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Ricardo -> RE: nail/flesh contact (Apr. 4 2019 10:33:41)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: 12850bd
All the time i have played guitar I have used short nails and planted deep to obtain a nail flesh tone. However the other day i read a post by someone talking about Antonio Rey's fantastic tone on the guitar. They had been to his workshop and this is the quote
" Just as a side remark - a bit off topic: I recently took part in a flamenco workshop given by Antonio Rey and Mahmoud Turkmani. When Rey explained how his picado works he showed us his nails and they were surprisingly short (far from the monster nails so many flamenco players prod themselves of) and he explained that he uses no flesh contact at all - pure nail. His picado is very full and substantial, nothing you would expect from nail only playing."
Do you think Antonio meant this literally? ....
Of course not.
The thing is there is a pocket where the string is gripped perfectly between nail and finger tip.... it’s the challenge to land that every time especially tremolo or fast arps, picado is easier. Most of us hit the skin too high up and the sliding toward the pocket results in a bunching up of the flesh and skimming the nail for a thinner sound than right in the pocket. It’s for this reason, most players including Paco de Lucía, use petroleum product or Vaseline on the tips, refreshing it by globing some on the heel of the neck. It’s a trick that helps but I found it collects dirt on the bass strings and too quickly kills them.
I assume Antonio refers to playing from that pocket vs catching the string first with flesh and sliding into the pocket.
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