a_arnold -> RE: My version of picado...wrong? (May 12 2009 10:35:41)
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you gonna let on what this trick is amigo?! Sure, no problem. I think this is a response to something else I posted elsewhere in the Foro, but I'll repeat here: The picado "galloping" problem can be solved by thinking of your imimimi pattern as triplets: imi mim imi mim etc. ta-ka-ta ta-ka-ta rather than ta-ka ta-ka ta-ka. But your real question is about developing a fast picado. For a fast picado, the problem is a little more complex to explain, but surprisingly simple to learn. And most important, it works. You don't need to hear the complex explanation (you really only need the "rule"), but it will help you believe it works if you understand the rationale. My teacher (Carlos Ramos, a student, like Sabicas was, of Ramon Montoya) used to say that there is "mind memory" and "hand memory" -- his way of saying the same thing PDL says about learning to play something well enough that you stop thinking about technique or getting the notes right and start thinking about the "feeling". Carlos' picado was as fast and clean as Sabicas'. "Mind memory" comes first when you memorize a falseta. At first, you normally can't pull it out of memory fast enough to play at speed when you're accessing your conscious memory. "Hand memory" (it isn't really in your hands, but neither is it conscious) comes later with lots of practice and repetition. You are wiring your brain to play faster than you can consciously retrieve from memory. Surely you've had that experience: when you're trying to remember something you learned a long time ago and it's almost like your hands are remembering the fingering when your brain can't quite reconstruct the notes. It's a real phenomenon that neurologists have studied and documented. This applies to learning new techniques (like fast picado) as well as learning new melodies. The problem with fast picado is that you have to do 2 things at once when learning the technique. Most teachers, when asked "How can I learn to play picado scales fast?" will think about how THEY do it, and then tell the student to do the same thing. The teacher will examine his own learning process and see these steps: “I play a run slowly to learn it, then play it faster and faster until it is up to speed. So I'll tell my student to do that.” Trouble is, the teacher already has the technique, and he is thinking about how he builds on that to learn a new run -- not how his student should learn the new technique AND the run. He is asking the student to do two things at once: Learn the technique AND develop hand memory at the same time. So most students follow teacher's directions and as they play the run faster and faster, they run into a stumbling point where they begin flubbing it. It gets frustrating that they can go no faster, even though their fingers are physically capable of the speed (say, when alternating imimimim on a single note). The neural wiring for that kind of two-hand coordination isn't there yet. This is because you need to get the run AND the technique into "hand memory" so you don't have to think about the notes (it’s hard, maybe impossible, to think consciously about which finger on two hands and which fret and which string you need to use for each note at 10 notes per second). Some of that has to go into “hand memory” first. It's a Catch-22. You can't get it into "hand memory" until you can do it, and you need to DO it to get it into "hand memory", and yet, at a certain speed that neural wiring HAS to kick in because your mind can no longer think fast enough to compensate for its lack. At this point, some experienced players will insist that they DO think about every note as they play. True. But they already have the technique. They think differently than someone who is developing picado. The solution sounds counterintuitive, but it works. DON'T pick a random scale and practice it while gradually increasing speed. Pick a very short, easy simple scale that you can already play fast from the very beginning. Something you can use in, say, a bulerias that you play a lot. I usually suggest a 6-beat run on just the E and B strings: -1-----2------3-----4------5-----6 ----7-----8-----9----10----11----12 << compas -0--1--3--1--0------------0--1—3----0--0--0--0-------0------------0----- ------------------3--2--3---------------2---2--2--2------2-------------2---- ------------------------------------------2--2--2--2-------2------------2----- tab ------------------------------------------2--2--2--2-------2------------2----- ------------------------------------------0--0--0--0-------0------------0----- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- <--picado-imimi--------------->-------D--U-D-U-------R------G----D--- notes ...where the U and D are up/down strums and R is a 2-beat reasgueado ending on 10, G is a golpe; the last 6 beats are just to finish out the compas cycle. PLAY IT FAST FROM THE BEGINNING and use it a lot when practicing bulerias. Try some other short, easy runs. When you're bored and have them all under total control, then increase the difficulty. The key: DON'T INCREASE YOUR SPEED -- PLAY SOMETHING EASY BUT FAST FROM THE BEGINNING, and THEN INCREASE THE DIFFICULTY over time. In a nutshell: increase difficulty, not speed. This gets you past the hurdle of committing the technique to hand memory when you can't practice it to start with because you haven't learned the technique yet. To increase difficulty this might help: (1) short scales are easier than long; so are fewer string changes (2) descending scales are easier than ascending when string shifts are involved (3) if you reverse direction in the middle of a scale, try to keep the reversal on the same string (fewer string changes are easier) (4) scales on treble strings are easier than on bass (5) capo up on 3rd or 4th fret is easier to play than no capo or capo on lower frets (6) first position is easier than higher up the fretboard (7) You may find that certain scales are easier for you to practice fast. I find A major, A phrygian, E phrygian, and E minor scales particularly easy in first position; A minor and F# phrygian are relatively easy, too. You need to practice something easy to start with, so don’t feel bad that you can’t do the harder runs fast at first. That will come. Perhaps most important, make up short little runs that actually are parts of falsetas. There is nothing more boring than just practicing scales -- mostly because we all know we will never play them in public, so it's hard to feel like perfecting them is an accomplishment. Incorporate scales in your actual playing and you will enjoy practicing them. I’m not going to say “don’t practice your scales” because the classical teachers would kill me -- rightly. There is real value in getting the different scale patterns into “hand memory”. But that comes later when you have picado down cold. They say that flamenco guitarists have a faster picado (than classical) because they play rasgueado so much. The theory is that rasgueado muscles are the ones that control fast recovery between rest strokes, and classical guitarists lack that exercise. Maybe. It certainly doesn't hurt to play a lot of rasguado. But I think that we are fast partly because we have the option of learning by making up falsetas that have easy, fast fingering, so we get past the picado hurdle before classical guitarists do. Once we have the technique deep in "hand memory" then other doors open. The classical guys are stuck with scales written by some other composer who gave little or no thought to fingering. Anyway, this worked for me and my students all develop a fast picado pretty quickly by taking this approach, so I know it works. Remember Easy and Fast from the very beginning -- then gradually increase the difficulty without sacrificing speed. Hope that helps. Tony Arnold PS: Note, there is no reference to strict imimi alternation. Different issue.
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