Monday, January 12, 2009

Yet another strumming epiphany

My practice schedule has been off lately as I'm in the middle of dealing with a kidney stone. All should eventually be fine, but the moral of the story is: keep hydrated!

The strumming insight, which is really a continuation of one from two posts back, is that I realized that when I strum, I now hit all the strings that I'm supposed to. I think that's actually wrong though. It sounds lots better if I pass over or only lightly graze the bass strings (making sure to hit all the treble strings per two posts ago).

Now I could just be imagining this. Or it could be an effect of playing a "boomy" dreadnaught. Or it could be a huge new step in the right direction.

I'm hoping it's the last.

4 comments:

Patep said...

I'm amazed that you can practice while in pain! I hope it's taking your mind off the situation a little!

I'm trying to remember how I strum a guitar - & you may be right - I don't always hit all the strings all the time. I kind of shift between the highs & the lows depending on what needs to be accented or what chord is being played. Like D - never mess w/ the low strings when a D's on or you'll get that nice, discordant open E string. But I'm not sure if this is what you're talking about! I think I need to hear an example!

I just played my bass today after 2+ weeks of no playing & I sucked bigtime. Ugh.

Mike said...

With a D you're not supposed to hit the two lowest strings. I'm thinking of things like a open-fretted G, where you're supposed to hit all the strings, but it seems to sound better if I miss or go light on the lower ones.

Pain. Yesterday was just discomfort. The pain seems to be intermittent, so a little practice yesterday was good.

Eve said...

Ok, I followed the kidney stone story and from there...got totally lost.

Rig an H2O bottle between your D and E strings...and no more playing without it.

Eve said...

Hello? Anyone home? No strumming while planning Indiana trip???