Reducing left hand effort/tension

[dj coffey]

This January marks the beginning of my 4th year as a mandolinist.

Generally, I believe I've made good progress thanks to a lot of factors (ability to read standard notation, growing ability to play by ear, good introductory mandolin teacher, membership in the Minnesota Mandolin Orchestra, attending the Mandolin Symposium this past year).

Over the past year, I've spent a fair amount of time trying to refocus on my right hand to drive tone and technique there, as the left hand came to me fairly quickly.

The biggest barrier to my advancement is expending too much effort on fretting the notes - it's the old - playing louder causes the left hand automatically to clamp down harder when fretting the notes.

Any good suggestions out there on how to decouple volume from fretting hand tension?

[Bruce Clausen]

Assuming there's no problems with the instrument, string tension, action, etc., and that you're using an efficient Left Hand position, I can suggest a couple of exercises. One is to figure out just how much pressure it takes to hold a clear note on your instrument. Fret a single note (say F on the D strings) and strike it good and hard many times, continuously relaxing your LH finger pressure. Volume steady, but less and less LH pressure. When the sound begins to buzz or go dull from too little pressure, add one gram of force and that's all you ever need for that note. Get used to the feel of that pressure.

To reinforce this, hold one note with an LH finger while doing a very gradual crescendo and decrescendo, ppp to fff and back in maybe twenty steps. Pressure steady, but constantly changing volume. Play very slowly and pay attention to what happens in the LH. Should be little or no change of pressure, since you need no more pressure to play loud than soft.

You'll need to do each of these exercises separately for each LH finger, and for the various combinations. Applying these principles in real playing situations only comes through slow conscientious practice.

Another very important habit is to relax immediately any LH finger that doesn't need to be pressing. So play for example F-G-F-G on the D's and force yourself to relax the second finger the moment the third drops to the strings. Don't lift it, but relax it. Then E-F-G-F etc. with three fingers, then E-F-G-A-G-F etc. with four (all on the D strings). Only one finger at a time should ever be tensed. This is the typical situation in all scale and melody playing. Hope this helps.

BC

[Ken Olmstead]

You know I need to work on this as well. This is wierd and I don't do it often enough but when I watch Thilie's instructional DVD my left hand begins to mimic his. It gets lighter, more relaxed and as a result very fluid. After awhile I slip back into my old habits but if I did it regularly for a month or two, I bet it would stick!

Another thing I do is I will focus on playing light and play until I notice that I am beginning to tense up. The I stop, shake it out and start again refocused.

The exercise Bruce suggests is very good. I made a lot of progess on guitar using this method!

As with any habit, I think this can be permanately improved over a month or so if it is you goal. I think I will get started, thanks for reminding me!

[dj coffey]

You know I need to work on this as well. This is wierd and I don't do it often enough but when I watch Thilie's instructional DVD my left hand begins to mimic his. It gets lighter, more relaxed and as a result very fluid. After awhile I slip back into my old habits but if I did it regularly for a month or two, I bet it would stick!

Another thing I do is I will focus on playing light and play until I notice that I am beginning to tense up. The I stop, shake it out and start again refocused.

The exercise Bruce suggests is very good. I made a lot of progess on guitar using this method!

As with any habit, I think this can be permanately improved over a month or so if it is you goal. I think I will get started, thanks for reminding me!

Yes, I think Bruce's technique is a good suggestion. I hope eliminating my mandolin death grip will help with shifting and overall speed.

[kudzugypsy]

what i have discovered, and you are on to it also, is that tension in one hand transfers to tension in the other - they seem to work together - if you have a heavy right hand, more than likely you will have heavy left hand. if you try to play louder, you will tense up, as your trying to hit the strings harder with the right hand. i think it would be really hard to distribute unequal tension between the two hands....and the good thing is you dont need to.

now, i worked on this (and still do) a lot, and its A LOT easier for someone to say "play with a loose wrist and light left hand" than it seems because you have to find the perfect balance of tone, power and volume with freedom and looseness. however, it DOES work - you have to think of the entire technique on the mandolin as entirely natural once you 'work out the kinks'...and i'll be quite blunt, it make take you years. i've been at this off and on for 20 years and still am fixing things with my playing - but, i have found out that to play faster, free and stronger, you MUST reduce the tension in both hands. there is an optimal amount of force needed to fret the string, and an optimal amount needed to produce a strong tone with the pick. if you play too hard, you will tense up, if you play too light, you have weak tone.

[AlanN]

Something else to consider, and goes along with the above ideas, is to minimize the mandolin's movement when playing. I watch the super smooth players and see little instrument movement/shaking - all of the energy/focus is funneled into the pick and the left hand fingers. Now, I know Monroe made the mandolin move, as do many fine players, but what I try to do is keep the extraneous forces, which translate into making the mandolin move, to a minimum.

[Barbara Shultz]

Left hand pain and tension has been a big issue with me. Here are the things that I discovered about my left hand position, and the steps that helped improve my technique.

I use a strap. The mando is at about a 45 degree angle, AND tilted away from my body. I steady the mando at the tail end between my body and my arm. (i recommend using an armrest). My left hand does not HOLD the neck of the mando AT ALL! My wrist is straight, not bent back like a waiter holding a tray of food. My elbow is near my side. My hand is tilted away from the neck... the part of my hand below my first finger is next to the neck, and my hand is tilted away about 45 degrees. I absolutely do NOT squeeze my thumb and below my first finger on the neck. I have practiced not using ANY pressure at all with my thumb. Its just there on the side of the neck. One trick to help remember that, is when you are playing an open string, completely relax your thumb, even minutely take it off the neck. Position your fingers OVER the fretboard, not off to the side. I fret with my fingers at an angle, as well, rather than down straight. This means that instead of fretting on the middle of the tips of my fingers, is more to the side toward the thumb. Do not give into temptation to look at the fretboard (or if you do, only at the side!) In order to see the face of the fretboard, you have to tilt your mando more toward your face, and I've found it's much easier on your hand position, to have your mando facing completely away from your body, not upward.

I found one of the biggest helps was in practicing jazz mando's FFcP exercises, found on this site. I don't play jazz.... but I discovered in doing these excercises, my hand just automatically went into this position!

I know that there are probably many other ways to hold your mando, and your left hand, but this is what helped me, and I was truly suffering with left hand pain!

Barbara

[John Flynn]

I strongly recommend the stretches on musicianshealth.com and the warmups Compton teaches at this workshop. Someone may have posted the Compton exercises online somewhere. The stretches and exercises definitely help with any pain and I also think they help you relax the hand.

I stumbled on another thing that helped me. I got a uke and tuned it as a mandolin, using the 4, 3, 2 strings of a classical guitar set for the G, D an A strings and a .004mm monofilament fishing line for the E. Then I did a lot of mando practice with it. It really got me used to using only a fraction of the tension to make the notes, a habit that for me, transfered back to the mandolin. It is also a lot of fun to play and it makes a great travel/leave-in-the-car instrument to practice on.