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For me, the value of the super-slow metronome practice comes after I’ve drilled something into muscle memory. The metronome detects unconscious tactical rubato and makes me focus on dynamics and articulation, but the big thing is that the super-slow setting puts my executive mind back in charge. Going slow means you can’t bounce through on muscle memory. You need to know what you’re playing and think about each note as you play it. This makes the learning robust. If I don’t do this, I’m vulnerable to nerves wiping the muscle memory and my conscious mind not having enough of a grip on what I’m playing to take over.
The big motivation to do this very boring exercise is that it reduces the likelihood of a catastrophic on-stage memory-fail.
"explore the details" was the idea I was trying to convey in my previous post. To add to my comment on rasgueados I used to try and play them fast but now I try to play them fast slowly, if that makes any sense. Doing so has really improved my ability to execute them.
But if the issue is a tricky rhythm then it is not good to turn 8th notes into quarter or half notes. You are trying to encode the "feel" of those passages so a medium foot tap is what you need. So a ballpark tempo to the final, meaning a little slower is ok but NOT half speed, so there will be lower threshold tempos you don't want to go below.
Yes im running into this a bit with a couple of pieces/falsetas that I couldve quite easily mentioned on Metalheads feeling the gaps thread.
opening falseta in rio de la seda, has some big gaps. so trying to feel those beats is tricky. so i slow right down and try...and its harder! so the medium zone i think is where i need to be.
Recently like couple of years ago I started to feel this strange fatigue for the muscle between the thumb and index finger on the left hand (I think it is called first dorsal). When playing pretty much anything at whatever tempo I have to remove my thumb from the neck occasionally (and use biceps to continue pressing the strings), flex the thumb, and only then "reattach it" to then neck. It actually got way worse after I learned and practiced Javier Conde's exercises (which require a lot of stretches, force and etc). But even when I dont do them - still same effect. I did not see a doc for this but I might be having early arthritis stage (my mom has this quite badly with deformities and pain). What I found which helps a lot is just to use arthritis relief cream (I use voltaren, I think it is available in Europe too). Even with infrequent applications the fatigue subsided a lot.
Maybe you should try it as well on the joints/muscles that give you most trouble?
Posts: 16517
Joined: Dec. 14 2004
From: Washington DC
RE: practicing slow / aches (in reply to kitarist)
quote:
ORIGINAL: kitarist
quote:
The only thing I don't like about your Tomatito video is you don't show us how to get the actual falseta in our mind
I thought it shows you exactly that - that is why is says "in 8 minutes" while lasting about 8 minutes - what you see IS the process of fully installing it into your brain in about 8 minutes.
Yes that is correct. I did not know the falseta yet. It was chosen from Tomatito encuentro of which the exercise would not work as I needed the video or score to work from to just get the idea. I literally looked at the tabs and watched him play it a couple times then sat down and made that video. People can do what I did with the score handy, as in don't play THROUGH the whole thing, just loop it in chunks. And I guess that is what the guy was telling me that we can use the pause and jump back on YouTube or whatever if you learn it visually or from audio. If I had only audio I might do the same procedure you see here doing a chunk at a time, but I would also need to explore different fingerings if I was not sure.
And another method I have used is SINGING the falseta in the car and repeating (this was easier with CD player back buttons than using my phone now which is annoying and I no longer can do this safely when driving).
Maybe Miguel does not like that I was able to make the video from only a partial glance at the score, but it was enough to get the phrasing and fingering in my head after only a few minutes then I went to work from memory of what the score had there. I think it was only a few hours between the posting of the challenge, my location of my Encuentro and book, watching the video a few times, then finally looking at the tabs. After ALL that I could not play the thing AT ALL. I had to go through the process not knowing how many reps or whatever I was gonna do so the 8 minutes was a result of my REAL TIME learning process of a new falseta. Then it took time to load video to YouTube, and post back on foro.
Maybe Miguel does not like that I was able to make the video from only a partial glance at the score, but it was enough to get the phrasing and fingering in my head after only a few minutes then I went to work from memory of what the score had there.
I like that you can do, but I can't :) I have to use much smaller chunks generally. That's probably because you've forgotten way more flamenco than I've learned. Once in a while, I can learn a whole phrase with a glance, but usually I have to break things down quite a bit.
asy solution here is to skip the intro and learn the real part of the piece with the compás!
I dont want the easy route!! Noooo! I want to suffer! isnt that why we do this!!?
I've actually got the intro almost done! (and those stretches are totally doable at a medium to quick tempo, it was just the learning/memory drilling at slower speeds that was awks.)
Ive got through several passages into the main tune too. easier piece than it sounds.
Maybe Miguel does not like that I was able to make the video from only a partial glance at the score, but it was enough to get the phrasing and fingering in my head after only a few minutes then I went to work from memory of what the score had there.
I like that you can do, but I can't :) I have to use much smaller chunks generally. That's probably because you've forgotten way more flamenco than I've learned. Once in a while, I can learn a whole phrase with a glance, but usually I have to break things down quite a bit.
Right, well, of course it depends on the thing you are learning. Like if someone said "ok wise guy, now do that for La Barrosa". Of course no that won't work the same, because the entire piece is not like attacking ONE falseta. But here is how it could be, I think, for you or anyone.
La Barrosa, ok I would start with ONE "easy" falseta. Like take the escobilla falseta that used horquilla. Right there I am already mentally preparing for the passage. It starts at "1" and ends on "10", that first lick, it is all on the 4th string up and down using A maj barre and then E7/D basic chords. Since I have already drilled that technique otherwise, the first compás is done before even looking at the score or video, or touching my guitar. Next one is the SAME as the first transposed up to B but instead of the chord F#7 he uses C#/E#. So that is 2 cycles and 4 chords already memorized. So that third phrase is C#7 barre 4 and there is some sort of scale in the bass line that is fast and moves up and down in F#minor...."up and down" means I need to simply glance at the score to see which note starts and ends up and where it goes high to low in that F# minor scale, knowing he walks the bass down with that horquilla to F#, so mental note on beats here, and which notes are attack vs ligado etc.
So this is the phrase I need to just LOOK at that passage and try to get a sense in my head of how that goes and of course might need to do a medium slow tempo for the entire falseta based on this ONE spot. Maybe when I get the guitar I will just start drilling this then later encorporate the first two phrases that were easy.
The next phrase is the picado that is off beat triplet then via a note sequence in the scale the same type of phrase as 16ths instead of triplets. Again I just glance at starting and ending notes of those things plus the sequence pattern to get in my head. The chords moved F#m-E-D here. Finally a pulgar ligado on the bases via barre positions of inverted chords D-E-A. And the rasguedo flourish is standard that closes.
So all that and I am mentally prepared to start working on it from a partial quick glance at sources of the fingers. Nothing else about the whole piece need to enter my head before attacking the "problem" which is the speed and timing of Phrase 3 and out of 6 total. For me that took some minutes to address, but maybe for others they need much more....but my point is whatever that extra time is they need to set that all aside and focus on the "problem" spots. Ball park? Everyone that can all ready play basic tech required here (16th picado in burst at 180bpm is hard, horquilla at this speed and ligado/rasgueado abanico, but at normal Alegrias at 140-50bpm all that should be doable), should learn this thing in a day or so. The rest of the "years" of study would only be upping the bpm mark in small increments.
It is very interesting to get a sense of what is going on in your head as you approach this. It seems to me that as you glance at the piece, you quickly analyze it and see that it is made of a string of chunks that are quite similar to things you already know, and then use certain landmarks and defining features to sort of mentally "recompose" it.
In a way, this is a nice recommendation for the traditional method of learning a bunch of falsetas, isn't it? When I was younger, I thought that was quite primitive, and that drilling lots of scales and arpeggios and learning music theory was the key, but now I think that the old guys were onto something, as so much "advanced" music is really just an elaboration of "simple" stuff.
My son has recently started playing, and it is remarkable to try to see things from his perspective as he begins to tackle stuff. His teacher gave him a couple of pieces to work on that are very simple and probably simpler than I would have deigned to work on at his age, but I think he will do well if he keeps learning that kind of stuff.
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I dont want the easy route!! Noooo! I want to suffer! isnt that why we do this!!? 
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