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Thread: Tips for getting back in shape efficiently and safely

  1. #1
    Economandolinist Amanda Gregg's Avatar
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    Default Tips for getting back in shape efficiently and safely

    Hi everybody,

    It's been quite a while since I've posted to the cafe! Life has been busy since I started my new job teaching economics. This brings me to my question, which I'm sure has bedeviled all of us at some point or another.

    I am seriously out of shape. Technique (esp. left hand) is a disaster, tunes forgotten. I have a little time off from Christmas until mid-February, and I'd like to start working myself back up to speed in preparation for the Joe Val festival.

    I'd love to hear some discussion about ways to get back into shape in a short amount of time and without risk of injury. Assume I have about 1-2 hours I can devote to practice in the morning daily. What would *you* do? What strategies have you found to be successful?

    Just to be clear: I'm not utterly clueless in this task, but I want to see the discussion!
    Amanda

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  2. #2
    Innocent Bystander JeffD's Avatar
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    Default Re: Tips for getting back in shape efficiently and safely

    I have become addicted to etudes, studies, and exercises. From violin methods and mandolin methods. Great for getting into shape, staying in shape, getting back into shape, sharpening the dull spots, filling in the gaps, repairing the foundation, warming up, and also playing the instrument when you don't have any particular kind of music you want to play.
    A talent for trivializin' the momentous and complicatin' the obvious.

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  3. #3
    Economandolinist Amanda Gregg's Avatar
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    Default Re: Tips for getting back in shape efficiently and safely

    Thanks, Jeff! Any favorites? I was planning on working on Eschliman's FFcP stuff again.
    Amanda

    -2007 Duff F5
    -2001 Stiver F5
    -Blueridge BR-40T Tenor Guitar
    -1923 Bacon Style-C Tenor Banjo

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    Default Re: Tips for getting back in shape efficiently and safely

    Quote Originally Posted by Amanda Gregg View Post
    ..Assume I have about 1-2 hours I can devote to practice in the morning daily..
    Spoken like a true economist.
    And now there was no doubt that the trees were really moving - moving in and out through one another as if in a complicated country dance. ('And I suppose,' thought Lucy, 'when trees dance, it must be a very, very country dance indeed.')

    C.S. Lewis

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    Middle-Aged Old-Timer Tobin's Avatar
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    Default Re: Tips for getting back in shape efficiently and safely

    I don't think there's any magic bullet here. Just start playing again, and stick with old familiar tunes that you can work back up to speed. It'll come back to you. It really is like riding a bike; your body remembers how to do this. You just have to start doing it again, and within a few weeks it will feel normal again.

    I'm in a similar position, coming back from about 2-1/2 months of no playing. I've been back at it for 2 weeks now, and it's starting to feel and sound right again.

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    Innocent Bystander JeffD's Avatar
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    Default Re: Tips for getting back in shape efficiently and safely

    Well here goes. Please keep in mind that I am not a teacher, nor do I play one on TV. (I would be a horrible teacher.) I am just a jamoke who likes to play mandolin a lot, no really a whole lot. These are my current favorites exercise books:

    Wohlfahrt Op. 45: Sixty Studies for Violin
    Fiorillo: 36 Etudes or Caprices for Violin Solo

    The above are full of grab and go exercises. I have gotten real familiar with a few of them, but I am not accomplished at any of them. There are some real head busters in there. Easy or hard they are all useful in getting things moving again and scraping the fat off.

    Todd Collins: Fretboard Studies for the Improvising Mandolinist
    Todd Collins: Modes on Mandolin - Improving Your Improvisation

    I am really loving these books. One really good thing Todd has done is to publish them with both standard notation and tab. I am not a tab reader, but I find the tab really valuable in this case, because it indicates exactly unambiguously what Todd is trying to get you to do. These are great exercises, and really good for helping me climb up the neck, and see the underexplored territory at higher altitudes. Good for brain and fingers.

    Lastly I highly recommend Jacob Reuven's Warm Up Routine. I do as much of this as I can, as often as I can. It does all the things I want, gets me back in shape, keeps me in shape, and pushes me on to better shape.

    Less fun - it quickly shows me what shape I am in.

    I would say that if you can mount a decent attack on the warm up every day, and then peruse the other books, you will have done a lot and likely will make forward progress pretty fast.
    A talent for trivializin' the momentous and complicatin' the obvious.

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    Unfamous String Buster Beanzy's Avatar
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    Default Re: Tips for getting back in shape efficiently and safely

    I'd definitely dig into the Todd Collins Fretboard Studies book for 1/2 hr of any 2hr practice, then the Mickey Cochran Crosspicking book for getting the right hand into shape. They both get you into that zone where you initially use your head but then can feel the habit being ingrained, only to be tripped up by a change; very good for really awakening the old skills again. That's one hour sorted, then you need to spend plenty of time seeing how many of the tunes are still there and reminding yourself of the twists and turns, so the rest on tunes of all genres you play. Also initially a bit of time double-checking any posture & hold issues you may have begun to forget so bad habits don't creep in.

    All the best with it as you go.
    Eoin



    "Forget that anyone is listening to you and always listen to yourself" - Fryderyk Chopin

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    Registered User Ivan Kelsall's Avatar
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    Default Re: Tips for getting back in shape efficiently and safely

    Tobin's hit the nail on the head (again). Just start playing some of your old favourites & work on your picking/fingering coordination.
    I let my banjo playing slide for months at a time, & that's what i have to do every time i get back to playing it. There's no 'magic procedure' to doing it - just play music,after all,that's what it's all about,
    Ivan
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    Default Re: Tips for getting back in shape efficiently and safely

    I think one important thing is to start from scratch at about 20 minutes per session, incl warmup, maybe 30. You can do multiple sessions/day but longer sessions tend to drive the left hand/arm into overworking.

    This is a really good writeup: http://mandozine.com/techniques/prac...ips/index.html and that site has lots of single note exercises. For chord exercises, look at the Jazz and Chord melody books by T.Eschliman, D.Stiernberg, Dix Bruce and Aaron Weinstein.

    There's lots of other exercise/etude books: Julin, Greg Horne vol. 2, Todd Collins, Marshall's Finger busters, the back of Rubner-Petersen Bluegrass mando book etc.
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    but that's just me Bertram Henze's Avatar
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    Default Re: Tips for getting back in shape efficiently and safely

    Quote Originally Posted by Tobin View Post
    ...stick with old familiar tunes that you can work back up to speed. It'll come back to you.
    Yes, exactly this. Trust procedural memory to recall what it remembered so efficiently.

    No fancy stuff, no new tunes, no magic re-awakening of the mummy.
    the world is better off without bad ideas, good ideas are better off without the world

  14. #11
    Innocent Bystander JeffD's Avatar
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    Default Re: Tips for getting back in shape efficiently and safely

    Side note, not just to Amanda but to everyone - those method books and exercise books, FFcP - oh my goodness they summon up some magic, if not the mummy. A steady diet of crashing your ship against the finger busters in those books will be like putting a chip in your brain that controls your fingers. Everything else you play comes together with a little more ease, and your musical intuition improves and you have more success when blindly reaching around for this or that.

    I was skeptical, thinking you only get better on what you work on, and if I want get good at boring exercises, I'll practice them. But I admit I was wrong. They are like surgically precise - working on specific things that will show up in all your playing. In classical violin world they are like prescriptions - when you are showing a weakness here, work on that exercise.

    And... you don't have to get real good at the exercise. I mean, I know I haven't. But just taking an honest run at them regularly, and they do their magic.

    Its great if you want to practice, but don't have the regular amount of time and you just want a work out.

    By all means practice the tunes and performance pieces too, but if your experience matches mine, you will find that with the exercises, the tunes and other stuff I am working seems to come bit easier (encouraging even more work. Its a vicious cycle.)
    A talent for trivializin' the momentous and complicatin' the obvious.

    The entire staff
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    harvester of clams Bill McCall's Avatar
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    Default Re: Tips for getting back in shape efficiently and safely

    For left hand, you can't beat closed position scales, but start mid scale and move down toward the nut to gradually stretch your hand. For the right hand, John Moore exercises (Mandozine) work on pick accuracy. Warm up with that and all your repertoire will seem easier.
    Not all the clams are at the beach

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    Default Re: Tips for getting back in shape efficiently and safely

    I had to re-read the OP. My problem is if the enthusiasm level is where I think it should be, the safety level is out the door.
    But seriously, if I were prepping for a festival, I'd find few folks to play with. I know it's bear this time of year. Everybody is busy, busy, busy. But i still know a crone or two that would welcome the engagement. This human side of Music, it really matters less how you play, and more to the fact that you play and participate.

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