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how hard to play, physically?
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turnermoran
Posts: 391
Joined: Feb. 6 2010
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how hard to play, physically?
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What is the consensus on how hard one should play to achieve optimum flamenco tone/volume/projection? Having sat across from Diego del Morao in a workshop, I don't remember him playing very loudly, yet I consider his sound no less 'flamenco' than, say, El Perla, who I also took workshops with, and he plays loud as a beast. this issue is of particular struggle for me. Having playing acoustically alongside loud percussionists for years, I've developed what I think is a very strong right hand. Other non-flamenco guitarists always comment on the force and projection I can get. But among flamencos, it appears "loud" is pretty common, so based on that, I've just been doing what I've been doing. But I'm hitting a wall whereby I do gigs with drums, elec bass.. everyone is loud, and before I know it, I'm trying to play so hard and loud to be heard that I loose my touch and facility. Especially with picado. I see videos of many guys using the 'paco technique' (right angle elbow lifed up high, low profile hand, force coming from the knuckles, etc) and it strikes me as possibly the answer. That one can use their shoulder and large surrounding muscles to produce the force while channeling it through the piston like motion of the knuckles that drive the fingers up and down, but using the lower 2 joints of the fingers so minimally that it serves the efficiency principle and allows for precision yet also with tons of power. Or.. Paco just looks like he's playing louder than he really is. And it you would in your answer, can you qualify the setting you're playing in? The nature of my quandry is embedded in the setting; "loud" in this case is in order to be heard, or so you can play into a microphone whose gain is set so that it doesn't feed back. It's no loud for the sake of being loud. This is a working guitarist's dilemma! (meaning, if you have a quiet technique and crank up the mic to 'hear', the mic gets so hot it feedsback or catches the surrounding instruments. And that's no good) Thanks!!
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Date Oct. 18 2015 22:04:46
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turnermoran
Posts: 391
Joined: Feb. 6 2010
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RE: how hard to play, physically? (in reply to turnermoran)
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Opinions vary widely on the subject of technique and the body, so I don't expect we will all agree on the subject, but I am of the opinion that guitar playing is a more holistic activity then we often think. I didn't mean to suggest that the shoulder muscles are what make the fingers move but I would put forth that if you sit at a table completely relaxed with your forearms on the table and wiggle your fingers you can clearly see that your shoulder may have little or nothing to do with that movement. But if you lift your arm in the air and do the same thing you can feel a variety of muscles engaged to lift your arm. Personally, from this point I can choose to make a mental separation between the stomach, shoulder, pectoral, back and upper arm muscles engaged in lifting my arm, all being separate from what happens from the elbow to the fingers, but I prefer to try to feel connected to all of these muscles and tendons in the way to disperse the work load and remain in touch with the interconnectedness of the human body. And as we know, there are many techniques in guitar playing in which you can lift your upper arm or otherwise engage it versus leaving it relaxed on the rim of the guitar. Another variable… Adam Del Monte makes an excellent point in an article on Picado technique he just wrote for the new digital flamenco magazine put out by Ben Woods. He basically says thatlifting the upper arm will necessarily create some amount of tension but we should be realistic in practice and performance of picado, and bear in mind it should not last longer than 8 to 10 seconds. (This is another quandary of mine: if the act of lifting the arm is a negative in the scope of guitar playing or if it can be used positively as a source of power. But anyway, this is all getting a little off subject from what I intended on asking. My question should've been something like: Consider how loud you're able to play when you play slow passage of music. When youplay it at the fastest tempo you are able, do you still play with the same amount of volume and force? If you play a little quieter do you play more accurately?
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Date Oct. 19 2015 15:13:53
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hamia
Posts: 406
Joined: Jun. 25 2004
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RE: how hard to play, physically? (in reply to turnermoran)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: turnermoran Opinions vary widely on the subject of technique and the body, so I don't expect we will all agree on the subject, but I am of the opinion that guitar playing is a more holistic activity then we often think. I didn't mean to suggest that the shoulder muscles are what make the fingers move but I would put forth that if you sit at a table completely relaxed with your forearms on the table and wiggle your fingers you can clearly see that your shoulder may have little or nothing to do with that movement. But if you lift your arm in the air and do the same thing you can feel a variety of muscles engaged to lift your arm. Personally, from this point I can choose to make a mental separation between the stomach, shoulder, pectoral, back and upper arm muscles engaged in lifting my arm, all being separate from what happens from the elbow to the fingers, but I prefer to try to feel connected to all of these muscles and tendons in the way to disperse the work load and remain in touch with the interconnectedness of the human body. And as we know, there are many techniques in guitar playing in which you can lift your upper arm or otherwise engage it versus leaving it relaxed on the rim of the guitar. Another variable… Adam Del Monte makes an excellent point in an article on Picado technique he just wrote for the new digital flamenco magazine put out by Ben Woods. He basically says thatlifting the upper arm will necessarily create some amount of tension but we should be realistic in practice and performance of picado, and bear in mind it should not last longer than 8 to 10 seconds. (This is another quandary of mine: if the act of lifting the arm is a negative in the scope of guitar playing or if it can be used positively as a source of power. But anyway, this is all getting a little off subject from what I intended on asking. My question should've been something like: Consider how loud you're able to play when you play slow passage of music. When youplay it at the fastest tempo you are able, do you still play with the same amount of volume and force? If you play a little quieter do you play more accurately? Lifting the upper arm is not really very comfortable but the discomfort, and any tension, is in the upper arm or shoulder area and not connected at all with the muscles in the forearm needed for picado. So apart from feeling uncomfortable it has no adverse effect. And as you point out it's not raised for a long period of time. One of the hard things with this raised arm technique is controlling the movement of the fingers up and down the strings (1st to 6th string and back). You need a smooth motion. A key piece of advice I recently gleaned from a Ruben Diaz video (can I mention that name?) is not to anchor the thumb when practicing. Let the fingers themselves work out how to move across the strings. It's very good advice and I've improved a lot in the past 6 months. Of course, when not practicing you can anchor the thumb for extra security. To address your question. The slower you play the louder you can play. But it's an irrelevant point. You can play fast and loud (enough). And of course when I say fast I mean fast with control. And control is got through practice, scales, speed bursts,etc. For the first couple of years I played I used really excessive force. I thought this would increase strength - and it did in fact. But it didn't help at all with speed. When trying to play fast use moderate to light strength (at least at first) and use speed bursts. Work up from 3 notes to 5 to 7 etc. And include string crossings with various right hand and left hand fingers. Another tip. Get a small practice tool or 'silent' guitar and practice when doing other things, eg on a plane, watching TV, etc. You can do i,m on string 2, and then i,m on string 1 and repeat for 1 hour. And make up various patterns. It's very useful.
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Date Oct. 19 2015 16:21:21
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turnermoran
Posts: 391
Joined: Feb. 6 2010
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RE: how hard to play, physically? (in reply to Leñador)
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quote:
Yeah I don't understand why you'd want to compete with drummers. I play without mic for dance classes and have not had anyone complain about being too quiet, but I'd never even try in a live performance situation. Mic up and pull back, why kill yourself in the age of technology.... I was speaking of rumba gigs.. jammed onto a small stage with drum kit, elec bass, etc So: mic doesn't work - too feedback prone volume is loud as hell - can't ask the rest of the band to turn down repeatedly when it's not my gig. I'm just a side man. Not gonna turn down the work. I'd rather suffer as a professional musician than suffer at a desk 9 to 5. :) Which means I'm using my pickup. So now I can complain about the pickup! My experience has been that you have to 'play to the pickup'. If you hit it too hard, bad things happen. If you play too lightly, it's too hot sounding.. picks up too much string noise. So I have an entire technique of playing devoted just to the friggin pickup I'm forced to use. And based on the board/monitors, etc etc.. it's not even consistent. Some days it sounds tollerable. Other days, the room is different, who knows what.. and it just sounds terrible to me. Every night can feel different. And some nights I can't dial in the right amount of force to make it not sound terrible.
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Date Oct. 21 2015 16:07:02
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Ricardo
Posts: 14979
Joined: Dec. 14 2004
From: Washington DC
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RE: how hard to play, physically? (in reply to turnermoran)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: turnermoran quote:
Yeah I don't understand why you'd want to compete with drummers. I play without mic for dance classes and have not had anyone complain about being too quiet, but I'd never even try in a live performance situation. Mic up and pull back, why kill yourself in the age of technology.... I was speaking of rumba gigs.. jammed onto a small stage with drum kit, elec bass, etc So: mic doesn't work - too feedback prone volume is loud as hell - can't ask the rest of the band to turn down repeatedly when it's not my gig. I'm just a side man. Not gonna turn down the work. I'd rather suffer as a professional musician than suffer at a desk 9 to 5. :) Which means I'm using my pickup. So now I can complain about the pickup! My experience has been that you have to 'play to the pickup'. If you hit it too hard, bad things happen. If you play too lightly, it's too hot sounding.. picks up too much string noise. So I have an entire technique of playing devoted just to the friggin pickup I'm forced to use. And based on the board/monitors, etc etc.. it's not even consistent. Some days it sounds tollerable. Other days, the room is different, who knows what.. and it just sounds terrible to me. Every night can feel different. And some nights I can't dial in the right amount of force to make it not sound terrible. While I admit there is some getting used to playing "flamenco" or rumba with a piezo pickup guitar as the response is so strange at first compared to a microphone, but a lot has to do with set up of your action and hand position. Perhaps the bad sound when playing hard is the fret buzz...I would mimic this by playing very hard over the sound hole vs closer to bridge. I have noticed some players doing this....I can play my guitar quite hard without getting a bad sound, so long as my right hand is in the right spot. But this goes for any nylon string guitar really, not just piezo guitars. THe real issue is when the sound chain allows for too much midrange "quak" as they say. There are ways to deal with it using eq but it depends on all the factors in the chain of sound. here is a vid I am using only piezo and the sound (to me) is not so bad as what a lot of guys are getting. Let me know what you think: http://youtu.be/SC4-uzjyr1w
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CD's and transcriptions available here: www.ricardomarlow.com
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Date Oct. 21 2015 17:54:07
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