Coming from a piano background as well, I feel tempted to use my thumb every once in a while.
For traditional HG repertoire (especially French and Galician), the thumb is NOT necessary at all, all the progressions work perfectly with four fingers, with easy fingering and shifts. For other kind of music, though, sometimes the thumb comes into play and is quite useful. In some of the music my band plays (we play a sort of contemporary folk take on some traditional Celtic tunes, mixed with a lot of Brazilian influence), I use my thumb a lot. I don't find it that unergonomic (is there such a word?) if I keep the same hand position throughout the tune, that is, if I do not shift from a 4-finger style to a 5-finger style during the tune. But I can see how it puts some extra strain on the wrist and how that could be a little painful if you had some tendency to develop tendinitis, etc (I used to have some tendinitis when I played the piano more vigorously, but fortunately it's been years since I felt it last!) Augusto On Sun, May 8, 2011 at 6:06 PM, Arle Lommel <[email protected]> wrote: > I think Death in a Fen is the only piece where I routinely use my thumb. > For anything else that I play, it's not useful. You can play that piece > without it, but I find it easier (= more ergonomic) with it because of the > particular progression of notes. So it really comes down to the piece: use > it if it makes sense, otherwise don't. And for probably 99.55% of all music, > it won't make sense... > > -Arle > > On May 8, 2011, at 13:56 , Ulrich Joosten wrote: > > Hi everybody, > > I had a 5-day course with Gilles Chabenat in the week after easter and we > discussed that question. Gilles said he rarely uses the thumb but mentioned > that it might be helpful to use it in certain situations. Me personally I > find it really un-ergonomic to use the thumb. Just my point of view. > > Best regards, > Uli > > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google > Groups "hurdygurdy" group. > To post to this group, send email to [email protected] > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to > [email protected] > For more options, visit this group at > http://groups.google.com/group/hurdygurdy > > The rules of posting, courtesy, and other list information may be found at > http://hurdygurdy.com/mailinglist/index.htm. To reduce spam, posts from > new subscribers are held pending approval by the webmaster. > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "hurdygurdy" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/hurdygurdy The rules of posting, courtesy, and other list information may be found at http://hurdygurdy.com/mailinglist/index.htm. To reduce spam, posts from new subscribers are held pending approval by the webmaster.
