I agree with Ariel, thumb out, thumb under makes no real difference if you insist on gluing your little finger to the sound board. The real problem as I understand it from my experience is the angle of attack the fingers and thumb are able to execute on the individual courses. I have found that the best sound is produced when the fingers move the strings from directly above. This produces a clear and resonant sound especially using thumb out. Moving the arm is not so much a matter of gaining speed in diminutions but in allowing the hand to function in the correct position to produce a beautiful, and clean tone. For me it is impossible to get my hand in this position over the basses and keep the little finger anchored to the sound board.
The relaxed first joint is ideal but, in order for the first joint to actually activate the doubled strings the digit must come at the string from almost a right angle in relation to the sound board. Any angle that favors a direction toward the floor will cause the digit to either miss the string altogether or to pluck it upward. This is what causes rattle and nail bite regardless of how short you cut the nails on the right hand,--- been there done that and agonized over correcting it. If you dogmatically adhere to the concept of anchoring the little finger to the sound board this angle of attack is impossible over the total range of the instrument's register, anything lower than fourth course is going to suffer if your little finger is as short as mine. I therefore float the finger. I anchor it for the three upper courses and bring it up for the lower courses. If I don't do this I start missing notes and the sound is unclear, I then have a tendency to rotate my wrist out away from the Lute in order to utilize the index finger. This in turn causes my thumb to fly away from the sound board. In the end, if I carry this problem to extremes, it makes the right hand look more like some one drumming on a bongo. This works OK if you are playing slowly but speed is an impossibility with this issue as it increases with the tempo. Sorry for the rambling on about the right hand but I have spent the last five years trying to figure out just exactly how it works, why it works and why it does not work. I have tried every possible way of playing the right hand, and every way of striking the strings. Vance Wood. ----- Original Message ----- From: "arielabramovich" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>; <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Tuesday, November 04, 2003 9:27 AM Subject: Re: right arm motion - thumb under > Dear Christopher, > besides any historical consideration, you'll see > two very good and very different modern players using right arm motion while > playing divisions: Paul O' Dette, and Hoppy. > The reason why I do it and would recommend it is > that, even willing to use just the fingers to pluck, you would have to move > your arm to lead them to the right place (course). There's no way you can > play some very difficult pieces (fast runs from the 1st to 6th course) > without moving your arm... at least if you play thumb under. > Also, after a bit of work, using the arm allows us > to obtain a much more lighter and "vocal" diminutions, and a wide dynamic > range, which is harder to obtain only using the fingers (the sound tends to > be tight in my experience, even when you have the tip joints relaxed-which > is great). > Best, > Ariel. > > >
