Guitar Slurs And My Middle Finger

Not so long ago I began to work on Vals Venezolano No. 2 by Antonio Lauro. If you know anything about much of Lauro’s work, then you know it is quite quick. These waltzes are no exception. During the process of getting it to speed, I had a lesson and in it, we noticed that my middle finger was doing a peculiar lifting when I did descending guitar slurs with finger 4 to finger 3. This slowed my transition to the next note played by my middle finger.

Guitar Slurs From The Past

The idea that I had a negative habit that had carried over for more than a decade in my playing really stunned me (this is explained in the video). It is amazing when your eyes open to see what has always been there but you have never noticed. And, that “thing” could be holding you back more than you know! This was one of those instances.

Therefore, I began to work inside the piece to correct this issue. As described in Berg’s book, Practicing Music by Design, it is fallacy to think that you can develop technique from pieces. I needed to return to basic descending slur exercises if I wanted to make any progress on this shortcoming. This video shows the main exercise used to attach this issue.

It’s A Step By Step Process

Obviously, I have a long way to go on building up my technique. There are many more areas that I need to work on to reach the level needed to audition. However, my daily practice is showing that I am moving in that direction. I hope you enjoyed this one. There will be more like it for sure. Thanks for watching and supporting.

Chadwick Becks

I have two degrees in guitar performance and was privileged to study under Aaron Shearer, Tom Kikta, David Skantar, Ken Karsh, Tim Bedner, and currently Christopher Berg. Outside my editorial work on this blog, I teach full-time across many genres including classical, jazz, blues, rock, funk, and metal.