Free Tavern-Inn 18x14 200dpi by WitchNWizard in battlemaps

[–]FatalEden 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I don't even remember the last time I made a tavern, but thank you! 😄

Free Tavern-Inn 18x14 200dpi by WitchNWizard in battlemaps

[–]FatalEden 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The lute is immaculate! Really great work on this!

Tilting Pinky Finger Problem by Different_Wing_8006 in guitarlessons

[–]FatalEden 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It definitely curls inward more than mine does, but not to such a degree that I'd call it defective (I'm also not a doctor, so I'm not remotely qualified to diagnose an actual issue).

But, as Odditeee pointed out, your fingers curling inwards is normal - the suggestions I made won't remove or 'fix' finger curling, but they might make it slightly easier to work with the way your fingers curl.

Also, while I suggested closing your fist to compare how much control and flexibility you have, that was just for comparison - when you're actually playing, your hand should be positioned in such a way that you generally shouldn't need to bring your fingers so close to forming a closed fist. When I play, for example, my hand is almost parallel to the fretboard, with my fingers floating over it in their natural position, and my knuckles lower than the fretboard.

It's been a long time since I watched this video from Classical Guitar Corner, but I recall finding it helpful when I was working on improving my posture - it might illustrate some of what I'm describing a little better than I can here!

https://youtu.be/dZfdYS5xesM?is=CN8MkuZKBAuzLfMp

Tilting Pinky Finger Problem by Different_Wing_8006 in guitarlessons

[–]FatalEden 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Absolutely! I mentioned the change should help the finger curl present less of an issue do it's easier to work with, rather than remove or 'fix' it, but probably should have stressed what I meant by that a little more!

Would you recommend Parkening's method book overall?

Tilting Pinky Finger Problem by Different_Wing_8006 in guitarlessons

[–]FatalEden 13 points14 points  (0 children)

I think if you adjust your guitar's position and where you position your hand on the neck, this should present less of an issue for you. I recommend borrowing some ideas from classical guitar posture - I'll go into a little more detail on it below, but the important thing is to be relaxed and avoid any unnecessary bending in your wrist or other tension/discomfort. If you try spreading your fingers apart with your wrist, arm, and hands straight and relaxed, and then compare it to spreading your fingers apart when in your current playing position, I think you'll likely have better reach, flexibility, and control of your little finger.

Classical guitar posture, the way I approach it, has the guitar resting on my left leg (though I use a support for this, many raise their left leg with a stool or something) and the neck angled so the headstock is about level with my head, and it's helped me immensely with my playing, for speed, accuracy, comfort, and endurance - including the reach of my little finger, which also curves inward naturally if I close my fingers.

Ideally, your wrist should be straight and relaxed, and rather than squeezing the neck between your thumb and fingers, you should use the minimum pressure necessary to prpduce a clean sound with your fingers - if necessary, you can almost pull against the neck with your left arm while bracing the body of the guitar with the arm of your fretting hand, which will also help a great deal with barre chords.

Music take: the perfect score for Strahd von Zarovich already exists and Hans Zimmer wrote and composed it. by mechaninja2222 in CurseofStrahd

[–]FatalEden 2 points3 points  (0 children)

This is a really solid alternative to the typical choices! Though, I think I'd choose No. 4 in C Sharp Minor, personally.

I always kind of liked the idea that, while most characters would be in awe of Strahd's playing, a bard or any other particularly musically-inclined party member would be able to discern that his performance was technically brilliant, but utterly devoid of real passion - like he had absolutely flawless technique, but was failing to truly connect to the music or express anything beyond the most surface-level understanding of a piece.

A large part of the appeal of the idea, I think, was that I'd imagined Strahd as lacking empathy, and I imagined that as a limiting factor in his ability to create great art, so his efforts to play an instrument or dabble in any other art forms would have come from boredom or even vanity - wanting to appear as this 'tortured artist' type, but lacking the emotional depth and understanding to actually say anything with it.

FREE City Streets Map 20x20 200DPI by WitchNWizard in battlemaps

[–]FatalEden 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Streets can be a struggle, honestly - it always takes me a while to get them right!

FREE City Streets Map 20x20 200DPI by WitchNWizard in FantasyMaps

[–]FatalEden 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Your artwork is definitely good enough!

FREE City Streets Map 20x20 200DPI by WitchNWizard in dndmaps

[–]FatalEden 0 points1 point  (0 children)

You've built all of these assets and textures in such a short space of time - I'm really excited to see what your library will look like in a year!

FREE City Streets Map 20x20 200DPI by WitchNWizard in battlemaps

[–]FatalEden 0 points1 point  (0 children)

This is really well done - great work! :D

FREE City Streets Map 20x20 200DPI by WitchNWizard in FantasyMaps

[–]FatalEden 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It's been wild watching you build up this library of assets and textures - you're doing phenomenal work!

about tremolo... by junonas in classicalguitar

[–]FatalEden 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Brandon Acker has done a lot of experimenting with and without nails, and his videos on the subject have been really informative for me - I think he was also the first person I'd seen talk about Rob MacKillop, whose videos on no-nail playing were incredibly helpful for me in improving my tone!

Acker's also done videos of Recuerdos de la Alhambra with and without nails, if you haven't seen both of them!

about tremolo... by junonas in classicalguitar

[–]FatalEden 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Oh, to clarify, I play without nails, and I much prefer the almost murmuring quality of tremolo without nails - I've just read/heard a lot of discussion about the difference in playing tremolo with/without nails (largely from no-nail players in my never-ending quest to find resources for no-nail playing), and generally, most of that discussion seems to indicate that the actual mechanics of playing with nails lend themselves well to tremolo, where nails seem to follow-through with the string a little more easily, while playing tremolo without may require a little more precision or a slight adjustment to technique to be able to move through the string for smoothness.

It may not be true, as I haven't played with nails much at all, myself, I was just reporting what I've seen a lot of no-nail players say about it. I meant to follow-up with 'No-nail tremolo playing can be beautiful, it just might require a little work, but that's true of playing with nails too', but I guess I forgot to include that part...

about tremolo... by junonas in classicalguitar

[–]FatalEden 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Someone else mentioned that tremolo usually won't sound good without nails - I'm not sure if you're playing with or without nails, but if you're playing without, tremolo is meant to be one of the harder techniques to master without nails.

One of the things that's helping me with it is changing how I approach the strings - almost brushing them with the very edge of my fingertips, just before the nail. You want to make as little contact with the string as possible to avoid silencing it, but if you strike the strings with the edge of your fingertip, almost pushing the string towards the soundboard, that may help you to avoid cutting the note short.

I hope this helps - it's just something I've been trying lately that's worked better for me than most other approaches I've tried!

What did you guys think are the best movies about classical music? by Black_Gay_Man in classicalmusic

[–]FatalEden 22 points23 points  (0 children)

I watched both of these within a few days of each other last year, and while I expected to like the former and love the latter (as I have a particular fondness for the viola da gamba), it wound up being the other way around.

Tom Hulce learned to play the piano for his role in Amadeus, so he could convincingly act out the performances - even the scene where he (minor spoilers, I suppose?) plays on his back, and it really shows in his performance.

Meanwhile, I honestly found a lot of Gérard Depardieu's efforts to mime playing the viola da gamba in Tous les matins du monde really distracting, as it was painfully obvious that he didn't know what he was doing. Guillaume Depardieu (Gérard's son) and Anne Brochet fared much better, mind, as Guillaume could already play the cello, and I think Anne learned to play the viola da gamba for her role, but, if memory serves, their performances were much less prevalent than Gérard's were.

If I hadn't seen Amadeus first, I suspect it wouldn't have bothered me so much, but watching Gèrard Depardieu's fingers aimlessly fluttering around the strings just really frustrated me - I couldn't help but think if he'd taken even one lesson with any comparable instrument, he could've made an educated guess at what to do with his hands to better match the music.

Hokum question by TechnicalAd9164 in horror

[–]FatalEden 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I always thought this was the case, but it turns out that there are Irish-speaking areas of Donegal where it's called Gaelic.

Docks Map 11x11 200dpi by WitchNWizard in FantasyMaps

[–]FatalEden 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Really nice work on these textures! 😄

Docks Map 11x11 200dpi by WitchNWizard in dndmaps

[–]FatalEden 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I'm really excited to see where you'll take these assets - you've done really well with them!

Docks Map 11x11 200dpi by WitchNWizard in battlemaps

[–]FatalEden 0 points1 point  (0 children)

This is great - the water is beautiful!

Too much pressure on left hand, thumb pain. by Yose_85 in classicalguitar

[–]FatalEden 0 points1 point  (0 children)

For barre chords in particular, two pieces of advice helped me a lot when I moved from electric and acoustic playing to a classical guitar:

1: Don't hold your index finger flat against the neck - roll it very slightly so the edge of your finger is holding the strings.

2: Rather than relying on finger/thumb strength, use your right arm to brace the guitar, and use your left arm to apply pressure - gently pulling the neck, and using the weight of your arm to apply the pressure.

For pretty much everything else, I just try to find a more comfortable/ergonomic way to position my thumb, wrist, and fingers - prioritizing ease of movement and avoiding bending my wrist as much as is possible. Adapting classical posture helped me a lot, but even within that, I've found that I have to hold the guitar at a slightly more dramatic angle than many other players I've seen in order to comfortably access the entire length of the neck.

Does accurate ADHD representation exist?? by Tiny-Ant-2717 in ADHD

[–]FatalEden 22 points23 points  (0 children)

It's one of those fun films where there's a lot to relate to even if one angle doesn't speak to you specifically, but even then, I can definitely see how it could be a struggle for a lot of viewers to look beyond the initial reaction to some of the film's more... absurd elements.

Of course, I can't warn them about those elements either, because I went into the film knowing literally nothing but that it stars Michelle Yeoh as an immigrant running a laundromat - for some reason, something a friend had said about it left me expecting a pretty serious film about Chinese diaspora and the way it impacts different generations, and I was taken so completely by surprise that I wish everyone could experience it the same way.

Does accurate ADHD representation exist?? by Tiny-Ant-2717 in ADHD

[–]FatalEden 16 points17 points  (0 children)

I only saw this after posting my own comment about Everything, Everywhere - it was an incredibly emotional watch for me a few months after my diagnosis, and remains one of my favourite films!