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I've been lurking for a while and thought that it might be a good time to come out of the shadows.
I have been playing picado with straight fingers for a long time but now I am trying to switch to the proper flamenco right hand position. I am finding that to be completely square to the strings, I have to bend my wrist quite significantly, which is not very comfortable at all. I am wondering whether this is just something I need to get used to or whether I am doing it wrong. To this end I've posted a video of my picado on youtube. If you could have a look and let me if it looks right to you, it would be great.
On a similar note, does the right hand form needs to change at all for arpeggios and tremolo? In most of the videos I've seen, the position seems to be quite similar, but when I do it I always tend to bend the first joint quite a bit and bring the thumb closer to the other fingers. Any ideas?
RE: Picado and right hand position (in reply to alex_lord)
Hey Alex. Welcome and thanks for your upload. Your picado sounds good. If I had any constructive cricism it would be be firstly to move your right hand slightly towards the brige. The thumb should rest more or less on the rosette. This fingers will play a little closer to the bridge where the strings are more tense and that gives you a more flamenco sound. Secondly you need to start to move your whole hand up as you play on the lower strings. What you are doing is great on the first 2 strings. As you get to the 3rd and 4th strings you need to slide your thumb upwards a little away from the 6th string but keeping you hand more of less in the same shape. The movement comes from the shoulder....you lift you arm up slightly. If you move from the wristits going to hurt. This way you can keep the same striking angle of the fingers as you play each string. Lastly your comment about wrist angle. People have different degreees of flexability in their ligaments. Some people have the wrist almost 90 degrees. Mine only bends to about 45 degrees. Your hand doesnt (IMO) have to be exactly square with the string, just more or less. Its better to play at an angle that you find comfortable or you will end up straining something.
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Joined: Jan. 11 2009
From: England (West Yorkshire/Lancashire)
RE: Picado and right hand position (in reply to alex_lord)
Glad you asked these questions (re picado)! I've been working on mine a lot recently and have noticed considerable improvement in speed and preciseness. Like you, I've been wondering what the best hand position is - strangely, I find by not religiously keeping my thumb on the E string (as you do in the video), I get a more natural straighter position (like Pimientito says, allow your hand to move up as you progress to the lower strings)
Re picado position vs tremolo/arpeggio position, from my observation some players seem to keep a similar curved position for 'softer' picado runs but switch to a more raised stiffer position for picado 'attacks'.
I'm no expert (!) but I'd say your current technique is fine for switches between arpeggio and picado falsetas, but for dazzlingly fast picado runs with more 'snap' you need to experiment with your thumb position/wrist angle.
Posts: 4495
Joined: Aug. 9 2006
From: Iran (living in Germany)
RE: Picado and right hand position (in reply to alex_lord)
Besides some basic and fundamental rules for playing Picado, i think there is no ONE perfect way of playing Picado for everyone. I have seen so many slightly different hand positions which all seam to work for that specific player. There are factors, like the size of your hand, the length of your fingers, etc. which could force you to play with slightly different positions than an other player. For instance when i see Grisha, his fingers are sometimes almost straight and not bent. Then again when i see Gerardo (or Ricardo which plays almost with the same positions like Gerardo and i think his hand has also almost the same size and shape like Gerardo), the fingers are almost bent. Then again Jason McGuire doesnt use the 90° wrist position like you in your Video and he also doesnt move his thumb up when he plays the notes on the Bass strings like Pimientito mentioned....and so one....the list is long
Also it depends in which context you are playing a picado. I mean it may be slightly different when the previous thing before playing the Picado was some fast Pulgar , Arpeggio and that if you only want to play 5 or 6 notes Picado and switch back to another technique like Arpeggio during a piece OR if you are going to play 30 Notes in a long Picado run (EDIT: i just see that this point was mentioned already by Marc).
confused? well, i think you have to experiment and find the best position which suits your right hand. You COULD try to copy from a good player which you prefer and who has a right hand which looks similar to your hands.
Grisha:
jason:
Paco:
Ricardo:
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Posts: 14848
Joined: Dec. 14 2004
From: Washington DC
RE: Picado and right hand position (in reply to alex_lord)
Alex, I think your wrist is a little too bent, it can be a little straighter. And because your arms are long, you need to lift up off the guitar a little. Notice in my pick my arm is up off the guitar, and I have pretty short arms. Look at the video of Niño de Pura, he has longer arms like you and he is WAY up off the body of the guitar....
RE: Picado and right hand position (in reply to alex_lord)
Hello Ricardo.
When you lift the arm for picado do you keep more or less the same finger to string angles as in playing arpeggio? also do you spread the i and m fingers apart slightly to compensate for the difference in finger length?
If I lift the arm a lot to get a 90 degrees finger to string angle with a straight wrist, i grimace more than nino de pura even at half the speed - and not for artistic expression. For that reason I like how Grishas technique looks - sort of a middle way approach: slightly bent wrist and hitting strings at slight angle, but if it works for me i don't know yet.. arm length, hand shape, guitar size, sitting posture etc, so many variables..
RE: Picado and right hand position (in reply to alex_lord)
Thanks for you feedback everyone! Lots of good stuff to take in.
Pimientito: you are absolutely right regarding the thumb positioning and the hand moving up and down. I used to do this more correctly when I played with straight fingers, but I have been concentrating so much on the "box" position that I have been neglecting those aspects.
Marc: Yes, I've noticed this as well. Grisha, for example, seems to do a lot of his powerful picado runs with straight fingers.
Arash: Thanks for the examples. Very enlightening to have these players side by side.
Ricardo: I think you hit the nail right on the head regarding the wrist angle. I do have relatively long arms, which was great during my electric guitar days, but I guess not so much anymore. I had never considered lifting my arm off the guitar before. It definitely helps the wrist, but the shoulder doesn't seem to like that very much. Though, *that* is probably just a matter of getting used to. I suppose that holding the guitar in the traditional position would be an alternative as well?
I've uploaded another video in which I've hopefully corrected a bit:
I also tried a bit of arpeggio in the same position as picado. For comparison I included the straight-finger arpeggio I used to do. One thing that bugs me is playing the thumb (in arpeggios and tremolo) from the box picado position. It is way off to the side and the rest stroke is not as strong/precise.
Posts: 14848
Joined: Dec. 14 2004
From: Washington DC
RE: Picado and right hand position (in reply to alex_lord)
Mrmagenta I don't try to spread the fingers, try to keep them together if I can...but I dont' really concentrate on that to be honest. I keep a pretty close to the same postion when doing arps....depends where on the strings I am and where I am headed....
Alex, that looks better to me...the thing about arps is try resting the thumb and leaving it down on the bass string when you play....
RE: Picado and right hand position (in reply to alex_lord)
Alex! Great videos, and a keen sense of observation that will definitely help you as you go on learning flamenco.
The next thing you have to tackle with picado is to make your playing staccato. This is a bit tricky at first, but you'll get the hang of it and it will make playing so much more pleasurable and faster/controlled!
Think: bip-bip-bip instead of your current bing-bing-bing.
RE: Picado and right hand position (in reply to alex_lord)
I find my fingers actually rub together a bit when I'm playing Picado. Currently, I've been trying to adjust my hand position so that it is mostly the same for arpeggios, Picado, or most anything i'm playing. I play classical as well, so I have a tendency to play off of the left edge with the right-hand.
I suppose I should square up more when I play flamenco, but I find I get a pretty good sound using the straight wrist and left edge. As for Picado, it's coming along rather well, but I find I am having difficulty with string changes when descending. I have a tendency to want to let my fingers slip from string to string, instead of alternating at the string change. I am on the fence about whether I should let myself do that are not. It's probably not a good habit.
It's very tempting to do this, because I can do descending runs rather quickly right off the bat, but I think in the long run, it's probably better to always alternate fingers, no matter what.
When I was a little kid, my dad showed me to play Picado with straight fingers, but these days I see most players using bent fingers. I prefer using slightly bent fingers now.
Anyway, your Picado sounds and looks very good. Really good job. I think if you stay on that path you're going to do very well. I noticed you are playing the Yamaha flamenco guitar. I have one of those as well, and I think it's a really good guitar for the money.
RE: Picado and right hand position (in reply to alex_lord)
Ricardo: Where should I rest the thumb if I am playing arpeggio on contiguous strings... e.g., in the video I am playing string 4 with the thumb and then 3,2,1 with I, M, A. Should the thumb jump up to the 5th or 6th string, go back to 4 and deaden the note I just played, or just stay in the air in this case?
Ramzi: Thanks! I have been slowly working staccato into my practice routine.
Todd: Sounds like we're sort of in the same boat. I went from using a pick on the electric to a hybrid-picking (albeit, *much* worse than you) to straight fingers. I am now hoping to settle on proper flamenco form to avoid hitting a wall down the road and having to do this all over again. This of course comes at the price of losing whatever proficiency I've gained with straight fingers. For example, I am finding tremolo nearly impossible with bent fingers at the moment. I think always alternating the fingers is encouraged while you are still developing control with these techniques. Once you don't have to think about alternating when crossing strings at higher tempos, you can probably do whatever you feel like -- artistic expression :-)
So, as I understand it is so far, picado, arpeggio, and tremolo are all done within roughly the same position (position A). Independent from that is the thumb position -- e.g., apoyando and alazapua -- where the wrist is more arched and the thumb is more perpendicular to the string (position B). What about rasgueado though? Is it supposed to be done from position A, with the nails coming straight down, or could this be considered a sort of hybrid between A and B , with nails coming down at a slight angle? I am doing the latter at the moment.
Thanks again, everyone, for the advice and encouragement. I will try to keep my posts shorter in the future :-)
Posts: 4495
Joined: Aug. 9 2006
From: Iran (living in Germany)
RE: Picado and right hand position (in reply to alex_lord)
This is not a "normal" guitar and has more strings than usual :) but could be a good example regarding resting the thumb when playing arpeggios.
In your case, you should rest your thumb on the bass strings and not loose in the air.
However, in some arpeggios and at certain speeds you dont have enough time to move the thumb up and rest it on bass string. But generally the thumb should not slouch over the strings whenever possible. (btw, i used to do the same "mistake" also for a long time and my thumb was like flying over the strings all the time!)
---
Hmm, now, something else, and sorry to maybe confuse you again and nerve you, but on closer inspection and after watching your videos again i think you are focusing too much on this wrist position (specially for arpeggio) and maybe without reason. Actually, I dont find your "old" arpeggio hand position in your second vid to be wrong. In fact, i even think that the new position with the more bent wrist looks somehow a little bit unnatural und somehow uncomofortable for you. It looks like you are pressing your wrist to the right side too much. And i even think that you get a better sound with your old position (more flesh contact, more natural). So maybe Ricardos suggestion should be followed a little bit more than you did on your second video. I really dont think that this extreme square wrist position is suitable and necessary for arpeggio. Maybe Ricardo can give more qualified answer to this. I just found it important to mention this again because now i feel that you are maybe focusing on something too extremely without much benefit and this could be more negative than usefull. However, i am not 100% sure, so lets wait for other comments.
RE: Picado and right hand position (in reply to Arash)
Arash,
Thanks for the video. That is exactly what I needed to see!
I also really glad you brought up the arpeggios. I did get carried away with trying to stay within the *exact* same position for arps and tremolo as the picado, with the first joints being complete straight. After practicing like this for a few days, I found that it simply does not work (for me, at least). So I went back to the videos you posted and noticed that most people seem to straighten out the first joint when doing picado but bend it to various degrees when switching to arpeggio and tremolo. Mind you, the way I used to do it was a lot more extreme, with the first joint bending significantly and the middle joint nearly straightening out.
So, as always, I think the key here is moderation. I am now using the completely the full-on box position as a reference and then bending the first joint only as much as is necessary for it to be comfortable and produce good tone. This allows me to minimize the motion required to switch to picado. I also found that by integrating some random picado runs into my arpeggio and tremolo exercises, and concentrating on the right hand movement during switching, I am getting a lot more fluid.
RE: Picado and right hand position (in reply to alex_lord)
Thanks for highlighting this one Ricardo.
Is my observation correct that when playing picado he rests his thumb more against the strings, bringing the palm out and when in arpeggio position rests the thumb more along the strings?
If i rest my thumb a bit more parallel to the strings, my fingers hit the strings more straight on, and i get more volume.. the downside is, it feels a bit more strained because the palm of the hand comes closer, fingers get more curled and the wrist angle less straight. On the positive side, the movements get smaller.
Posts: 14848
Joined: Dec. 14 2004
From: Washington DC
RE: Picado and right hand position (in reply to mrMagenta)
quote:
ORIGINAL: mrMagenta
Thanks for highlighting this one Ricardo.
Is my observation correct that when playing picado he rests his thumb more against the strings, bringing the palm out and when in arpeggio position rests the thumb more along the strings?
If i rest my thumb a bit more parallel to the strings, my fingers hit the strings more straight on, and i get more volume.. the downside is, it feels a bit more strained because the palm of the hand comes closer, fingers get more curled and the wrist angle less straight. On the positive side, the movements get smaller.
The only thing I observe is the thumb plays a REST STROKE (unlike arash's vid above where the guy was playing free stroke then resting the thumb on a string above) and leaves it down, UNLESS he needed that bass note to ring, in which case he moves it up to the 6th string. Regardless, the thumb is more or less always in the same position, supporting the hand a bit. When he does picado on the 4th string or 5th string, the thumb comes above the 6th string and he pushes it against the soundboard, and even BENDS the thumb sometimes as he moves upward. I am sure that is just a quarky habbit of his, to bend the thumb, but the point of traveling up the soundboard is so the angle of attack of the picado remains the same.
The main difference is when he does free stroke, the big joint that connects the fingers to the hand, arches out, so he can pluck from underneath the strings more, but the picado that joint flattens out a lot, so he can push the string down into the soundboard more. The result of that little arching move depending on arp or picado, is when he arches for arps, the arm moves down toward the guitar more, and vice versa for picado, the arm comes up....just inches or centemeters we are talking. But regardless I dont see the wrist change much and the thumb hangs on to it's spot when that happens.
RE: Picado and right hand position (in reply to alex_lord)
quote:
The main difference is when he does free stroke, the big joint that connects the fingers to the hand, arches out, so he can pluck from underneath the strings more, but the picado that joint flattens out a lot, so he can push the string down into the soundboard more.
That's a very helpful explanation. I was almost thinking the reverse because the palm seems to be closer to the strings at arpeggio. In fact my teacher has shown me these things many times and It's all in the line of what you're saying and what Paco is doing in the video.. it's just difficult to take it in and interpret because very small changes can be the difference between sounding good or bad. To me, my hand looks to be doing right, but I might not be sensitive to some details that another person spots.
Sadly, no one can telepatically transfer how to feel the techniques.. some images are useful though, like picado pushing down, arpeggio plucking up. good reminder of how to feel the techniques.
i'm really keen on stomping out the insecurities i have, especially with arpeggio, so i might make a video too so i can better ask about things more clearly.. difficult to write about these small angles etc.
RE: Picado and right hand position (in reply to Ricardo)
quote:
ORIGINAL: Ricardo
quote:
ORIGINAL: mrMagenta
When he does picado on the 4th string or 5th string, the thumb comes above the 6th string and he pushes it against the soundboard, and even BENDS the thumb sometimes as he moves upward. I am sure that is just a quarky habbit of his, to bend the thumb, but the point of traveling up the soundboard is so the angle of attack of the picado remains the same.
Ricardo
Bending the thumb means that the maximum possible surface area of the thumb is in contact with the guitar and provides optimum stability. No other thumb position can provide this. Vicente Amigo also does this in his vids but it's often hard to see as it's tucked behind his fingers and obscured from view.
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