Achieving IMPOSSIBLE Stretches With Ease (ft. Mircea Gogoncea) 

If you enjoyed watching this segment, be sure to check out the full course over on tonebase! www.tonebase.co/guitar-course/mircea-gogoncea-teaches-on-stretching-lh-technique?

I've been playing guitar (on and off) for about 30yrs, and I have never heard anyone explain this before. Thank you!

Jakob and Stephanie are international guitar world treasures!!

Most informational ToneBase video ever.

Some people are just limited. Im 5’3 with small hands and some stretches are just simply not possible unless I use a smaller scale guitar. There’s a point for some where it’s not technique that’s the issue

I saw this video when it was first released a couple of years ago on tone bass, but it was great to watch it again. It has changed the way I approach stretches.

Another way to overcome some particular large stretches is to use also the thumb if possible. As an example look to Lucas Imbiriba playing Malagueña.

Thanks! Knowledge is everything.

Mucho appreciado!!

Wow, this was incredibly helpful.

Excellent stuff

That was an excellent lesson

Great advice, thanks

mircea is awesome.

I learned a lot. Many thanks for a great teaching session. Note. Granados didn't write music for guitar. The ridiculous stretches are due to the transcriber. Unfortunately, many transcriptions are made by true virtuosos of the guitar. This can definitely be a bad thing when the transcriber has his or her own particular left hand superpower which they think they can just throw into the transcription. It's a form of grandstanding which does those wanting to play the music a great disservice, when a simpler apporach might make the music accessible to far more players.

Thank you.

Mrs. Andres Segovia used a variation of this technique to make the Chaconne first position Bb stretch. I saw it in person.

Great thx❤

It took me a couple years to realize that the position of your left arm really impacts how much you can stretch. If you sort of push your elbow forwards/towards the guitar body, suddenly bigger stretches are possible. Don't know if this works for everyone but for me it's the difference between making the bwv 999 stretch and not. Edit: After looking at the video I suppose what I'm doing here is changing the attack, I'll have to see if this can be achieved with less arm movement.

WARNING! Guitar Heretic here! Mircea, you are absolutely DEAD-ON for this stretching technique! What now seems incongruous is the standard orthodoxy: Left hand fingers (usually with reference to the knuckles) completely parallel to the fretboard, with 4th finger angling in from the outside. You mention this is not preferred at 6:16 "because your hand doesn't have a reason to look like this." To me, given your insight on stretching, we actually now need a reason to accept the standard orthodoxy! Not only stretching, but shifting and slurring are more easily effected with the angled position of the LH fingers. (It is especially necessary for the 4th finger to move from a naturally leveraged position.) There are exceptions of course, but I feel the LH finger angling should be the standard default position--especially when playing single melodic lines. Flamenco guitarist Grisha Goryachev uses it convincingly here: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-sYv9_dZXECk.html. Watch his LH from 5:12 onward. If he were to hold the head of the guitar fully up into classical position the angling could be even slightly more pronounced, and with more mechanical advantage. All this is my humble opinion from my own experience. I welcome discussion! 13:48

Marvelous exposition. I am about 5'5" with small hands yet have long done 6th string F to 1st A. I just now had to study my hand position while doing this. Somehow I stumbled on this approach through through and error. Also, the more vertical the neck, the easier. It's interesting to watch Paul Galbraith with his Brahms guitar. He learned Feldenkrais as well.

Thankyou

This is really excellent stuff. Brilliant video and I must say I'm a little bit ashamed I didn't think of this before. I'm also convinced that some of this stuff is why short scale guitars were made. Torres made them and I'm betting it was by request for doing these kinds of things.

Nice.

I don't need to stretch....Just before playing a note, I tune the string higher and then play the note. Then once played, I retune the string to play the next note.

Players that have played since childhood have a massive advantage, it isn't stretching it's mobility. 26 years playing guitar!!! For some players some chords are not possible.

And I already knew about this 30 years ago also except being careful and not doing it enough has kept me from mastering it. I was trying to learn and DeLarocc’s solo (King Diamond lead guitarist) to Abigail that in Guitar for the Practicing Musician magazine. And there were overdubs transcribed in slurred 3rds. Off you turn your hand with the palm facing back at the headstock you can manage them. It’s kind is neat.

As an older player, I have restrictions in my hands from a disease called dupuytren's contracture. I wish I could stretch my hands like this.

Even with this technique the sounds of muffled because I can't can't quite get it and can't produce enough pressure on the stings. But there's another way to play it so that it's super easy, barely an inconvenience. Do the 2nd fret to 5th fret stretch with your index finger and pinky, and then tap and pull off with the index finger of your right hand.

Have you tried it on a multiscale bass? That will tear your hand for real🎉

Excellent explanation. When I also learned the viola da gamba I realized how easy it is to play certain grips compared to the usual guitar position. More or less intuitively I started to mimic this on the guitar in a way similar the explanation in the video because it felt so comfortable. There is no such thing as a unique, universal correct left hand position. One caveat however. If you rotate the fingers the rotation should come from the shoulder and upper arm, not the lower arm and the wrist. Otherwise you are transferring the risk of injury from the hand to the wrist. This is similar to people that use a computer mouse the usual way for a long time and develop problems with the nerves and tendons of the wrist.

La técnica del violín

you can roll ur hand as well using ur middle finger as pivot point .. it as well allows u to slam ur fingers on the fretboard .... ur reach will be bigger trust me

I thought the stretch on BWV999 was easy in my first year when I learned it, that’s why I learned it, became that was fun to bar the pinky, but I could still use help after 33 years of playing in comfortably stretching. Segovia taught how to do the ebb cord in his arrangement of Bach Chaconne in Dmi, but I still can’t do it…

What I REALLY wanna see is someone performing all of the starting workouts in Ricardo Iznaola’s Kitarlologos! HA!

@ 9:15 What Granados work was that please? I couldn't catch it from your pronunciation, it wasn't No 6 from Ochos Valses Poeticos, that's for sure.

4:03 in-CRED-ible! 😂

Just play the F sharp an octave higher on the forth string and you will not need a stretch..😄You may need also to rearrange the previous or the next bass note the same way if it does not sound good to you. I suppose Granados will don't mind.

One way is not to play all the notes if you have long fingers and the right shape of hand then you can make all sorts of stretches Barrios hands form his part of the world does some great stretches the way he wrote his music.This guy has the right shape of hand and long fingers.

As a guitarist with smaller hands I can tell you, there is no substitute for long fingers. Some things are simply physically impossible for me but I also don't stress about them and I do what I can do and have fun with. It's also the reason I play steel string guitar and not classical.

I know this technique. and I teach guitar for 37 years now but........ I still can't play Choros de saudade (Barrios) because of that one chord (1x56x6 I believe it is).

I’ve got a short pinky

😂 i love her high five hAhaha

Amazing player. In all seriousness, couldnt a player just cheat the F# by playing the octave on the D string? It seems like such a flex move that 99.9% of an audience wouldnt even notice as it is only played very quickly. I enjoyed the video, very smart technique...

Very few pieces would require this though 😊

great video, almost nobody listens to this...also he seems to be a little double jointed

Your explanation needed more emphasis on the forearm arm and shoulder train adjustment that is required to allow presentation of the hand in order to facilitate the technique you discuss. Both mechanisms are required.

Sorry but saying that it all comes down to technique is just a bit arrogant or ignorant. I can do those stretches. I also have quite small hands. I can do a stretch from the low G on the 6th string to the high b on the 1st string, maybe even to the c. It is true that technique helps a lot. but you can't ignore that people with small hands do have limitations. There is a limit to what you can solve by technique. There is a video about Angus Young playing the way he does because he has small hands. he says that himself. People with small hands should learn to adjust their style and find solutions and workarounds. Because even if you can do those stretches, it is very exhausting and sometimes painful. it is certainly not healthy for your hands, to do it a lot. That's why I only do it when there is not another possibility. There is a reason that most (maybe all??) shredders like Guthrie Govan have very long fingers. If they didn't, they would still be great musicians i guess, but i dare to say that their playing style would differ a lot from their actual one.

THE SMALLER YOUR HANDS THE MORE DIFFICULT IT IS TO KEEP THE RIGHT TONE.🤔

Or, buy a smaller gitaar?

This video is 1.5 times better at 1.5 x speed :)

get to the point faster please

Imagine making this video, but being much less annoying about it!

Please -pleases --do NOT do this to your hand. It will mess you up down the road unless you have a large hand to stretch out easily, otherwise. Do NOT do this to your playing hand. You will regret it. I am living proof. I have small hands and little fingers and I stretched them so far that people were amazed -only to find out later-I may never play guitar for that long now. I ruined my hand.

First, shapeshift into Paganini or a character from the "X Files". Next....

I’ve seen people fold fitted sheets and I’ve watched this snake oil salesperson….both are in a dimension far away from my reality.

Goes on too long with the chat.

So your little finger is 20% longer than your index finger? BS.

Whats the opposite of dense and concise?!? Boil it all down to a minute, PLEASE!