AndresK -> Paco's advice to Jeronimo (Dec. 15 2025 21:48:52)
Back at 2018 Jeronimo Maya posted a photo of him as a kid with Paco de Lucia with the following comment:
"El Maestro Paco nunca me llamo por mi nombre siempre me decía Chulo,siempre lo entendi como un halago!..Chulo!Toca siempre la mita de lento que estas pensando!Esta frase me ha acompañao durante toda mi vida!GRACIAS MAESTRO!"
Is the advice to play at half the speed he thinks he should? (you can also comment on the chulo[:D] )
One could assume that another meaning could be "Play half the speed your brain is able to think your movements ahead" , but that does not make much sense in all scenarios. I think Paco probably saw very young enthusiastic Jeronimo sometimes rushing through very hard virtuoso pieces at very high speeds and just wanted to encourage a bit more refined clean sound or something like that. Jeronimo nowadays is one of my favorites. Very unique Player.
Don't forget the dynamics, tone, timing and everything that you do at normal tempo. If you think this is boring, play this game: imagine that you are in incredible shape and are, in fact, playing very fast, but your mind is so powerful, that you perceive everything slow. And now that's your chance to get everything perfectly, technically and musically.
Is the advice to play at half the speed he thinks he should?
My interpretation of that is a clever way to say, don't let your fingers rule you, aka, don't let muscle memory dominate the music. You should know very well in advance what your fingers are going to do. To be frank, that ties in to the other thing I said recently about picado speed. Paco can verbalize it at the speed he wants, meaning it is very much grounded in his musical brain what the sound should be. The fingers just do what his brain wants. You can tell sloppy players that are not really understanding each note the fingers just running on the instrument only semi controlled. Yes it might mean slowing things down a bit, but that is not his main point I feel. Don't surpass the speed of your understanding of the music.
