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Hey Guys, working on cleaning up my picado accuracy since I've been striking it on the finger tip first, slapping my nail against the string. I've been practising striking right where the nail meets the flesh, and putting alot of awareness there. I know the movement comes from the big knuckle and general the middle knuckle will be bent. However, Is the fingertip supposed bend backwards or give a bit when pushing down on the string towards the soundboard? I dont know if it was before or not just because It wasn't really something I had to think about. Now im trying to pay attention to all the little details here in order to improve my tone and speed. From what I understand the fingertip will give when playing slower, but when faster it won't since this is wasted motion, when playing faster your fingers will be stiffer in general?
Posts: 15725
Joined: Dec. 14 2004
From: Washington DC
RE: Does the finger tip bend back wh... (in reply to trivium91)
It is addressed here:
Couldn’t help but review this video from 7 years ago that has 8 poor Guinea pigs (5 of us foro members here) unknowingly put under the microscope of “picado posture” according to the professor’s cult, and 4 pros that he also wants to critique. My old comments on this have been deleted. We never learn what they are after with this, but at the very end you can see the horrific dystonic method the cult leader is employing that looks like no decent player ever.
Posts: 2879
Joined: Jan. 30 2007
From: London (the South of it), England
RE: Does the finger tip bend back wh... (in reply to Ricardo)
Oh Jesus Christ. I missed that. He actually did that???
Took yt videos of people teaching picado and critiqued them? Unbeknown to them? Wtf
I havent watched the whole thing.... but is he, in effect, saying that these people who are doing it right, are "doing it wrong? "
HAHA. I skipped to the end to watch his version. Honestly! I can't believe he's NOT a troll. Doing a parody. I know he's obsessed with pdl . But his picado looks nothing like paco.
Even previously devout disciples must look at his twitching and wriggling about like he has a ferret in his trousers and think....."err this guy is crackers"
RE: Does the finger tip bend back wh... (in reply to trivium91)
It's ok to bend the tips a little. It also depends on the nail shape and how much resistance you have hitting the string, that has to release even with a little bend in the finger tip.
I have seen many students benefit also in the tremolo from this bending. Meaning, they have to have the movement completely relaxed from the big joint and in order to keep the whole movement relaxed they can let the little joint collapse backwards so not to stress the movement of the finger. Makes the tremolo feel like you are executing it in the air with almost no resistance and stress.
Jerónimo Maya showed me picado without bending tip of the fingers backwards, I also show this to my classical guitar students of course, but then when he played picado on some pieces I noticed clearly that he bent the tips backwards, especially the middle finger tip. If you focus more on the music, with the hands relaxed, the rhythm precise, the sound nice, the rest will follow to accommodate just that, serve the music.
Feel free to relax every way possible. Vicente looks relaxed😎 too no?
Posts: 15725
Joined: Dec. 14 2004
From: Washington DC
RE: Does the finger tip bend back wh... (in reply to AndresK)
As I show in the video, if you need to cross 3 strings without moving position, then it is unavoidable to hyperextend on bassier string, but you can have zero hyperextension on the treble most string. I used to think I was not ever hyperextending because my concern was the long runs where you move the entire arm, essentially keeping the same orientation on each string cross.
And other simple thing is if you start low and only do ascending scales, again you won’t hyperextend as you move the arm to “walk” across all 6. It is only in complex phrases where you have multistring combinations, that require no or very little hand movements.
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