:

Scale movement: either up or down within the sequence of scale tones to an adjacent tone.
Chromatic movement: half-steps between the whole-step scale tones.
Intervallic movement — either to another scale tone or extra-harmonic tone (not in the scale)
Repeated note (self-explanatory)

With hand movement, all of these elements can feel the same, and sound the same, putting you in control of the articulation and dynamics. Without hand movement, the differences in strength and mass of the fingers, and their position on the hand will affect the sound of the notes in a big way.

The DVD tells you how to have a consistent sound, and use various position-shifting techniques to navigate the board smoothly.

I can also teach this concept to you via skype if you don't get the DVD. I suppose at some point I will want to make this material available as a paid download.

Can anyone suggest a good paid video delivery system?