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Hi, I know I post a lot of questions. 1) I play Recuerdos with a 3 beat tremelo, p,a,m,i 2) I know a flamenco tremelo is a 4 beat, p, i, a,m,i I have pretty mucy played a three beat trem for most songs, but have recently tried to incorporate the flamenco trem. The question is, If I am successful with the 4 beat trem, will it eventually screw up my 3 beat one and I wont be able to play a three beat combination (ala recuerdos) any longer? ALso, I have heard the best combination for a flamenco tremelo is p, m, a, m, i, instead of p i, a, m, i = any ideas?
Practice all finger combos. Just like arpeggio on one string. I have only used the flamenco tremolo and just by learning that i can do a nice classical tremolo as well. I don´t think that learning flamenco tremolo will mess up your classical tremolo. But where all diffrent so i don´t really know. Henrik
ORIGINAL: gtrr66@msn.com The question is, If I am successful with the 4 beat trem, will it eventually screw up my 3 beat one and I wont be able to play a three beat combination (ala recuerdos) any longer?
No. In fact, most articles/tutors on the subject would agree that working on different combinations in arpegios motions is actually helpful for your technique/control.
I have heard the best combination for a flamenco tremelo is p, m, a, m, i, instead of p i, a, m, i = any ideas?
Yes, this is a nice sequence and many players use it. The thing with tremolo is being able to select the string without any hesitation and that's why the p, i sequence is so popular. I find my 'm' finger is keen to take a lead over my 'i' so I tend to start picado with 'm' and in turn I can play tremolo with both sequences.
The question is, If I am successful with the 4 beat trem, will it eventually screw up my 3 beat one and I wont be able to play a three beat combination (ala recuerdos) any longer?
quote:
The question is, If I am successful with the 4 beat trem, will it eventually screw up my 3 beat one and I wont be able to play a three beat combination (ala recuerdos) any longer?
I would agree since I started to do the four beat trem, I find it difficult to do the 3 note one, although Recuerdos sounds good with the flamenco tremelo Dave
somewhere I found that the most useful 4 beat tremelo to be p, imam, then p imam again etc. Now that we've gotten this far in the discussion, and I agree that various combos are useful for overall dexterity, this seems to be the approach most use for continous flamenco tremelos? And I realize that various artists use different approaches, I guess Im looking for a standard which to practice and stick with.
Well I always found making the 3 note tremelo even sounding was a problem, so you could say it was superficial mastery, I think tremelo should be used sparingly in Flamenco, as it seems to break up the flow, and the need to fit it in with the compas, makes some of the melodies odd sounding, as they tend to cut short a melody when the ear wants to hear a tune that follows a logical path. Cheers Dave
I think tremelo should be used sparingly in Flamenco
I agree with you though not being able to play it well is not a good enough excuse to not play it if one was serious about performing in Spain.
It is a flamenco guitarist's badge of honour, a rite of passage, a way of saying "see, I can play it too!". In the peña it will get no truck as no-one is interested in the guitarist
There are a lot more important things to practice than tremolo, such as scales, picado, and fast alternating rest stroke melodies.
Seriously though, Enrique de Merchor, a bit of a burner (as anyone who has seen old video of him and his father hanging out will attest) told Eduardo Rebollar, my teacher in Sevilla, that people with good arpeggios have good picado. I would agree, I think it has something to do with finger independence, as well as understanding of hand position and use of the arm.
Interestingly, Eduardo thinks that people with good picado don't have good tremolo and vice versa. A strange opinion, since tremolo is essentially an arpeggio on one string. I have noticed that some nice tremolo players don't actually pluck the strings but brush it, thereby geting a very sweet sound. But this effeminiate way of playing tremolo probably is deleterious to aggressive picado.