Monday, June 11, 2012

The Spider - "Real-World" Usage


Like many introductory finger independence development techniques, the "Spider" is very boring and does not sound pleasant to the ears. It is one of those warm-ups that you have to do to reach an intermediate level to create better music. When you watch YouTube videos of very advanced players, you probably observed that their fingers move very efficiently. Sometimes you wonder how they can play so many notes while their fingers seem to move slower than the notes that they churn out. The Spider is one of the building blocks for this. Here is a real-world Spider-like run that you can try by using what you have learned from the Spider. You might want to play this "Spider" style by having only one finger lifted from the strings and then compare it to the way you would play it without having this restriction. I hope you can observe that the "Spider" way sounds more like a liquid and even run. This example is still not a Legato example because you have to pick each note and you don't do any tapping, hammer-ons or pulls but it nurtures your ability to play legato.
This example is inspired by John Petrucci.
The vexflow software can't show sextoles so please consider all six notes to be one beat. One thing you might do to emphasize the flow is to accentuate the first stroke of the six notes a bit.
You will initially find out that playing it the "Spider" way is slower but more fluid ...
tabstave notation=true notes :w 12/6 14/6 15/6 12/5 14/5 15/5 | notes :w 14/6 15/6 17/6 14/5 15/5 17/5 | tabstave notation=true notes :w 14/5 15/5 17/5 14/4 16/4 17/4 | notes :w 14/4 16/4 17/4 14/3 16/3 17/3 | tabstave notation=true notes :w 16/4 17/4 19/4 16/3 17/3 19/3 | notes :w 16/3 17/3 19/3 17/2 19/2 20/2 | tabstave notation=true notes :w 17/2 19/2 20/2 17/1 19/1 20/1 | notes :w 19/2 20/2 22/2 19/1 20/1 22/1 | tabstave notation=true notes :w 15/2 17/2 19/2 15/1 19/2 17/2 | notes :w 15/2 17/2 19/2 15/1 17/1 19/1 | tabstave notation=true notes :w 16/4 17/4 19/4 15/2 19/4 17/4 | notes :w 16/4 17/4 19/4 16/3 17/3 19/3 | tabstave notation=true notes :w 14/4 16/4 17/4 14/3 17/4 16/4 | notes :w 14/4 16/4 17/4 14/3 16/3 17/3 | tabstave notation=true notes :w 14/5 15/5 17/5 14/3 17/5 15/5 | notes :w 14/5 15/5 17/5 14/4 16/4 17/4 | tabstave notation=true notes :w 14/6 15/6 17/6 14/5 17/6 15/6 | notes :w 14/6 15/6 17/6 14/5 15/5 17/5 | tabstave notation=true notes :w 12/6 14/6 15/6 12/4 15/6 14/6 | notes :w 12/6 14/6 15/6 12/5 14/5 15/5 | tabstave notation=true notes :w 12/6 |

No comments:

Post a Comment