I've been watching pepper's videos since June of last year. I just recently joined through my mom's paypal (Martha) Though i her son, (Connor aka pinkmoonman) am the one interested in lessons. Anyways, these videos show me practicing some of the modules of the daily practice routine. Please critique! Thanks, Glad to be aboard!



-Connor O'Boyle

Hey pinkmoonman, welcome to the club!

I watched both your videos, and have a few observations.

Right Hand

Your scalpel picking looks good to me. It seems fluid. Your Sarod looks a bit more like side-to-side wrist movement rather than twisting, but that's hard to see in the video. Pebber tells people to practice moving the wrist like they're stirring a cup of tea with a stick. I find Sarod somewhat difficult but haven't practiced it that much.

Something I noticed is that you seem more comfortable with your Sarod style as you move up the strings. Particularly from the 3th through 6th strings the sound quality was improved greatly. Maybe your wrist is uncomfortable on the 1st string and you're therefore not getting as fluid a movement. Maybe you can talk about that in this thread a little.

Left Hand

Your form looks good, but you're moving too quickly. That's causing you to make a lot of mistakes (could be nervousness due to the camera as well). But whatever the cause, you need to slow down. Don't allow yourself to make any mistakes will training your mind to handle that classical position. If you do you will train yourself to always make the same mistakes and you will spend months or even years trying to correct them.

If you need to, put on a metronome at 60 bpm and move positions such that you place your fingers on each beat. That will force you to slow down and be more accurate.

Your fingering looks good. You're pulling your fingers a bit far from the board for my taste. But I'm personally working on moving my fingers as little as possible.

Video Content

That's up to you. I like to make 5 to 10 minute videos that show several techniques at once, rather than doing one long video per technique. Others like to do the opposite, and Pebber likes to make really long videos showing all techniques. :)

Basically I'd say do whatever feels most comfortable to you.

thanks, i'll work on that! And yea, i guess i was a little nervous with my first time on the forums and all so i went a little too fast, so i'll practice to a slow pulse and we'll see what happens.

Also i had a few questions about being an online student and i'm not sure if you have the questions but maybe pepper will.

1. I really want to try and do every module each day i practice though not every module is discussed on video (Pepper sure does go into detail on the first few though). I'm trying to look up what each module is asking for though other online videos though i'm not sure if that's how pepper wants me to practice them. And i am a level one so i dunno if i just need to get to higher levels to have access to modules 3-7 videos.

2. Again the lessons are being paid through my mom's E-mail, though i use my personal e-mail on the forums. i'm not sure if that would affect me or not, just wondering.

3. Thanks again for your feedback, it will surely help me along the way.

cheers-Connor O'Boyle

Pebber will give better responses, of course, but I think I can help a little. :)

You can plan to do all 7 modules every day if you want. Take your total practice time and divide equally, or unequally, and then do a bit of each.

Or you can do as most do; pick the items you are weakest at and work exclusively on those. I work mostly on picking and left-hand exercises, then some scales, and songs. I need a more structured practice where I do all but I have limited time.

In the subscription model, Pebber will start with a bit of right and left hand exercises, then focus on right hand until you move through them all. At least that's how he did it for me.

The detail on the later exercises will come, just keep practicing and sending him video updates so he can give suggestions and see improvement.

i am unbelievably sorry for calling him pepper, for some reason that's how my small brain read it after all these months of watching his videos. Thanks for the tips, i'll be sure to keep on practicing! (as well as making my videos much shorter)