Improve Your Right Hand Confidence, Part 2 by Leo Garcia

The most important movements to confident right hand technique include alternation between pairs and groups of fingers and how these fingers move across strings. Now we’ll take the idea a bit further than we did in Part 1. Remember to use these exercises consistently as part of your daily warm-up. Try the next several exercises using various speeds and the most common right hand fingerings: im, mi, am, ma in both rest stroke and free stroke. If you have extra time, add in the following fingerings in free stroke: ia, ai, ami, pi, pm, pa.

Here are several key practice points:

1. Strive to play with a sense of pulse, resisting the urge to play every note with the same intensity.
2. Focus on the quality of sound and whether it is consistent from finger to finger.
3. When not using thumb (p), rest it lightly on the lower string adjacent to the string that is played. Experiment with resting it two or three strings away and sense the subtlety of how it influences the alternating fingers.
4. Stay close to the strings.
5. Use a metronome. Record your progress in terms of tempo.

Exercise 1

Exercise 2

Exercise 3

The following exercises shift the downbeat after the crossing. Maintaining a sense of pulse for the quarter note is essential to reap the benefits of this exercise. Keep focus on the downbeat. Again, use a metronome and work on basic right hand fingerings im, mi, am, ma, ia, ai in both rest and free stroke, and pi, pm, pa for free stroke. Push your tempo only after you are secure and solid.

Exercise 3a

Exercise 3b

And now we’ll take the idea into sixteenths. Speed is not the goal. Instead focus on groove and the subtlety of crossing at different moments in the beat.

Exercise 4

Exercise 4a

Exercise 4b

Exercise 4c

Hope this helps.