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More thoughts on picado
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Miguel de Maria
Posts: 3532
Joined: Oct. 20 2003
From: Phoenix, AZ
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 More thoughts on picado
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Lately I've been really looking at the way my fingertips and nails interact with the strings, in order to get the most efficient stroke. I don't want to waste motion or effort in pushing or pulling the strings in a way unless it is necessary. For free strokes, the overall tendency has been for my wrist to arch and the fingers to straighten. it seems that this way you get a deep stroke with very little motion.
I was playing picado, trying all sorts of angles, and kept running into the same problem: the i and m fingers just don't work the same. My i slides off the string easily and smoothly, but the m catches a little bit. That little bit of catch changes the sensation, which throws off the rhythm of the machine. It also strains the finger between the 2nd and 3rd joint, so I am often sore there. I knew that I couldn't continue to play this way.
So I got real close to the guitar and just looked at the fingers and the nails. If you can picture me playing picado, with my head Under the guitar, that is where I saw an important thing. The i attacks the 1st string at an angle, and that's why it slides. However, the m "hooks" the strings. It pulls the string and collapses slightly in order to release it. A very inefficient motion, requiring strength that doesn't translate directly to volume or speed.
Now...when I curled up the fingers like Paco or the modern flamencos, the angle changed very much. When they were curled up like hooks, the i and the m finger magically began to attack the string at almost the exact same angle. The m no longer hooked and it slid just the same as the i.
Perhaps this is why the curled up version is in vogue--it is more efficient!
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Date Feb. 6 2005 16:19:19
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Miguel de Maria
Posts: 3532
Joined: Oct. 20 2003
From: Phoenix, AZ
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RE: More thoughts on picado (in reply to eslastra)
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-Picado is not one of my strong techniques and is my least favorite to practice because it is the most fickle.
My friend Miguel Rodriguez, a master, told me: "Picado will always be the hardest technique, because it requires coordination.:
-There's days when no matter how hard I try and concentrate, I can't even play a simple eighth note phrase without flubbing a couple of notes. Then there are not so common days when I can play the same phrase with no trouble at all. What gives here?
I've experienced the same thing. One thing, the more you practice and work on it, the more consistent you become. But I saw Miguel in concert and he flubbed some fast scales, and well all know Paco messed up those fairly easy licks in Entre Dos Aguas on the video, right?
-  Practicing picado doesn't give me the same return on time invested as does alzapua, for instance. But I have to say that on the rare occasion that I can pull off a good punchy picado, it really does feel good  Almost like hitting a bull's eye or something?
When I hit a picado run dead on, I feel like I'm flying. I love it.
-One thing I've noted in analyzing my picado technique is that I play phrases smoother if the "i" finger leads. By this I mean that the "i" finger marks the down beats of the note groups. Whenever I picado with the "m" finger leading, I can't play the phrase with the same evenness and control as with the "i" finger. Perhaps it's natural mismatch of the "i" and "m" finger lengths, or maybe I just haven't worked hard enough at marking the down beats with the "m" finger 
I noticed the same thing. In fact, Miguel told me I needed to practice starting with the m more. I started doing that, and like a tennis player who gets better at the backhand after working so hard on it, started getting better at the m. It is important. However, Miguel claism that in flamenco, you should make sureyour i finger is better, because the m is naturally stronger.
-I usually end up changing the fingering patterns of picado transcriptions to accomodate my "i" leading preference. It works for most phrases but not all. Some have to be played with the "m" leading, and these are ones I strugggle with Anybody else out there have a preference for playing picado or are you the fortunate ones that can play either way with no trouble any day of the week? Please tell me I'm not alone 
[/quote]
You're not alone, Eddie, you're not alone! The problems you have are the same ones I have had/have. Maybe some people don't have them,b ut I do! It's a damn hard technique! But I do believe that anyone who really wants it, can have it, but they have to put in a lot more time than on something like rasgueado, alzapua, or maybe any other single technique.
Ron, I never knew anyone wanted a video of me playing! Not much to see there, really :) Anyways, we've had financial troubles and are going to be moving out of the manse. Housing prices have risen 25% here in the last year, and we think they're going to blow. We'll rent for awhile and buy something else when it settles down...
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Date Feb. 7 2005 15:09:14
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rickm
Posts: 446
Joined: Jan. 23 2004
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RE: More thoughts on picado (in reply to Miguel de Maria)
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again, my teacher, who studied in Vienna, blah blah, has me do picado extremely slowly looking for exact tone on both fingers. He also has me alternate picado with m, a and even pinky, stating that hand strenght is not regulated just to i and m. by strenghening and coordinating the whole hand, i an m are better. He also has me do a walking motion, again in slow speed, that concerns itself by returning the m finger to the e string as the i strikes and vice verssa, (sorry if this is confusing) and is also staccato. Later we introduce the metronome and scale passages. Unless that foundation is clearly established, like argeggion and tremelo it is fruitless to jump into speed runs that deliver unclear notes. Hope this helps
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Date Feb. 7 2005 15:20:02
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Ron.M
Posts: 7051
Joined: Jul. 7 2003
From: Scotland
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RE: More thoughts on picado (in reply to Jamey)
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Yeah Mike,
Because of the depression in the Stock Market and low Interest rates, folk have been investing their dough in property here too, although that looks like it's reached it's peak now. There's nowhere else to go.
Probably, the best bet now is drug smuggling or people traffiking LOL!
Anyway, I hope you realize I was being my usual silly self criticizing you for having that Mac.
Like Jamey, I always thought the Mac was multimedia oriented and could beat the PC anyday at that sort of task.
That's why all the printing and newspaper companies use them....???
Anyway, on a more constructive thread...
I was listening to Antonio Higuera (sp?) the other day doing a really beautiful intro to a Malagueñas.
He's a really good Jerez guitarist with an excellent technique.
When he came to the final medium-fast picado run, he played it very unevenly although I know he can play evenly when he wants to.
The result?
Fantastic!
He captured the feeling of the moment, the fragility of the phrase which would have been lost had he played it "a la Paco".
I've noticed that a lot of Jerez players, sometimes pull back on their technique and try to produce a more "primitive" type of sound, be it with rasgueado or picado and it always gets a round of "oles" from the audience.
cheers
Ron
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Date Feb. 7 2005 20:23:23
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Miguel de Maria
Posts: 3532
Joined: Oct. 20 2003
From: Phoenix, AZ
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RE: More thoughts on picado (in reply to Miguel de Maria)
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Ron,
that's music, that's artistry, you're talking about there... I am obsessed with technique right now, obviously, but I consider it a stepping stone to what you are talking about--making great music! I'd like to listen to that guy. As far as the Macs, I don't really care, but I won't be getting another Mac. i'm not a computer guy and I don't know enough to take advantage of its abilities. As far as I can tell, PCs have made up a lot of ground, enough for people like Todd to use them for recording.
Right now in my car I have a double CD set called "The Best Flamenco Ever." Obviously, a pretentious title, and definitely more skewed toward recent acts such as Pepe Hab, Paco, Tomatito, Vicente, Camaron, Jose Merce, Remedios Amaya, etc. It does have a nice cross-section of stuff. Sometimes I don't want to hear Camaron on every song, but when you hear his voice or Jose Menese's voice in a "sampler", it really sticks out at you. I love that CD.
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Date Feb. 7 2005 22:24:57
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PacoPaella
Posts: 163
Joined: Nov. 7 2004
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RE: More thoughts on picado (in reply to Miguel de Maria)
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Hehe thats not quite correct...in fact you can get one of the new iMac Mini for 500 US, upgrade with memory and DVD writer, and get away below 900. A quality PC costs as much as a Mac nowadays, or more - you gotta look at what you get in return. Few PC's have FireWire interfaces, for example...
Wether a dual Pentium 3.4 is faster or not should be left to spec to decide, however its of very little interest to the average user. Performance isnt an issue really these days unless you are a heavy duty gamer or scientist. For recording, the mac has within the iLife package the GarageBand product, which looked very nice to me at first sight. It allows simultaneous recording of up to 8 tracks, including Midi. It also writes the music in notation as you play, for all tracks in parallel - thats one cool feature.
So basically, with a Mac you get
- the software you need
- practically no virii/worms/trojans
- no driver problems
- no vendor-side spyware
- a far superior, secure and modern operating system with awesome look and feel
- highly usable and thoughtful software and
- the feeling to own a nicely designed piece of technique instad of an anonymous grey cube.
Just my 0.02 $...dont believe the M$ Brainwash 
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Date Feb. 8 2005 14:40:14
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Escribano
Posts: 6415
Joined: Jul. 6 2003
From: England, living in Italy
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RE: More thoughts on picado (in reply to PacoPaella)
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quote:
Performance isnt an issue really these days unless you are a heavy duty gamer or scientist True, these guys use a lot of horsepower and that is mostly from the cards - graphics, A/Ds etc. These cards are also cheaper and more readily available for the PC - running Windows or not.
quote:
Few PC's have FireWire interfaces, for example...
So, a 3 port FireWire card costs $15 for a PC and easy to install. Invented at Apple - BTW.
quote:
the software you need - depends on what you need. There is an order of magnitude more software for the Wintel platform.
quote:
practically no virii/worms/trojans An indication of their market share and the ownership of hardware and OS. This will change with their use of open source components.
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no driver problems - another indication of their market share, less 3rd party add-ons.
quote:
a far superior, secure and modern operating system with awesome look and feel what makes Windows XP old and UNIX modern? Have you checked out the Apple security flaws?
quote:
Apple Computer Inc. has issued a patch for 15 security flaws in its Mac OS X operating system, including many originating in the software's open-source components... Possible exploits include remote execution of malicious code, denial of service, local user privilege escalation, cross-site scripting and Web page spoofing - Sept. 2004
quote:
highly usable and thoughtful software and
- the feeling to own a nicely designed piece of technique instad of an anonymous grey cube Agreed
quote:
Just my 0.02 $...dont believe the M$ Brainwash MS don't make anonymous grey cubes. One of the reasons Apple is still afloat was a $100 million investment from Microsoft and MS is still the largest developer for the Mac.
Although I am aware this thread is going off-topic, I've worked at Apple and Microsoft. I would consider the Mac if there was a piece of hardware or software that I just HAD to have and couldn't build up myself on the PC and Windows (or even Linux). Having recently got into non-linear video editing, I'll have to take another look at the Mac. I hear Final Cut is awesome.
This might help: I replaced all the PCs in BP's Head Office with Macs then the PC caught up and I replaced all Booz-Allen & Hamilton's Macs with PCs
_____________________________
Foro Flamenco founder and Admin
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Date Feb. 8 2005 15:27:17
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PacoPaella
Posts: 163
Joined: Nov. 7 2004
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RE: More thoughts on picado (in reply to Miguel de Maria)
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Hmm probably indeed off topic but i wouldnt like to leave some of your statements uncommented...
regarding benefits you "blame" on lack of market share: The virus problems as well as the driver problems are a direct offspring of MS's system architecture and the IBM PC architecture itself. Its wrong to justify them with a superior market position, they are inherent to MS's approach. And btw even if it was due to Apple's minor share, that is totally irrelevant; what counts is the FACT that the number of virii that threaten a Mac system compared to those targeting Windows have a relation of 1:1000 or so, and the FACT that there are virtually no driver issues at all, opposed to the hell you can go through with Intel/PC based hardware and drivers. Explain it with energetic fields, moon phases or market share, as long as it works i prefer the less problematic system.
And pointing out 15 security flaws in OS X without mentioning several houndred over the same period, within windows, is...somewhat...selective
Superiority of Unix compared to Windows? I guess that would lead too far here, and for the most part its irrelevant for the people in this forum. What matters here, as i gather from previous posts are simple things...how to simply record? Watch the Videos? Notation etc.. Apart from Todd few people here seem to have need for 4GB RAM from what i can tell. Anyhow i just thought i would add something to a topic i have an educated opinion about, when i cant really comment on Flamenco too much 
No pun intended, let everyone use what she / he prefers. Peace.
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Date Feb. 8 2005 18:06:36
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