Everyone wants to play fast. But speed sounds rubbish if the pulsation of the music is not there. Playing fast might impress those who do not know, but if you wish to play flamenco, forget speed. Concentrate instead on control and accuracy. Compás is everything and it is adherence to compás (like a train on a track) that gives pulsation to the music and pulsation is far more important than speed. All you do by playing slower is that you make people tap their feet slower! The exhilaration is no different. One last thing - everyone has limits. Learn yours and enjoy them.Whilst you practice scales, concentrate on:
- weight exchange between left hand fingers
- moving your right arm to avoid bending your wrist.
starting off - string walking
Practice first planting only one finger on all strings from the bass to the treble and back again. Practise using “a”, “m” and “i”, but each one alone. If you find the left hand chords difficult for you at the present time. use simpler chords, or even open strings. After that move on to use other fingers.
- keeping your wrist straight, and move your whole arm up and down to accommodate the relative heights of the strings. When you are playing on the bass strings, your wrist will be at the top edge of the guitar.
When you are comfortable with planting one string, let’s start using two strings.
- Remember place - press - release?
- As you press, the next finger should be placing.
Practise these variants:
a-a-a-a-a
m-m-m-m-m
i-i-i-i-i
a-m-a-m-a
m-a-m-a-m
a-i-a-i-a
i-a-i-a-i
i-m-i-m-i
m-i-m-i-m
Download the tablature file for string crossing.
Before you can play picado fast, you need to enable the right hand to play a sequence of notes on one string.
Download the tablature file for picado on one string (speed bursts).
Do the above exercise on all six strings, starting from the bass, moving to the treble.
Download the tablature file for chromatic scales.
This exercise involves string crossing - make sure that you do not repeat any fingers.
speed bursts
Speed bursts are exactly what they sound like - a series of notes played in rapid succession.
Start on the second string and play five notes i-m-i-m-i, rest and repeat. Play them as fast as you can trying to make the five notes more of a continuous movement as opposed to five individual movements. Keep everything even: tone, volume and rhythm. Practise on all strings using the above right hand finger combinations.
Download the tablature file for picado speed bursts.
You can also apply speed bursts to the second chromatic scales exercise very easily.
staccato practice
Practice all scales staccato as well as the more usual non-staccato way. When you practise staccato, the scale should sound slow, but the movement (that is, the planting) should be as fast as you can properly make it.
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the pdf file links don’t work…but the information on your site is very useful
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Thanks for that. All should be fixed now.
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Pingback from flamenco guitar technique links on September 2, 2007 at 2:23 pm
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Hi Miguel
Question….how do you get the staccato-muted effect when changing string?
When going from bass to treble I plant on the next string and can just about mute the previous string to stop it ringing (even though the planted finger is on the next string). However, when going the other way from treble to bass presumably you have to let the string ring (because if you mute you can”t plant on the next string).hope you can understand what I’m trying to say!!?
Richard -
Yes I do understand what you are saying…
Remember the objective of the planting is to assist your fingers to quickly and accurately get to the string before playing. This is a help for many players whose fingers tend to fly away from the string and this greater distance that their fingers have to cover means that speed and security is impossible to achieve…
Hope that helps.
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Thanks.
A slightly different question….do you have any advice about tapping with your foot to keep a regular beat. On some videos I’ve noticed that different players in the same group will tap their feet on different beats…even though they are playing the same song together. Rarely do I see players tap every beat. I’ve seen Moraito tap the even beats when playing bulerias (which is tricky).
Is it a personal thing..?
regards…..
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Yes it is a personal thing. The Moraito thing you have seen is common in Jerez where contra-tiempo is King.
As far as my own practice is concerned, İ try is minimize all percussive effects from me or the guitar, and recording them later with cajon and palmas.
I think that this the trend of modern players - using the guitar and feet as percussion is becoming less common with the increase of specialized percussion players.
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hi Miguel ,i want ask
´will u explain for me abouth left hand fingers
a good way to be more free from tension,i warm up and stretch my fingers before practis always..
frm.Rickard -
Hi Rikard,
There is an exercise for you in the “left hand” page.
Miguel -
Hi Miguel,
A question for you is of knuckle. When I try to play picados, the first knuckle of my right hand’s fingers are mobile. I mean - they participate in pulling a string, the fingers are not straight and frozen. The knuckles are flexible.
Do I go in a wrong direction?
And BTW: I began to practice your gruppetos and.. Oh, Lord.. I’m so far from perfection. So, please say how much it takes just to get it sounding acceptable, not perfectly. My fingers seem to be so weak =(
Thanx! =)
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If you allow the first knuckle to (that is nearest the nail) flex as you play the note, you will lose the power and force that has been imparted by the rest of your forearm and hand. That is the advice that most guitarists give and I agree with it. I have read that Manolo Sanlucar also agrees, but I have also seen Vicente Amigo (Meastro Sanlucar’s ex-student) do what you are talking about.
My advice is to practise more slowly and concentrate on not allowing your knuckle to flex.
Regular and constant practise is the only thing that will help you start to gain control. Regular and constant means the same amount every day, not five hours one day and then a rest for six. Do these exercises everyday for say half an hour, practise with a metronome. Practise as if you were performing in front of an audience - in other words, practise how you mean to sound, if you can’t do that, practise more slowly. I start my scale practise by playing crotchets at 50 beats per minute. That is really slow, but it enables me to really concentrate on what I am doing and it allows me to consciously deep process my movements.
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Hello !
My name is Arno and I am from Croatia !I am trying to learn some flamenco basis on my own because there are no teachers near the area where I live. I have some problems with my index finger when playing picado but I discovered that I am more comfortable when playing with “m” and “a” finger.
Is it a big failure if I continue to exercise this way for my basic picado playing ?Thank you for your help !
Best regards !
From Email, 2008/10/29 at 12:17 PM
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Hi Arno, and thanks for your question. I too have preferences of fingers, and I find that i feel much more secure playing picado with i-a rather than i-m. However, though I might be able to play well with my comfortable finger combinations, I am aware that the less comfortable fingers need to become more proficient.
In order to do this, I should be practising not my strongest techniques, but my weakest techniques in order to make me a guitarist that is totally in control of the music and the instrument.
A final point that I would like to make is that technique seems to develop as a whole and it is rare to find a guitarist who is excellent with say arpeggios, but is hopeless at tremolo. Any work that you do on one technique (or combination of fingerings) benefit other, related techniques.
I hope this makes sense and is useful to you.
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