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I should've asked this question a bazillion years ago but it's never too late
I mostly face problems with my index and middle for picado, do these look fine to u ? I tried filing them as flat as i could, and this is the best I could do. Is there something that needs to be done to make them more effective ?
For the thumb i file it as sharp as possible from the left side as this helps for minimal resistance while the attack
The pinky is so long because I use p c i p tresillio so I want the pinky to be as loud as the index
I mostly face problems with my index and middle for picado, do these look fine to u ?
They look too short. The ring looks too long but perhaps you don’t get a decent golpe if it is shorter? If you could imagine splitting the difference between middle and ring in terms of length, that is what all 4 should be at. If you have problems with index, it looks like it was broken and in process of growing back? If not, the skin is protruding much further out from the nail. If you use petroleum Vaseline etc, this would help until they are longer.
they were a bit longer than this. I filed them short after i noticed that the extra length was giving more resistance to my picado. This length is the smallest i can go while also producing just the right resistance . However i still feel my nail (mainly the middle finger nail) kinda hinders my picado because they look too curved. Do u think they're too curved? That's why i attached the sideways pic too
I filed them short after i noticed that the extra length was giving more resistance to my picado.
Understood. I went through a similar thing when I was experimenting. Basically I turned my attention to improving the tone and feeling of ARPEGIO (including tremolo and other free stroke stuff), where once I got the correct shape AND LENGTH, for those things, the picado ALSO got better results. Because the string is driven THROUGH and comes to rest on the adjacent string, what we tend to allow unintentionally is to plant the string too deep into the flesh with picados, where as the arps and tremolos need to hit the “pocket” more precisely where the nail and flesh meet. The grease that Paco and others used allows the string to “slip” into this pocket more securely, or rather allows us to be a tiny bit imprecise with our planting. So when I got it together with the arps and tremolo and nail shape, I was concentrating on that precision and noticed I was not as precise with planting the picado. The thing to do is to learn it staccato which forces a sort of “preparation” where the next finger mutes the string, and what you are training is to get the finger set in the “pocket” very quick. Then the good nail shape starts getting this “crispy” attack sound and the resistance disappears.
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