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Ricardo -> RE: Thoughts on Ben Woods rasgueados (Nov. 12 2023 16:17:04)
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the first 2 that u discuss, that is the golpe and the accent part, I had the same thoughts that there would be some problem. Not sure why the 3rd one would be a problem. One would simply do i up , and then i m a down, and repeat.
The third one that is done extremely fast (twice the speed of Holy wars in some cases), there is a problem with the i up followed by i down stroke. The efficiency of the standard way comes from the fact the index is free to do a big sweep then upon retraction the a finger is already coming up, but i up does not need to do a full sweep. In order to do what you suggest, the i up will need to prepare the NEXT index down stroke as a full sweep and there simply is not enough TIME to go as fast as the other way. It can work fine of course for medium speed rolls of 16ths (like holy wars). Otherwise, the resultant preparation of i up i down will limit the sweep of the finger to only the treble strings and not have a good full sound. It would sound as “tinki-DUGAH, tinki-DUGAh” etc. rather than the traditional “tink-AHDUGAH, tink-ADUGAH”, etc.
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Barring these factors you pointed out, and considering economy and speed , do you think his are better? Do you think his speed can be matched by somebody who does them the traditional way?
Not sure what makes you concerned about superiority, however, no Ben does not come close to what most maestros have achieved with it as an expression. Because he is self taught, as others mentioned that do it BACKWARDS (lets be honest about what is going on), it must be considered a COMPROMISE, that despite the short comings, he and others have done quite well with it that there should be no complaints or serious criticism. But make no mistake it is an adaptation due to not having a mentor show the correct way…or perhaps simple access to video performance (which is how I first corrected my own misconceptions about the technique. I had developed a down and up stroke version with all fingers on my own with no teacher…like c-a-m-i all down, then a up m up i up, a down m down, i down….as triplets LOL).
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I also don't know why Ben why would prefer doing this way. He did say in an interview that initially when he didn't have a teacher and practiced from recordings, he got the idea of rasgueados was doing i m a c from only listening to the recordings. But after that, I'm not sure why he didn't switch back to the traditional way. Like he had obviously practiced deeply everything, why didn't he practice the traditonal rasgueados, did you guys ever discuss about this?
The answer to this is simple. He drilled the “wrong way” until he was satisfied with the sound. Practice does not make “perfect”. PRACTICE MAKES PERMANENT!!! It is much harder to UNLEARN old habits than to entrain new ones from scratch. I have a heck of a time getting seasoned classical players to rest the thumb opposite arpegios and tremolos vs an absolute beginner learning for the first time with no entrained biases.
I know Ben is your hero, and I greatly respect all his work and love him like a brother. But I can’t in good conscience promote for a student to learn the “wrong” rasgueado technique just because he and a few others found success with it.
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