Richard Jernigan -> RE: Your experience with / thoughts on bevels and / or armrests (Oct. 26 2012 18:08:40)
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ORIGINAL: rombsix Here's a video where I talk about this and try to explain what I'm going through... It's a bit long, so please be patient. An excellent clear explanation. I think you have analyzed everything in a way I would agree with. Let me say that I have never had a picado as fast as Paco or Sabicas. And at age 74, I doubt that I ever will. The player i watched in my youth, much more than any other, was Sabicas. I was stationed in Maryland in the Army in 1962, and went to New York City almost every weekend, to shows at the nightclub Zambra. Fernando Sirvent was the house guitarist, so I'm sure I was influenced by him. But every couple of weeks Sabicas would show up with his entourage, a beautiful young blonde on his arm--not always the same one--and stay in the audience until closing time. Then he would mount the stage and preside, in a friendly and inviting manner, welcoming many artists. Every two or three pieces he would take a sip of brandy. He would play from closing time at 2 AM until the sun came up. Getting to the point: Sabicas played in the traditional position. He almost never lifted his arm from the guitar, never for picado. He had a blazing picado, almost as fast as Paco. His solution to picado on the bass strings was one you mention, bending the wrist to the right. Even in other techniques the wrist was bent a good bit to the right. Segovia also bent his wrist to the right. In fact just about everybody, classical or flamenco did so in the early 1960s when I was starting out. Looking at myself in a mirror, I am a bit surprised to see how far to the right I bend the wrist nowadays. The classical teachers of the present day are pretty big on keeping the wrist much straighter. For me bending to the right is comfortable, and I am unaware that it hinders me in any way. But maybe it does. It doesn't provoke any excess tension. The biggest obstacle I had to overcome was to eliminate tension in the right arm in the traditional position. i learned to use only the weight of the arm to hold the guitar. My shoulders are level. The part of the lower bout below the waist of the bass side is pretty much parallel to the floor. My arm doesn't come as far toward the end of the guitar as yours does. My upper arm is pretty much parallel to the floor, I don't really recall that learning to bend the wrist took much effort. But it was a long time ago when I did, and I was struggling with the excess tension of holding the guitar, so maybe it was a fair amount of effort. Almost all the flamencos of today emulate Paco. Most of them have a blazling picado. The classical teachers advocate a much straighter wrist, and to play everything from exactly the same right hand position. (Few of them have a blazing picado.) In videos of Segovia's master classes you see students suffering terribly from excess tension, apparently from the bent wrist, among other causes. I vaguely remember seeing it among flamenco acquaintances of yesteryear. I wouldn't seriously advise anyone to develop the bent wrist technique. Sore muscles result from overuse or excess tension. I see where you might develop shoulder and neck problems from lifting the arm in the traditional position, as well as ulnar nerve issues stabilizing the guitar. Maybe if you went back to the Paco position, only with legs uncrossed, and a footstool under the right foot, as Paco and many others are doing nowadays? Since I am so tall ( 6' 4" = 193 cm), I need a footstool under the right foot, set at the lowest height, for the traditional position. This levels my shoulders, and lets me use just the weight of the right arm to hold the guitar. I've played this way for more than 30 years, with no apparent injury. However, I have played very little for the last five years or so, since an old motorcycle injury has pinched a nerve in my neck, somewhat numbing 3 and 4 on the left hand. I'm beginning to feel my age in a general loss of flexibility, so maybe my playing habits would have taken a toll in the last five years or so. A while back, I bent my neck in a slightly unusual way. I heard a crunching noise. I no longer felt the occasional really stabbing neck pains. The fingers quit getting number. I proposed to my brother, a retired physician, that I might have btoken off part of a bone spur in my neck. He didn't disagree. My brother knows a bit about bone spurs in the neck. In his early thirties he was head of the Flight Medicine Branch at the NASA Manned Space Flight Center. He grounded Deke Slayton for a bone spur in his neck. Writing their memoirs, the astronauts have been kind enough not to mention his name when grousing about the damned doctor who grounded their leader and father figure. I'm starting back to play a bit. It seems I may still have enough feeling in the left hand to manage it. I'm going to see how it goes. Good luck with your playing Ramzi. Nice alzapua. Even just demonstrating positions, the new guitar sounds great! Time to go practice... RNJ
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