Just received this question from Matt, but Matt your email address isn’t working so I hope you are reading this! Get in touch!
Hey Short-e, firstly I just wanna say I love the site, it’s proved really useful and inspiring to me over recent months, really appreciate what you do! Basically been learning to scratch for about 1-2yrs, I’m really determined to reach a standard that I’m happy with and it’s going ok. My main concern at the mo it my fader hand, I guess I could always put in more practice but I can’t seem to get quicker, fast 2 clicks and boomerangs are proving soooo frustrating! In your experience, is greater speed and dexterity something that can be achieved with time and practice? or do we have individual limits? I’d be gutted if I simply couldn’t ever get these techniques down double time.
- Matt Le Gallez
Hey Matt
Great that you are scratching!
The speed thing will come with time. There is no individual limits, unless you think there are!
The key is to relax, make sure you understand the fundamentals of each scratch then gradually build up over time.
You could try starting of with a slow beat then gradually speed it up.
To give you an idea I used to practice for at least 4 – 5 hours a day. I still have issues with fast stabs but I am getting quicker the more I practice. There were so many times when I got frustrated and felt like quitting!
Keep a positive outlook and remember to take breaks. If scratching is becoming too much do something else.
See these posts here for some more explanation and guidance:
10 tips for putting the fun back into scratching
Hope that helps. Let me know if you need anything else.
If anyone else has tips for Matt please post them in the comments!
Happy Scratching!
- Short-e
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{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
Heres a quote I found that sums it up perfectly:
“Man often becomes what he believes himself to be. If I keep on saying to myself that I cannot do a certain thing, it is possible that I may end by really becoming incapable of doing it. On the contrary, if I have the belief that I can do it, I shall surely acquire the capacity to do it even if I may not have it at the beginning.”
- Mahatma Gandhi
The best advice I could give for developing speed and dexterity is to practice those transforms ENDLESSLY. Everytime you sit down to practice you should spend at least 5-10 minutes doing only transforms. Do them as quickly as you can go without falling off the beat, and then once you’ve gotten to that point go a tiny bit farther, even if it’s hard to stay on beat. Just try to stay as close to the beat as possible. It’ll sound wack at first, but if you keep at this you will notice ALL your skratches, including your flares, becoming faster and cleaner.
Of course I should mention that when doing the transform drills it is always a good idea to start slow, and work up to a faster speed. That way, you can program your brain to gradually think about each individual beat as a part of the whole. That’s actually much more key to gaining speed than brute force practice… you have to understand it before you can do it. But once you understand it, you have to challenge your mind and your muscles by pushing yourself to the physical limits! It’s just like working out at the gym…
Rob, thanks for your contribution, some really great ideas in there. Listen to Rob everyone!