Leisner | Playing with Ease (Paperback)

I hav played with 4 different support devices since starting to learn the classical guitar and never learned why the first support was the most comfortable. Using these instructions helped me to understand how my body is most at ease and not contorted while playing.

I started practicing classical guitar seriously in August 2018 - about 2 solid hours every day. 8 months into it, I had developed focal dystonia - my right hand index finger curled in uncontrollably right before it was supposed to pluck a string. This caused the index finger to miss the string. Through months of research, I found David’s book and started implementing his approach to playing with ease. Fast forward to November 2020, I am now completely focal dystonia free, feeling completely natural again. The tone I produce is much stronger and better. I can now play a few intermediate pieces with excellent tone and precision (e.g. Lagrima, Adelita, Bach BWV 1007).

David's book taught me 3 critical lessons: (1) Using large muscle groups might be a novice idea for many guitarists, but for centuries it’s been a well-known approach for other instruments like violin and piano. It allows you to produce better tone, with less effort and greater ease. It makes the small joints of the fingers much less important than the whole, stronger arms, therefore creating much less tension in the weakest part of the body - the tip joints. (2) Slightly different right hand postures are required for scale, arpeggio, and tremolo - and for rest strokes and free strokes - in order to align the fingers optimally with the strings and handle string crossings. This ensures minimal amount of tension is required to pluck the strings, and culminates a very secure sense of playing. (3) The ability to gently touch a string without plucking it and without having any tension, is a prerequisite to pluck it with the least amount of tension and immediately drain that tension away, in order to be ready for the next note.

To me, David's book is an essential guide for any serious guitarist who wants to play better, prevent injuries, and cure focal dystonia.

I wondered if this book would be suitable for my playing level or if it would get bogged down in anatomical language ... no worries on either score ... it might be the most important book I’ve read on how to play this challenging instrument in the best way possible both for the music and my body. Simply put; it needs to be in every instrumentalists library in my opinion.