You want to make sure you're consistently removing any dead growth. Also, sometimes you might have a shoot that gets really long—you can go ahead and cut that back. Clipping that is gonna make the plant bush out more.
They are referencing pulling the actual joint. If you wish to tune using the rolling method (which I do not condone, since better tone comes from having the flute rolled...
There's a couple of ways to trim shrubs, you can either do hand pruning with a shrub, it's a more natural way to trim a shrub, it's holding the branches...
You might not be giving them the proper amount of water. Review the watering steps in the article to ensure that your plant isn't getting too much or not enough...