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This may appear to be a shameless way of playing one of my guitars in public, I assure you that is most certainly is.
However I have a serious question about right hand technique and alza pua that I would like to start a conversation about
There are different kinds of alza pua, some have more nail involved and some use more flesh. There are disagreements among guitarists about alza pua. I have studied with one guitarist and learned how make an alzapua sound and then gone later to another guitarist who wants the alzapua to sound a be technically very different. What's up with that?
I like the brush method because allows you shade the alza pua and you don't have to have the technical ability to sound like an air wrench or machine gun.
BABBABABABABABABABABABBA
You know the kind of thumb work that you hear and go 'oh wow! Well there's more to alza pua than sheer power ripping, and mortals like me without bionic technical abilities can use the brush alzapua to shade, color and fill in with little pinches between lines of cante when doing accompaniment.
I would like to hear from guitar players of all levels; Grisha - Ricardo Marlow pros to beginners can participate. Maybe we can share ideas about alza pua- different riffs from easy to difficult. Where to fit it in the compas, the differences between hard nail digging ripping and subtle inflection with nail and flesh.
I made a video of me trying to show the brushy way, make some examples of how you do it and lets share ideas.
My personal take is that you are showing two angles of doing basically the same thing, one with more nail & one with less nail... The other ways of doing alzapua include thumb noodling (down with thumb, up with thumb on a single string, simulating the sound of a Oud with a rishi), alzapua antigua which involves using the index finger in combination with the pulgar, and the last way is doing double alzapua which means doing two initial down strokes on a string & then the rest is like the usual situation.
Maybe I was not clear enough because I don't play very much. Perhaps I'll just take it down because its confusing. I think there are two different kinds of thumb however. One way is with the thumb more perpendicular to the string using primarily nail, and the other brushes thew strings more parallel and uses the fleshy part of the thumb plus nail. Which is different. One commenter on you tube suggested it woud lead to blistered thumbs, and hels correct, until you play enough to get callous where the nail grows out of your thumb.
Could you demonstrate those last two? The Antiguo and the double thumb method?
I think you indeed were clear in your explanation, but it seems we are not agreeing on what you mean by "different". In my mind, both things you are describing are nuances of the same technique: one of them includes more nail, the other includes more flesh. Effectively though both include a pulgar rest stroke, then a downstroke from bass to treble, followed by an upstroke from trebles to bass. So in my eyes, the two techniques are mostly the same & the main difference is just the angle of attack which either includes more nail & less flesh or the other way around (where perpendicular = 100% nail & parallel = 100% flesh).
The other two I will hopefully demonstrate once I have access to my guitar & recording equipment, but I am sure you can find videos of them being demonstrated in the meantime before I actually make a demo clip for you...
This may appear to be a shameless way of playing one of my guitars in public, I assure you that is most certainly is.
However I have a serious question about right hand technique and alza pua that I would like to start a conversation about
There are different kinds of alza pua, some have more nail involved and some use more flesh. There are disagreements among guitarists about alza pua. I have studied with one guitarist and learned how make an alzapua sound and then gone later to another guitarist who wants the alzapua to sound a be technically very different. What's up with that?
I like the brush method because allows you shade the alza pua and you don't have to have the technical ability to sound like an air wrench or machine gun.
BABBABABABABABABABABABBA
You know the kind of thumb work that you hear and go 'oh wow! Well there's more to alza pua than sheer power ripping, and mortals like me without bionic technical abilities can use the brush alzapua to shade, color and fill in with little pinches between lines of cante when doing accompaniment.
I would like to hear from guitar players of all levels; Grisha - Ricardo Marlow pros to beginners can participate. Maybe we can share ideas about alza pua- different riffs from easy to difficult. Where to fit it in the compas, the differences between hard nail digging ripping and subtle inflection with nail and flesh.
I made a video of me trying to show the brushy way, make some examples of how you do it and lets share ideas.
type 1. real alzapua type 2. people who think they know how to do alzapua attempting but getting wrong attack and sound.
ype 2. people who think they know how to do alzapua attempting but getting wrong attack and sound.
Well at least I'm 50% correct.
But there is a thing David showed me that was brushy and it is effective. I also disagree there is a such thing as "wrong sound". It's like saying those plants are weeds and these plants are plants. Weeds are just plants you don't want, but they are still plants. Are you sure you've never seen anything brushy with the thumb? Because I'm pretty sure he specifically separated it from the alzapua of type#1.
Weeds are just plants you don't want, but they are still plants.
I am gonna call the gardner and tell him to yank up all the plants, then spread some plant seeds and while at it mow the plants and finally water and trim the plants. If he screws it up I am calling the flamenco police.
I think both are great, and both should be used. Just be aware of what sound you want. I believe paco does it both ways too. In this video, paco's thumb work is very light in the beginning, later on in the video he does some alzapua that is slightly harder but it's not nearly as agressive as he does in other songs like the beginning of almoraima. there are probably better examples than almoraima but i can't think of them right now.
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