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Excellent picado speed exercise
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guitarristamadrid
Posts: 133
Joined: Jan. 27 2010
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 Excellent picado speed exercise
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Hi guys, a lot of people have been asking me for picado speed stuff. Here it is, the classic picado speed exercise that Entri gives to people who need to speed up their picado, or play fast scales in tighter compas.
I've seen a lot of people speed up their picado with this, and it has worked wonders for me. I took the inital concept that Entri created (he does it on one string) and made variations of it using multiple strings, ascending as well as descending, etc. I didn't list all the variations here, you can probably think of a lot yourself.
As always, the keys with picado are this: ALWAYS ALTERNATE your fingers, never repeat. Also, this is just as important: For any scale that you play starting with one finger, PRACTICE STARTING IT WITH THE OTHER FINGER. This is incredibly essential and Entri stresses it constantly. That's why these exercises use odd numbers of notes, to force the finger alternation. For the ones where alternation wouldn't naturally occur, you must practice the exercise both ways, starting with both your picado fingers.
Don't worry about your tone here, or volume. This exercise is about control of speed. Usually, to get picado faster, the answer is to RELAX and temporarily accept a lighter, weaker tone. As you get used to the relaxation and get more accurate, you can maintain it and add back in a stronger tone.
This exercise: it is essential that you get the rhythm of it right. Notice that the notes come in 12 note groups: the second one is exactly 2x as fast as the first. Then back to the slow notes again, now with a different left hand finger combo.
Make sure you start at a slow enough speed that you can double it and keep the time.
I actually tend to go TOO FAST on the second set of notes, so watch out for that problem too.
This exercise might be hard to get without hearing it - I will play it, along with all the other stuff, on the vid that I am going to make (soon!!!). In the meantime, email me and I will send you the gp5 file, you can listen to that.
Picado speed is NOT GENETIC. It CAN be speeded up, for anyone willing to do the work.
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Sometimes music is all you got in this world. Why do I create music? Because there was a time when I had nothing, and music kept me alive.
www.myspace.com/evancary
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Date Apr. 16 2010 4:41:47
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guitarristamadrid
Posts: 133
Joined: Jan. 27 2010
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RE: Excellent picado speed exercise (in reply to guitarristamadrid)
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Hey guys! Yeah, to address what some have said:
If you are not a hardcore, professional guitarist who absolutely must play at a very high level, it may not be worth your time doing these. Only you can decide that. I'm just offering them here, for any who are curious. I didn't even start doing this hardcore picado/arpeggio stuff until after I had basically been playing the guitar full time for years, meaning that I didn't have any job or studies that were more important: my life was the guitar. Entri does not give these things to everyone; you basically won't see this stuff from him until after you have learned a million other shorter, nicer sounding, more fun scales. After you have exhausted all of that (which will take you months if not years of classes with him), then you get to chew on this stuff.
The fact is though, this stuff does work. 100 percent. The technical problems of the guitar CAN be solved, and you can play as fast, as clean, as perfect as you want. But you gotta break it down to an atomic level, and build everything from the ground up.
The guitar is not an easy career.
For those who are interested in more fun, shorter, more melodic stuff, I have tons of that as well. I"ll try to put that up here as well. But for me this really technical, really bare bones stuff is the essence, the base, the foundation on which it all rests. And as bizarre as it may seem, I am very passionate about it.
_____________________________
Sometimes music is all you got in this world. Why do I create music? Because there was a time when I had nothing, and music kept me alive.
www.myspace.com/evancary
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Date Apr. 16 2010 15:49:58
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guitarristamadrid
Posts: 133
Joined: Jan. 27 2010
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RE: Excellent picado speed exercise (in reply to guitarristamadrid)
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Vangelis, to answer your specific questions....
1. I've seen different guitarists do it different ways, almost opposite ways, and still have excellent picado. Jony Jimenez and Aquilino Jimenez both have very good picado, with almost totally different hand position. So you must find the way that your hand likes. I believe that if you just do the exercises enough, and let your hand take whatever form it wants, your own natural form will evolve over time.
2. It may feel more natural not to alternate... the job of technique exercise is to change that. The fact is, you can never repeat one finger twice as fast as two. And it creates a ****load of problems in your picado, because then you have to memorize the little spots where you don't alternate. You might get away with it for a while, but if you put the work in and get the alternation feeling comfortable you will think "I can't believe I ever used to play like that"
3. The more I practice, the shorter I get my nails. When your technique is extremely solidified, it almost doesn't matter how your nail is. But if you are doing these repetition/speed exercises a lot, your technique is going to get more and more accurate and suddenly you will find yourself able to get a strong, clear tone with very little nail. Conversely, having a longer nail will keep catching the string and actually slow you down. If your nail is breaking you might try coating it in superglue.
_____________________________
Sometimes music is all you got in this world. Why do I create music? Because there was a time when I had nothing, and music kept me alive.
www.myspace.com/evancary
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Date Apr. 16 2010 16:03:28
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ToddK
Posts: 2961
Joined: Dec. 6 2004
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RE: Excellent picado speed exercise (in reply to guitarristamadrid)
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Again, these are good examples, but the main issue is "how".
"What" to practice is'nt nearly as important as "How" to practice.
Why are we not seeing examples of "How"? There are hundreds of tabs like these
all over the place. You could play these till you're blue in the face, and get nowhere.
They're all pretty much the same. 1 note per string, 2 notes per string, 5 notes, yadah yadah yadah.
I think a visual of the mechanics while doing any pattern would be infinitely more useful than just hundreds of scale patterns on paper.
To Florian, i dont think he's going that far out of his way. He's posting like gangbusters here, with everything from exercises to miscellaneous stories about famous flamencos.
It only takes a few minutes to upload a sheet of scale patterns.
Anyway, i think if you're gonna preach about how much you want to help everybody
"get to the highest level" then why not put your money where your, to quote Florian, "young and condfident" mouth is, and really do that. Not just upload a bunch of pages from a book that somebody else wrote.
Borrow a friggin camera and show us something for christs sake!!
Thus far, you're just talking alot and uploading tabs. There are already a bajillion tabs on this site.
Just my opinion.
TK
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Date Apr. 16 2010 23:40:10
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guitarristamadrid
Posts: 133
Joined: Jan. 27 2010
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RE: Excellent picado speed exercise (in reply to guitarristamadrid)
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Hi guys,
I'm sorry we got onto the topic of my personality. It's true that I'm very intense, almost absurdly dedicated to playing this stuff. And many people throughout my life have thought I was insane for being so into the guitar and flamenco. All I can say is, these exercises do work, better than anything else I or El Entri have ever found. These exercises may seem deceptively simple, but they are incredibly effective. This is just what I've found after years of searching.
I didn't make this stuff up. This is what Entri teaches as "what you should do if you really want a great picado". I just noticed that if you do it with MA as well, it also has a giant effect on your arpeggios and pretty much everything else.
I don't really like talking about myself that much, but since people are basically saying "show some damn credentials"... well, Entri did give me a diploma that says "He is an outstanding student, an example for the others".
There are tons of things I would like to improve about my own playing. If I ever gave anyone the impression that I am "the best player in the world" or anything like that, woah, I definitely don't think that!
During the last week I have barely played the guitar at all. It's because I've been on this forum all the time, posting things and answering messages and creating gp5 files. It seems like a video is really needed now, so I'll get back to you when I have one.
To those who've found this stuff useful, that's basically the only point of me writing anything on here at all.
_____________________________
Sometimes music is all you got in this world. Why do I create music? Because there was a time when I had nothing, and music kept me alive.
www.myspace.com/evancary
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Date Apr. 17 2010 2:08:28
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