Right hand breakdown, handling 1 v 1/2 v 1/4 v 1/8 etc

[sish]

Cafe' Members, this has been driving me bananas and I'm really hoping you can clear this up for me.

Early in my mandolin learning I fell into the same bad habits that many self taught students get into, the most challenging of these to unlearn has been keeping the right hand "moving" throughout the process.

It was explained to me by a teacher that I need to treat consecutive 1/8th notes as D U. This makes perfect sense, then it was further explained that when I see a 1/4 note followed by 1/8th notes I should play D on the 1/4 note and D U on the next two 1/8th notes. At first I started doing this and was immediately corrected, seems I should be "ghost stroking" an invisible U between the first D on the 1/4th note and the D on the 1/8th note.

To further illustrate:

D U D U

The "Ghost Note" would be the italicized "U". This was a little strange to wrap my head around but I'm working on it, and trying to come up with practice measures to re-enforce it.

Now, last night I take a look at a new piece of music.. ye gods! 1/2 1/2 1/4 1/8 1/8..

So now do I just sort of "slow down" my ghost stroke? or do I subdivide more? Am I adding more Ghost Strokes?

I'm rather certain I'm making a much bigger deal out of this, and quite honestly much of this right hand stuff has really harshed the nice mellow of the mandolin, it's becoming more like work every day

Looking for a little guidance from the cafe, anything to get me back on the path of enjoyment.

M

[Jim Garber]

I am sure that others will chime in here but I would not play D U D U for each half note. I always err on the side of the downstroke. It has been some long time since I was a rank beginner but I would think you will eventually internalize the phrasing and not really have to play the ghost strokes.

I imagine that some teachers will contradict me on this point. I think the ghost strokes are valuable esp when working on phrasing and evenness of rhythmic playing.

[sish]

Thanks Jim, by internalize do you mean, sort of slow down the strokes so they fall in time?

[Mike Bunting]

If you do that, it would have to be in time.

[Jim Garber]

I mean hear the beats in your head without physically moving your hand. It is truly better to do those ghost strokes in the beginning to get into the groove of playing in time. BTW I would also use a metronome if you can. I don't have a mandolin handy here but I know I don't do those ghost strokes. Of course, I am not the best player in the world but I think I have a decent sense of rhythm.

[Tobin]

I agree, playing three ghost strokes on a half note would just be unnecessary unless you need to do it as a learning exercise. But in regular playing, most folks will just play the downstroke and then be leisurely about coming back up to play the next downstroke two beats later. If I'm honest, my hand may actually twitch on the downstroke that I'm not playing, but it doesn't actually follow through.

It's spot-on, though, for the ghost upstroke when playing a quarter note. Your hand has to come back up anyway for the next downstroke, whether it's another quarter note or eighth notes or what-have-you. But keeping the hand moving in time with a downstroke on the beat and an upstroke on the off-beat is very important when playing quarter notes or eighth notes. You do not want to get reversed. It will catch up with you in the music and throw everything off.

I do vaguely remember struggling with this issue when I was new at it, and it seemed like a coordination problem. But at some point it magically worked itself out, and I don't even have to think about it any more. That "work" part of it will go away once you have your Eureka moment. And then the only time it will crop up is when you get into really difficult passages with syncopation where you're alternating between playing quarter notes on an upstroke and such.

In trying to teach my wife the importance of down-up picking, I can see her struggling with it as well. I think what's helping her is to just doing some slow exercises over and over. There's no magic bullet here; it just takes time for your brain to connect those pathways to your hand and get it in the correct rhythm.

[sish]

I think what's helping her is to just doing some slow exercises over and over.

Thanks Tobin! If you don't mind, what would those exercises be?

[Tobin]

I've just been taking segments of tunes which I typically play (ones she recognizes), putting the tablature in front of her, and having her play it over and over. Even just one random measure at a time. Almost every tune will have a good intro or ending to a phrase that involves a mixture of quarter and eighth notes. I'll just take one measure and get her to play it, paying attention to proper pick direction.

I've noticed that she can get the pick direction and timing right pretty quickly, just playing an open string. But where she starts to lose it is when she is trying to focus on fretting the correct notes simultaneously with picking the correct direction. Two hands doing different things, and only one focus of attention. So I'll try to get her to work on just the pick direction and timing first, getting it to where it's natural and requires no thought, then add the fretting of the left hand. It's a slow process, but it is starting to click.

[Toni Schula]

If you count 1 & 2 & 3 & 4 & the goal is to do downstrokes on the 1, 2, 3, 4 and upstrokes on the &s. Regardless how long it is since the last tone you played due to 1/4, 1/2 or whole notes or rests or even if it is the first note of a tune.

When learning a new song, I use to do all the ghost strokes. Later I only concentrate on the correct picking direction (And I am possibly off the rhythm by an integer number of beats ;-)

[JeffD]

It took me a while to get in the habit of moving my hand all the time.

One thing I do that helps, (or hurts) is lots of tremolo. Unless specifically contraindicated, I tremolo everything longer than a quarter note. It makes for great melodic playing, and my hand is always moving and rhythmic.


I don't believe in strict adherence to anything. These are all default habits to acquire and use except when something else works better. Not that you shouldn't try hard to get it down, just remember the right hand isn't supposed to be robotic, it is supposed to make music.

[lorrainehornig]

I think what's helping her is to just doing some slow exercises over and over. There's no magic bullet here; it just takes time for your brain to connect those pathways to your hand and get it in the correct rhythm.

Tobin, I agree...I have struggled with pick direction issues and had to unlearn bad habits especially when it came to a long runs of triplets (D U D, D U D, D U D, etc). I start out slow and practice over and over until the pick pattern starts to feel automatic; then I add some speed.

[Tobin]

Yeah, triplets suck. I don't seem to have any problem playing D-U-D consistently, like when playing in 6/8 time. It's a natural rhythm to get into. But switching from a consistent D-U-D-U pattern in 4/4 time to a D-U-D on one beat, then back to D-U-D-U just gives me fits. Especially if there's any speed to it. My rhythm in that section just goes to junk. I've been known to cheat by turning what should be an actual triplet into a trill, using a quick hammer-on and pull-off. It's a crutch that I need to stop using, and just work on transitioning in and out of triplets. Repeating a one-measure or two-measure phrase over and over (like I mentioned above) would be how I'd go about it.