Philip Hii – guitarist

Posted my first youtube video. Agustin Barrios’ La Catedral:

I’ve always advocated having a strong left hand, and pressing down firmly with the left hand. It’s something I learned from Karl Herreshoff. His advice was always:

“Maximum pressure left hand, minimum pressure right hand.”

I understand this approach runs counter to current thinking in left hand methodology, which is to use minimum pressure in the left hand.

Of course, I’ve always believed that if pressing down lightly with the left hand is working for you, that you should keep on doing it.

But to me, pressing down firmly with the left hand is the key to a secure left hand. It’s absolutely essential if you want to develop strength and agility, especially in hammer-ons and pull-offs.

In my AOV for guitar, I included a simple left hand slur exercise for developing strength in the left hand, but any slur exercise will do.

Success in developing a good left hand is absolutely contingent in making a habit of pressing down firmly with the left hand. This pressure should not be dead and unvarying but should be alive, like a vibrato, one moment pressing down firmly, the next relaxing that pressure. It’s almost like you’re singing with the left hand.

I want to thank Andre de la Torre for pointing out to me that Casals made the same point about pressing down firmly in the left hand in one of his masterclasses.

I have tried to google that statement or any other statement by Casals made in reference to the left hand but so far have been unable to find anything, except for references to Casal’s “strong” left hand.

3.28.2010

Just received an email from Andre and he provided me with this quote from the masterclass in question:

I have him on video telling a student that “the percussion (of the left hand) puts vibration in the string and the sound comes easily. When a string is (thusly) put in vibration then the sound comes easily, naturally. If the string is not put in vibration, it is more difficult to have a clean sound.” Casals demonstrates this.

One of the key principles I wrote about in the AOV is fluidity. In the book, I explained how we can achieve greater fluidity through anticipation.

I recently received an email from Miguel de Maria where he pointed me to the following webpage in support of the concept:

http://www.cello.org/Newsletter/Articles/mantel.htm

Here’s an excerpt from the interview:

TJ: You wrote, “Anticipation is the key to virtuoso technique.” What does this mean?

GM: If I play slowly I have time to prepare for the next action. If I want to play fast, I have much less time, so I have to plan much earlier, perhaps several notes ahead of the difficult point.

Let’s take a shift, for example. In order to shift successfully, I need to initiate a preparatory motion in my body and in my arm well before the shift actually occurs. The time between the first preparatory motion and the shift can be as much as one second. When playing a series of fast notes, I have to start preparing for the shift several notes prior to when it occurs, not just the note before. A common mistake is that students practice shifts in fast passages by endlessly repeating only the note prior to and after the shift. This is a waste of time. Success or failure is decided much earlier. One must practice the shift by playing the entire series of notes involved in the shift preparation.

(GM is Gerhard Mantel, author of Cello Technique)

Miguel also pointed out another example which supports another technical concept described in the AOV for Guitar.

In the book, I suggested that we anchor the “a” finger on the first string when playing the lower strings with the “i” and “m” fingers.

Here is Miguel: “on the DVD of Yamashita and Coryell playing Four Seasons, Yamashita does a fast im scale (Winter, I think) on the high E string. He plants his a on the b. I thought of that while reading your book, thought I’d pass it along.”

Many thanks to Miguel for providing me with these two pieces of info!