Ricardo -> RE: Just starting out...!! (Dec. 12 2005 17:07:54)
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Moving chords fast enough to play a song, is a major hurtle to overcome for beginner guitarists, and teachers too. I require my stuents to at least know some chords before the first lesson, because you can spend forever learning how to change chords and never get to focus on rhythm and right hand techniques. But I HAVE taught people that did not know anychords, but it is tedious and takes a lot of patience. As far as finger pressure, you should not be gripping so tight that someone could not slap your hand gently off the neck. I had a student who's fingers were like iron grips. I could not even lift and move one of his fingers to the correct postion with out telling him to let go. In Pumping Nylon, he shows how to gradually apply pressure whlie plucking a string so you go from a muted "thunk" to a clear "bing". As soon as the note is clear, that is ALL the pressure you need to exert. But it takes time to feel this naturally, as you need to focus on ALL your fingers changing chords. What usually works for most techniques is to work on timing with the metronome. So let's say you just learned C,F, and G chords and need to work on changing them. Put the metronome on 60, play the C chord on the first click, then start to arrange your fingers for the F chord. Hopefully you will get it after 3 clicks have gone by and you strum on the next click, then get ready for G. You keep doing that until your fingers get used to the postitions and can make the jump faster. So you are strumming the chord on beat ONE, and use the time it takes to finger the next chord, during beats 2,3,4. When you find your self waiting for the next "one" click, you can try changing the chords every THREE clicks. C 2,3, F, 2,3, G, 2,3, etc. Then you can try every 2 clicks. When you are fast enough to change chords once every second (right on each click), go back to changing chords every 4 beats, but HOLD the chord (let it ring) until the last beat before you change. That is starting to get to what it feels like to change chords in rhythm to a song. When you cand do this, then you are ready to focus on right hand strumming techniques, the real fun of flamenco. Ricardo
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