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Posts: 15725
Joined: Dec. 14 2004
From: Washington DC
RE: Does your thumb touches yoru ind... (in reply to athrane77)
quote:
ORIGINAL: jof
Talking about this arpegio: e-----0------------0 b--------2-----------2- g-2--------2----3-----3 d-x a-x e-x
--p----a-m-i--p---a-m-i
sometimes, while during this arpegio, my index stands in the way of my thumb. don't know if this is a kind of an ingraned issue or the start of every guitarists nightmare: focal dystonia
The traditional hand position is such that for arpegio the thumb stands way over near the sound hole out of the way of the fingers. See Tomatito encuentro video Minera.
Posts: 1956
Joined: Dec. 2 2006
From: Budapest, now in Southampton
RE: Does your thumb touches yoru ind... (in reply to rickm)
in this case i have a "bad" technique because my thumb simply refuses to go before all the other fingers, so it goes behind them, but they never touch, maybe in my earliest days of playing they did, but not for a long time anyway...
RE: Does your thumb touches yoru ind... (in reply to athrane77)
I am a poor person to suggest anything but try playing the passage slowly with proper technique so that you eventually will devlop the muscle memory to do it right. it might take awhile. perhaps its not a focal whatever but a simple case of muscle memory or a lazy thumb
Posts: 898
Joined: Dec. 6 2012
From: Lisboa, Portugal
RE: Does your thumb touches yoru ind... (in reply to athrane77)
Jof, I would also say that the most correct way to play arpeggios is with your thumb to the left of the other fingers. However, I don't think you should change your right hand posture when doing arpeggios just because of that. It depends on what you play and how you want it to sound. For example, my teacher plays arpeggios the non-Flamenco way because he prefers a clean and smooth sound instead of the sharp and loud tradicional Flamenco sound. He has no problem with that posture and even claims it is easier to change from arpeggio to picado and vice versa.
In this video, at 0:39, you can clearly see his thumb touching the index finger and it is not a problem whatsoever for him:
It's just a matter of practise. Try to take a few minutes everyday to make some tecnical exercises with that kind of arpeggios and you will eventually overcome that problem.
I still say the most Flamenco way to play arpeggios is like Ricardo said, but if you want a smoother sound and a different tone you may have abdicate on that Flamenco posture like my teacher did. It's up to you. If you don't know yet which one to choose, with time and as your playing level evolves you will find out.
RE: Does your thumb touches yoru ind... (in reply to athrane77)
It might help if you post a short video of the "problem". In the above video, the player is using a free stroke thumb and he is touching his index finger with the thumb. This is actually desirable with free stroke (classical technique). I like his sound.
Posts: 219
Joined: Jun. 22 2012
From: Seattle, USA
RE: Does your thumb touches yoru ind... (in reply to Don Dionisio)
With the specific arpeggio described in the original post, it seems to me you *have* to have your thumb out closer to the sound hole than your other fingers because the thumb and index are both playing the same string - if your thumb is right above your index, your index will get in the way of your thumb stroke. If the thumb were playing any other string you might get away with this but I don't see how you can do it with this particular arpeggio.
In the video above, it's hard to tell but I think he does a similar arpeggio around 0:34, and while his thumb doesn't stick out that much, it still does stick out towards the sound hole, by about an inch I'd say. Which seems to be enough to give the thumb some clearance.
Posts: 898
Joined: Dec. 6 2012
From: Lisboa, Portugal
RE: Does your thumb touches yoru ind... (in reply to Don Dionisio)
Dionisio, in the video above my teacher was playing free strokes with his thumb but he can also play the same arpeggio with rest strokes without any problems. The video was just to show Jof that a person can achieve a very high level of technique without using the tradicional Flamenco right hand posture that Ricardo mencioned.
Some months ago I asked my teacher the exact same question that Jof asked and what I wrote in the post above was the explanation he gave me. Nevertheless, it is always best to practise with the tradicional posture in the first years of playing Flamenco.
RE: Does your thumb touches yoru ind... (in reply to athrane77)
quote:
ORIGINAL: jof
sometimes, while during this arpegio, my index stands in the way of my thumb.
In general i operate my thump using subtle arm/wrist/hand moves rather than playing with the thump itself. The same moves simultaneously get my index out of the way (again without moving the finger itself).....if you move a chair the legs don't clinch as well for the same reason. Still above arpeggio remains very tricky and you just have to cope with it one way or the other.
RE: Does your thumb touches yoru ind... (in reply to Erik van Goch)
quote:
In general i operate my thump using subtle arm/wrist/hand moves rather than playing with the thump itself. The same moves simultaneously get my index out of the way (again without moving the finger itself)
At first I didn't want the way you decribed above. I wanted to hold my hand in one position all the time during arpeggio no matter what. But now I decided to execute this arpeggio pattern by moving my hand a bit down, when I play the 4th D and the 3rd open G string with my thumb. Both are thumb rest strokes. After that my hand shifts back to its initial arpeggio position to play PIMAMI.
I just want to know how you guys play this. In the same way as I do or does your hand not move at all?
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Posts: 15725
Joined: Dec. 14 2004
From: Washington DC
RE: Does your thumb touches yoru ind... (in reply to devilhand)
quote:
I just want to know how you guys play this. In the same way as I do or does your hand not move at all?
It depends on the speed. In different rhythmic context I might do it differently. If the music before was all pulgar, yes I change my hand position from plunger to arpegio position. However, if the missing music was C major up and down arp the ends with that EFG then NO I do not change position… in fact I often am prepared to do arps on C major ABOVE and simultaneously with that bass line, obviously requiring the stable hand position for both. In otherwords…index and pulgar should not fight over who plays the g string, they need to work together.
Try some Niño ricardo material, he tends to work these problems.
RE: Does your thumb touches yoru ind... (in reply to Ricardo)
quote:
However, if the missing music was C major up and down arp the ends with that EFG then NO I do not change position… in fact I often am prepared to do arps on C major ABOVE and simultaneously with that bass line, obviously requiring the stable hand position for both.
You don't change hand position but your hand still moves a bit down, when you play P or PI during arpeggio section? For example, the hand movement can come from the wrist or a combo movement thumb, wrist and elbow.
I uploaded the whole arpeggio section. It's slow. Bpm=60. After adding PI with golpe, it gets more tricky. I play beat 1-10 in arpeggio position. But I switch to pulgar hand position on 11 and 12. My problem is the hand movement on beat 1-10, when I play P and PI, which makes accurate execution of PIMAMI difficult.
RE: Does your thumb touches yoru ind... (in reply to devilhand)
When is it more appropriate to use thumb free stroke with golpe? For example in arpeggio section I uploaded above, you have to play open G string with thumb+golpe. Should I use thumb free stroke or rest stroke? Free stroke is already accented by golpe, so there's no difference between thumb rest and free stroke in this particular case?
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