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I have considered changing my tremolo technique for a while now and I think I am going to make the change over. I have been using the standard iami but think amia, miam, iami etc would be more efficient. Anybody have any thoughts on why this could be detrimental? Just wondering if I am missing something obvious.
I have been using the standard iami but think amia, miam, iami etc would be more efficient.
Can you elaborate on this?( What do you mean by "efficient"?) It seems to imply that you have issues with the tremolo not going fast enough? But if so, that is not to do with speed of individual fingers - they have plenty of time to go back and forth; it is more about coordination, precision, and evenness in time.
Some time ago I read that someone (I now forget who) was using mami, so I tried that for a month or so. It didn’t work for me as well as iami, so I went back. But of course it may be diffferent for others.
Also, I am still not clear what you mean by "inefficient" if it is not a reference to a difficulty executing at speed.
To me it is like doubling up on either finger playing picado. To be clear, I have no issues, at least I don't believe so, playing iami. It just appears to me to be inefficient. Playing the alternative I get the feeling that I am playing ami but happen to have 3 notes in between. As of now I am just thinking of the ami but believe that would go away after I get more accustomed to it.
Curious why you gave mami a go Paul. (I seem to vaguely remember you posting about it before)
To me it is like doubling up on either finger playing picado.
Interesting. I think I get it, it feels kind of awkward even though you can do it? The thing with the alternatives, however is that they seem to involve alternations that usually are not easier to do, and sometimes are harder:
with piam[ipi]ami.. you get the 'ipi' pattern (that's the original, I just highlighted the ipi two-finger alternation within it);
with pami[apa]mia... it is the 'apa' pattern that has to work well;
with pmia[mpm]iam.. it is the mpm pattern;
With Paul's p[mam]ipm.. it is actually the 'mam' pattern that has to work well, which typically is harder to do at speed than any of the others above because of the interconnecting tendons [and becasue it has been practiced less].
In any case there is always a two-finger alternation pattern (unless you put a second 'p' within it but that's just silly) within these which has to work well at speed. I guess in your case the ipi feels a bit unnatural (like repeating a finger in picado).
If I'm understanding Auda correctly, he wants to avoid the repeats by cycling through those patterns. So, for instance, piamipamiapmiamp. Something like that. Well, it's what he put in the OP actually. So no there would be no "ipi", "apa" or "mpm" patterns in there.
If that's what it is, I can't think of anything against it, except that it's going to be a LOT of work, especially when you consider coordination with the left hand.
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"Anything you do can be fixed. What you cannot fix is the perfection of a blank page. What you cannot fix is that pristine, unsullied whiteness of a screen or a page with nothing on it—because there’s nothing there to fix."
Wow, I totally misunderstood him, then! That above would be a great etude pattern to be able to learn to do for dexterity/coordination. I think my brain may overheat from trying to figure out what comes next A good workout!
If I'm understanding Auda correctly, he wants to avoid the repeats by cycling through those patterns.
Exactly Piwin! Sorry for any confusion Konstantin.
I am hopeful by going through the tremolo section of a piece I play or am working on I will get it down. Oddly, since taking up the guitar again I seem to be able to change fingerings fairly quickly but I can't say for certain just yet about this change though it seems promising. Again I am just asking in case I am missing the obvious.
Off the top of my head I can't think of anything. It's just that to me it seems needlessly complicated and I'm not sure there would really be any gains achieved by doing it that way. But hell, if you have the drive for it, why not? Keep us posted if you go down that route. I'd be curious to know what gains/obstacles you discover along the way. Me, I'm too lazy
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"Anything you do can be fixed. What you cannot fix is the perfection of a blank page. What you cannot fix is that pristine, unsullied whiteness of a screen or a page with nothing on it—because there’s nothing there to fix."
Work on it like iamip......iamip......iamip.....etc.
where the fingers lead into next bass note like a grace note. Keep Fast fingers, but leave a looooooong pause after each bass note. Try to rest pulgar as often as you can. Learn the whole melody that way. Even in slow but steady tempo. After you got it slow, gradually close the gap between p-i. Don’t worry about even quintuplets at first. Eventually you will adjust the actual finger speed DOWN a hair to match up that tricky ipi rhythm. Most Flamencos don’t use the technique as perfect 5s anyway, it’s supposed to breath a lot in the space after pulgar accents.
I appreciate all the responses. My query is concerning whether playing the tremolo in the described above way has any apparent draw backs. I am able to play piami effectively but to my mind playing the alternative seems more efficient because the finger are continually playing ami (to your point Erik) with the p inserted at various times. I have worked on it for about 20 minutes and the results appear promising. I believe I am up to speed playing on muted strings and hitting the bass strings up and down so the pattern is always changing per each bass string (hence I do not think I repeat the exact same fingering on 2 particular strings (bass and treble) until I have finished 9 cycles). I could be wrong and will give it some more time tomorrow.
I am fairly new to flamenco as I am to the 5 note tremolo. I can play the 4 note tremolo at speed 8 different ways but have eventually settled on playing it mostly pimi, pmim etc. Again I play it this way so I do not double up on either finger. It kind of makes sense to me I would try the same idea with the 5 note tremolo.
Hello. I would follow Ricardo's advice. Also check your nails (length and shape). My tremolo sacked 15 years ago before I had lessons with Jeronimo Maya. Now it is one of my favourite techniques.
My query is concerning whether playing the tremolo in the described above way has any apparent draw backs.
how would it work rhythmically (remember rhythm is REALLY important in flamenco)? Pamia, Pmiam, Piami might work ok in 3 time, but in 4 or 6...?
seems like a lot of hassle to learn this when regular Piami is simpler.
quote:
I am fairly new to flamenco as I am to the 5 note tremolo.
so maybe just suck it up and learn it the way everyone else has done since at least the time of Ramon Montoya (apart from Manolo Sanlucar extended tremolo in Oracion).
so maybe just suck it up and learn it the way everyone else has done since at least the time of Ramon Montoya (apart from Manolo Sanlucar extended tremolo in Oracion).
Again, as I stated above my playing piami is not an issue as I have already "sucked it up". Admittedly it took me longer(a few days) than I thought it would but I think part of the reason for that was the, what I consider, the doubling up of the i finger as it appears to me an odd way of playing it.
The ability of playing tremolo is not the basis of this thread but the methodology is. I have asked if there are any unforeseen issues playing it continuously ami while plugging in the p on every 5th note. As been said above, it may seem overly complicated but I am not sure yet. If I can get it going w/o too much effort to the point I do not have to think about it I am of the opinion that it is more efficient.
As I said in my last post I play the 4 note tremolo in various ways and can switch them up while playing. Since I typically play it pimi, pmim and can also play it pama, pmam I would think playing the 5 note tremolo as described would not be too much of a leap. However, you never know and will let folks know how I get on but it will take a bit of time since I do not want to overly concentrate on it.
Not sure why it would impact the rhythm since the same notes are being played at the same time. Though I will keep it in mind if rhythmic issues arise going forward.
so maybe just suck it up and learn it the way everyone else has done since at least the time of Ramon Montoya (apart from Manolo Sanlucar extended tremolo in Oracion).
Again, as I stated above my playing piami is not an issue as I have already "sucked it up". Admittedly it took me longer(a few days) than I thought it would but I think part of the reason for that was the, what I consider, the doubling up of the i finger as it appears to me an odd way of playing it.
The ability of playing tremolo is not the basis of this thread but the methodology is. I have asked if there are any unforeseen issues playing it continuously ami while plugging in the p on every 5th note. As been said above, it may seem overly complicated but I am not sure yet. If I can get it going w/o too much effort to the point I do not have to think about it I am of the opinion that it is more efficient.
As I said in my last post I play the 4 note tremolo in various ways and can switch them up while playing. Since I typically play it pimi, pmim and can also play it pama, pmam I would think playing the 5 note tremolo as described would not be too much of a leap. However, you never know and will let folks know how I get on but it will take a bit of time since I do not want to overly concentrate on it.
Not sure why it would impact the rhythm since the same notes are being played at the same time. Though I will keep it in mind if rhythmic issues arise going forward.
Cheers
Now it’s clear what you are trying to do... simply not repeat i finger. You want ami repeating. But you are confusing the importance of 5 note rhythm with importance of finger combination. The reason we use the flamenco tremolo we do is not because the music is calling for 5 tuplet rhythm.... it’s because that is what the desired finger pattern (iami ->p, specifically) just so happens to produce.
Attempting to put a hiccup in a continuous ami roll with a bass note after ever 4 strokes forcing a quintuplet rhythm, is going against the point of the technique. If you like ami and you want the longer phrase then just do ami ami p repeat.... or even do p/a together every two for a nice 6 tuplet. As mentioned Manolo Sanlucar just does the continue ami roll, bass notes drop in as needed. In the end lots of combos can be done but all defeating the point of the flamenco tremolo’s specific design.
Here you still have the imi (and mim) happening though, so i doubliing (then m doubling) - even if you avoided ipi or mpm. So if these doublings do not bother you, why would it bother you when you do i doubliing with piami piami?
What I mean is that you have not really eliminated the doublings you consider inefficient from the classical tremolo; in fact you've added them instead of doing the usual pami pami.. where no doublings occur.
So maybe this inefficiency argument is more a post hoc justification of your preferences based on what feels comfortable right now (which itself is a function of past habits (good or bad) of practice and/or of lack of practice).
In the end lots of combos can be done but all defeating the point of the flamenco tremolo’s specific design.
I must, obviously, be missing something then. Can you elaborate more on the point you refer to. It seems I can't grasp the notion that playing the 5 notes in the same rhythm would not produce the desired effect. This is the very reason why I started this thread.
I don't think so Konstantin. I believe the way I play the i and m alternate continuously. Just take the p out and combine all the Is and Ms to see. I am aware of others who play 4 note tremolo with 2 fingers but believe they mostly go about it pimi or pmim not combining the two. To me, it just adds another variable that can be eliminated.
I agree with Konstantin. They alternate continuously, but in the end you're making your i and m fingers play more than if you just played pami. They "repeat" more often. If you played piami as strict quintuplets, you'd get "ipi", but that's in essence no different than the "imi" or "mim" you favor for classical tremolo. That "ipi" is no more of a repeat than the "imi" or "mim".
I also agree with Ricardo. At least, if you go that route, you should practice it as "xxxxp", like a flam, and not as strict quintuplets. And it's probably in relation to that (that it's not a strict quintuplet feel) that flamencos use iami. So, at least, if you go for this approach, you'd have to make sure you can get the same feel with all the other fingerings (amia, and miam).
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"Anything you do can be fixed. What you cannot fix is the perfection of a blank page. What you cannot fix is that pristine, unsullied whiteness of a screen or a page with nothing on it—because there’s nothing there to fix."
I see. So at the end, you treat an alternation involving the thumb (e.g. ipi) as a special case even though say imi is the same except involving m not p.
But to you imi feels like a "proper" (mi) alternation instead of i doubling, whereas ipi does not feel to you like pi alternation but instead as i doubling.
In that case all you have to do is repeat *one* of these: either piaim piaim (or pimia.. ; or pmami.. ; or 3 other combinations) and you eliminate opposable fingers alternation.
Probably closest to your current classical tremolo patterns is to try repeating just pimia. Or just pmima. No need to switch between them as the opposable alternation does not occur because of the added 'a' stroke.
However, I find that the standard p iami has an oddly stabilizing effect on the right hand, I think stemming from the bookending with "i". It feels more stable and easier than 'ami' with classical tremolo which kind of flies in space without the benefit of the i anchoring. If you change piami to the combination you wanted (or the repeatable ones I just suggested), you would lose that.
Yes they are played more often but not repeated. It is the same for playing picado with 2 fingers or 3. For me fingers work well together and the thumb can be coordinated with them but it will always be opposable. Hence our differentiation from monkeys.
Are you saying the piami has variable stressed notes to it? I think I can play it effectively but could be wrong. With the pieces I have learned/learning I have tried to imitate what I hear. I think I get fairly close but then again I could be wrong. It just seems to me sometimes it is more frenetic than others ie Noches de Arabia etc.
However, I find that the standard p iami has an oddly stabilizing effect on the right hand, I think stemming from the bookending with "i". It feels more stable and easier than 'ami' with classical tremolo which kind of flies in space without the benefit of the i anchoring. If you change piami to the combination you wanted (or the repeatable ones I just suggested), you would lose that.
That could be the case. I am not really a fan of ami either but I am even less of a fan for repeating fingers. The is major reason I play the 4 note tremolo with 2 fingers is tonal control. I have also thought about trying to play the 5 note tremolo pimim or pmimi. Either way it doesn't matter.
With a zambra it'll be hard to hear because the tremolo is usually played with a fast and steady beat for the bass notes. If you take something slower, with more flexibility in the beat, I think you'll see what I mean. For instance, this tremolo:
You'll hear that there's often a pause between some p strokes and the iami that follows. In other words, the phrasing, and the way they're thinking about the tremolo in their mind, is "iamip". Like grace notes leading up to p. So you practice tremolo as iamip. Then, when you get a fast tremolo with a very steady pulse like in Sabicas's zambra, you can slow down the tremolo so it sounds more evenly spread out between each p. I think that's the idea.
I don't know if it's feasible to get the exact same sound with the technique you're proposing. Maybe. In principle I don't see why not but who knows. You mentioned 3-finger picado. If you go rummaging around the old threads on that topic, you'll find that the better players on here seem to agree that they just can't get the exact same sound with that as 2-finger picado. They're not against the technique, but they approach it with the understanding that it will sound a bit different than regular picado (at least, that's what I remember from those discussions). Might be the same with this tremolo business. Dunno. Hell, Andy plays his tremolo backwards and he sounds great to me So I really don't know.
_____________________________
"Anything you do can be fixed. What you cannot fix is the perfection of a blank page. What you cannot fix is that pristine, unsullied whiteness of a screen or a page with nothing on it—because there’s nothing there to fix."
In the end lots of combos can be done but all defeating the point of the flamenco tremolo’s specific design.
I must, obviously, be missing something then. Can you elaborate more on the point you refer to. It seems I can't grasp the notion that playing the 5 notes in the same rhythm would not produce the desired effect. This is the very reason why I started this thread.
Cheers
As Piwin described above. The resultant polyphonic harmony that results from bass notes and melodic notes is achieved by approaching tremolo as he described, and I show in the video. Basically if you have:
The harmonic idea is you have C alone then you hear ringing together the rest as bass/melody or E/G, G/F, Next bar(if it’s 3/4) is C/E, G/G, E/F, and down beat of third bar is C/E, after which you can repeat or carry on. The main point is that the melodic second half of the beat is harmonically tied to the NEXT beat and bass note, and that is how you want to approach visualizing the left hand fingerings. The Flamenco tremolos are melodic grace notes that lead bass notes in other words. The idea of spacing out the grace notes into even rhythms or breathing phrases are secondary interpretive things, meant to evoke the sustained lyrical melody.
I don't know if it's feasible to get the exact same sound with the technique you're proposing. Maybe. You mentioned 3-finger picado. If you go rummaging around the old threads on that topic, you'll find that the better players on here seem to agree that they just can't get the exact same sound with that as 2-finger picado. They're not against the technique, but they approach it with the understanding that it will sound a bit different than regular picado (at least, that's what I remember from those discussions). Might be the same with this tremolo business. Dunno. Hell, Andy plays his tremolo backwards and he sounds great to me So I really don't know.
Thanks for the link Piwin. I see what you mean on phrasing and just had a mess around trying it on my guitar. I think it could be manageable. I am not at all 100% on my proposal but think I will feel it out over time. I kind of like the challenge too. As an example I screw around with different fingers for picado like am, ia, ami or ima. I can come fairly close to the speed of im with am and ima being a bit slower but can go a hair faster with ami. As I said previously I prefer im for better tonal control.
I hope Ricardo comes back with a bit more detail on his last post-- it could also be what you are on about. (Edit - I see that he has)
The main point is that the melodic second half of the beat is harmonically tied to the NEXT beat and bass note, and that is how you want to approach visualizing the left hand fingerings.
I can be a bit thick so what you mean, like Piwin, the p should be tied to the previous 4 notes? If so I'll have a think about it and have go with it to see if I can manage.
Cheers
Edit - It is going to take a bit to conceptually approach tremolo that way.
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A good workout! 
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