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How dare you say that I invariably strawman every argument!!
Originally Posted by MarkInLA
etc etc
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06-25-2021 04:34 AM
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Oh blinking heck. Before everyone hates me, I’m basically satirising the way people tend to present good faith nuanced posts (such as MarkinLA’s) as black and white positions.
It’s daft. It’s also the predominant way thing are ‘discussed’ on the internet, and increasingly, trad media, which is to say it’s often adversarial and there’s no real discussion or engagement. If people communicate this way about something like barres, which one would not supposed to be a terribly partisan issue… well, there you are.
The worst thing is I’m absolutely as drawn into this nonsense as anyone else. More so, if anything.
I hoped the fact that I was joking would be obvious, but clearly it’s hard to spot, which goes to show, I suppose.Last edited by Christian Miller; 06-25-2021 at 04:56 AM.
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I think you should be barred from the forum...
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To be fair, online interaction favors verbal learners. Many people are visual learners who have to see something to absorb it. Auditory learners have to hear input to fully process it. Kinesthetic learners require some kind of physical analog, thus the old blues line “I got to get my hands on it”. Logical learners process input best if presented in a structured, mathematical, or logical context. Communicating effectively on the internet is tough for many because doing it face to face (the way we used to do it…) provided something for everybody - facial expression, body language, spoken words, hand gestures, audible emotion, etc. I fear we old dudes set the barre too high Originally Posted by Christian Miller
It’s clearly hard for some to correctly identify humorous (or any other) intent from words alone if the context is not obvious to them. I suspect that’s why emojis are so useful to some - they provide a visual context. Maybe we need a set of sound clips to signal intent - laugh track, gasps of horror, screams, etc. Or we could add a select menu like those that translate web pages into multiple languages, eg “Translate this page for verbal/visual/auditory/physical/logical readers”. Or we could ask Steve Martin to make appropriate video clips presenting a range of emotional context
The above also seems to me to apply to improvisation (and even to finding the groove). As is implied over and over in the current thread on picking technique, different strokes for different folks. And FWIW, I thought the intent was clear.Last edited by nevershouldhavesoldit; 06-25-2021 at 10:51 AM.
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I agree with all you say about interacting online, just wanted to point out that the whole learning styles thing has been totally debunked as a myth. Indeed, individuals learn differently, but through all senses. The subject matter and other factors are more important. It takes all of it to learn this wonderful instrument we love!
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I'm suggesting that most people respond better to one or two of the many modes of communication and education for which we have sensors than to the rest. We can all assimilate information coming in through any of the multiple inputs with which we were manufactured. But for most of us, the gain is set higher on one or more channels than on the rest. My belief (which shapes my approach to internet communication) is that a bit more awareness of this might reduce then number of misunderstandings and contentious web encounters generated by misinterpretation, the most common and unfortunate of which is the failure to identify the humor behind a statement. Originally Posted by dhaskins
I wasn't trying to validate Fleming's work on how students learn. I was talking about how we process information, not how accurately we retain facts and regurgitate them on tests. You're right in that many studies (some with top quality metrics and analysis but most with tiny sample sizes and loose methodology) conclude that there is "no statistically significant relationship between learning style preference (auditory, visual word) and instructional method [as measured by] immediate or delayed comprehension tests" (quote from Matching Learning Style to Instructional Method:Effects on Comprehension by Rogowsky et al, J Ed Psych 2015).
More relevant to how we all communicate on the web is the field of computer mediated communication. Studies in this are typified by the work of LSU's Renee Edwards who says, "A person who receives a message must decode or interpret meaning from the message in light of their own background, which will always be different from that of the person who created the message. This process can get even more complicated in online communication such as email and text messaging, because features such as vocal intonation, facial expression, and hand gestures are not available. In our studies, participants report that misunderstanding is much more common in computer-mediated communication (CMC) than in face-to-face (FTF) communication.” So a well chosen emoji is probably much more than a trite cliché - for better or worse, it's now the other face in face-to-face communication.
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Hmmm. I don’t think it’s necessary to invoke learning styles (oh god there was a fractious thread about that somewhere) to point out that certain kinds of humour are culturally specific and often relies on non verbal cues. I actually thought I was being quite obvious, but there you go. I don’t really get a kick out of people getting the wrong end of the stick. (Well sometimes I do ;-)) Originally Posted by nevershouldhavesoldit
To be fair, online interaction favors verbal learners. Many people are visual learners who have to see something to absorb it. Auditory learners have to hear input to fully process it. Kinesthetic learners require some kind of physical analog, thus the old blues line “I got to get my hands on it”. Logical learners process input best if presented in a structured, mathematical, or logical context. Communicating effectively on the internet is tough for many because doing it face to face (the way we used to do it…) provided something for everybody - facial expression, body language, spoken words, hand gestures, audible emotion, etc. I fear we old dudes set the barre too high
It’s clearly hard for some to correctly identify humorous (or any other) intent from words alone if the context is not obvious to them. I suspect that’s why emojis are so useful to some - they provide a visual context. Maybe we need a set of sound clips to signal intent - laugh track, gasps of horror, screams, etc. Or we could add a select menu like those that translate web pages into multiple languages, eg “Translate this page for verbal/visual/auditory/physical/logical readers”. Or we could ask Steve Martin to make appropriate video clips presenting a range of emotional context
The above also seems to me to apply to improvisation (and even to finding the groove). As is implied over and over in the current thread on picking technique, different strokes for different folks. And FWIW, I thought the intent was clear.Last edited by Christian Miller; 06-25-2021 at 04:16 PM.
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I hate emojis in humour btw. If you telegraph every joke and make it explicit there’s no wit in it for me. There’s no dryness.
But the internet sort of demands it.
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I figured that out. My son and daughter-in-law lived in Wapping for years. She’s still there (although with a new husband, who we hope is a better one than our son was) and our last trip abroad before Covid was to visit them. So I’m not a perfect numpty in this regard. Originally Posted by Christian Miller
I have several buddies on your side of the pond, and their senses of humor are wicked good as far as I’m concerned. Further, I highly recommend old British cars for strengthening the left hand. After restoring the 16th Lotus 7 made and racing it for about 15 years, I can state with certainty that having all the controls on the wrong side of the driver is an effective aid to the sinister dexterity and stamina of a right handed American guitar player.
Maybe we can meet at the barre of your choice next time we come over……..
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That'd be nice! Originally Posted by nevershouldhavesoldit
Solid use of numpty there.
I drive an automatic, so, as I say I am not a proper Brit. Although of course I learned on what the Yanks like to call 'stick shift'.
Note for Americans: despite what the Fast and Furious movies may suggest, stick shift does not possess magic powers, it merely makes driving a pain in the arse. That said, auto does feel really sluggish when you want low speed acceleration, which you often do at the endless roundabouts (rotary junctions) you will encounter in Blighty. London drivers have low tolerance for sluggishness, especially North of the River, where everyone is evil.
I'll never forget my first time with an American hire car on the Vegas strip. Thought there was something wrong with the brakes. Until I figured out that the left foot does not go on the brake pedal like the clutch, haha. What a numpty.
It's crazy how your muscles get specialised, the clutch needs strength and large movements while acceleration and brakes need finesse and small movements, of course. Same with guitar, the specific specialism of motion of each hand.
Can't speak to my sinister dexterity* lol. I do a lot of frenzied and counter productive prodding of the sat nav console, so maybe driving on the UK side is just awkward and stupid, like manual transmission, or Imperial weights and measures (which we all still use for heights and land distances/speeds despite learning metric at school??)
*the root word dexter means 'right' of course? Crazy what a handed world we live in.
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Never did, C, Originally Posted by Christian Miller
Only that Mark was correct--they are indispensable in Classical Guitar music. Simple. However, based on your posts, I think your tongue might have been lodged in your cheek . . . not that's there's anything wrong with that . . . other than you might give the impression you have a tooth ache . . .
Play live . . . barre after barre . . . Marinero
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I recently discovered that the barre position is also a major aid to fingerstyle playing of melody along with walking bass on a wide neck (I play a 7). I unintentionally found myself fretting notes on the E1 or B string with the part of my index finger under the proximal phalanx while fretting a bass note on the low A with the tip of the same finger. It was a quick leap to using this approach in melody & improvisation - it gives me an extra finger! Originally Posted by Marinero
As the finger is arched over the board so the tip can drop onto a low string while the pad is on a high one, I call it my dive barre (rim shot!). But all kidding aside, I’m finding a lot of promise in this approach because it lets me sacrifice fewer notes from the bass line in order to play a lead line over it. Even after 6+ decades of playing, the eager dog still picks up a new trick every now and then. All I have to do now is develop a totally different way of playing……..and live long enough to get halfway decent at it.
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So here is the post that ignited the whole kerfuffle, still cant believe that anyone finds this controversial or could construe this as meaning somehow barres can be completely avoided
Dont play barre chords if you can avoid them, a fairly common theme I have seen in CG master classes involves the teacher reworking a fingering to eliminate a barre. You dont need barres for most 3-note voicings, playing a natural 5th is definitely not worth the effort of a barre chord
if you do barre, use the weight if you arm to help - this involves correct LH position - wrist straight, guitar slightly tilted back etc.
Also don't use high tension strings
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If you are playing in a flat key I don't see how you can get around not barring. Standard tuning was selected precisely because it is a balance between chordal playing and single note playing. You are avoiding many good chords by not barring.
I don't play a classical guitar but I've tried it and I ran into these problems too. It is so much more effort than a steel stringed electric guitar. But if you can improvise well on it it is a more beautiful sound.
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I can tell you don’t play classical guitar with your talk of ‘flat keys’ ;-) Originally Posted by S F
Seriously, as most chords in jazz are three or four note voicings and more advanced harmonic players like to do a lot of inner voice movement etc, there’s a good case for basically never barring. Lage Lund was the first one I heard advocating this (he studied with Jimmy Wyble, don’t know what Wybles feelings were on this.) Not barring also allows you more control when turning these formations into single note lines, meaning that you can reduce overring between strings in a controlled fashion for a more linear style of articulation for arpeggios.
CG favours overring and resonance much of the time, but there are also examples of arpeggio fingerings where overrings and therefore barres are avoided?
I try to ask students questions like ‘why do you think they chose this fingering and not the obvious one?’, ‘how does this fingering sound different to the more obvious one?’ and so on, so they hopefully learn to understand the why if it a bit more.
In terms of the classical guitar literature there are many examples where you could take either approach, and some where you really have to barre (as far as I can see anyway.)Last edited by Christian Miller; 06-26-2021 at 04:12 AM.
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Originally Posted by S F
???? and a YT Channel to boot??? God I love the internet age.
Play live . . . Marinero
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OK. I did say I was finished with this thread.. But I felt compelled to say this:
The barre is a way of moving the nut further up the neck, shortening all or half the strings by that much..
If you make a grande barre on the 5th fret you've in es moved the nut to there, shortening the neck's length that much..
~ Form the old 1st pos. E Min. with, instead of 2&3, using 3&4 in the 7th fret, barring the 5th fr ..
If we strum across all 6 strings we thus hear an A Min. as if we are in first position but the neck is now 5 frets shorter...
We can even look at it as if we again have, closed and open strings but with a new nut position.
A barre is not causing all closed stings..It's doing same as the original nut where we'll sound an E-min with both open and closed strings..
~ Now quit all the bickering and listen up !! :
If you want to compose a piece for this particularly difficult instrument you are welcome to avoid half and full barres...
But when you start writing notes up high which require the lowest notes possible for the bass line; say hi Eb on 11th fret, hi G below that (2nd str) with lowest C in bass (8th fr) sounded all on the same beat, you will have to make a grande barre !!
And that is the main reason for probably 97% of all barres, PERIOD !! Muscles and tension have zilch to do with it..
Don't go telling people that they can or should be avoided when they physically and compositionally can not be !! PERIOD !!
~ The movable barre replaces the otherwise non-movable nut ~
With tough love, MLast edited by MarkInLA; 06-26-2021 at 08:21 PM.
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again, regurgitating this non-controversy Originally Posted by MarkInLA
Dont play barre chords if you can avoid them, a fairly common theme I have seen in CG master classes involves the teacher reworking a fingering to eliminate a barre. You dont need barres for most 3-note voicings, playing a natural 5th is definitely not worth the effort of a barre chord
if you do barre, use the weight if you arm to help - this involves correct LH position - wrist straight, guitar slightly tilted back etc.
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But if they are written you can not avoid them, stubborn ass ! Enough already ! You just don't get it no matter how clearly it is explained to you !
Barres are there due to composition NOT because someone nonchalantly put them there and can be played another way !!
What solar system are you from ?? !!! Watch all the thousand videos of maestros and maestras from Segovia to Rojas to Russell, to Dyens, to Vidovic , to, to ,to, to,... all playing UN-AVOIDABLE BARRES !! WTF are you handing us; teachers teach you to do it a different way !??
OF COURSE 3 note chords can be played with 1,2 & 3, or 2,3,&4 or a half barre...
The LH fingerings in Sor, Carcassi, Pujol, Shearer, et al are there for a good reason..Because they, 98% of the time, HAVE to be !!!
There is no "fairly common theme in master classes" which dismantles barres as some common practice !!
The student learns the piece the way it is written and the teacher guides him or her to giving it the proper dynamics and tempi !!
Give it up, man !
I tell you what !! Why don't you list all the pieces with grande barres that you've been able to remove and let us know how many you (didn't) come up with !!
I AM outta here this time !! I won't waste any more time listening to your foolish verbal regurgitation !!
MLast edited by MarkInLA; 06-27-2021 at 03:57 PM.
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like I said, IF you can avoid them Originally Posted by MarkInLA
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I have to say I’m struggling to identify a disagreement here. Between unavoidable barres and things that have to be played with separate fingers there exist shades of grey, particularly half barres and so on.
Re notated fingerings, I also know that pro cellists for instance would always add their own fingerings and bowings. Are pro classical guitarists less likely to do this? (Honestly don’t know, but I would expect it might depend on the music.)
Most fingerings I see for CG indicate more barres than I might play as a jazz guitarist, but if I have learned one thing over the past decade or so, it’s that while CG is orthodox and strict compared to jazz or rock technique, it is also neither uniform nor immutable.
In a field where there’s disagreement on how often rest strokes are necessary (albeit more at the pro level), I would also expect some divergent opinions on the use of barres in this grey area (but again more at the advanced-pro level.)
all this can be said without advocating for this or that approach (as I said I don’t think I really have a very qualified opinion). No doubt there’s a classical guitar forum thread that discusses these things in depth.
Beginner to Intermediate pedagogy on the other hand is a different issue.Last edited by Christian Miller; 06-27-2021 at 06:20 AM.
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A Google search for such a thread turned up this interesting article A Barre is Rarely a Barre | ClassicalGuitar.org
I think it sums up what I’ve been doing intuitively for a long time.
Focus on the notes you are playing, not the hand shape. That’s a real conceptual leap for students actually.
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Perhaps a compromise would be to play the music as written unless, for whatever reason, it cannot be played cleanly/musically. I play Edson Lopes' transcription of Beethoven's Sonata "Pathetique," Adagio movement on CG which, for me, is one of the most beautiful pieces every written for piano. However, even with Edson's excellent transcription, I had to rewrite a few chords to accommodate my hands since no amount of practice would give me the clarity/control needed. Am I absolutely faithful to his guitar transcription? No? Would anyone other than a very high level musician know? No.
So, as musicians, we are both faithful to the composer and illusionists at the same time. Not all men are graced with long, slender fingers that can contort to unimaginable shapes. However, whenever a barre can be played . . . it should be played if possible.
Play live . . . Marinero
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