a_arnold -> RE: Picado - Alternate fingers? (Apr. 22 2007 17:04:32)
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quote:
What worries me about what you are saying is that you feel a gap between playing slowly and playing fast when working on pieces. Actually, David, that's almost exactly what I didn't say. The point I was trying (in my admittedly incoherent way) to make, is that there's a discontinuity between fast and slow when learning the technique, NOT when working on learning new pieces. I already have the technique, and yes, I do learn new pieces the way you describe, but, again, I already have the technique. It's a mistake for a teacher to assume a student should learn a new technique the way an experienced guitarist learns new pieces that happen to use the same technique. There is a HUGE difference. And when I say I play faster than I can think, that doesn't mean I am ignoring mistakes and getting sloppy. It means I'm no longer thinking about what note comes next. It means I know the passage well enough that I am free to think about expression, emphasis, etc. My teacher used to call this "hand memory" vs "mind memory". He applied the concept to technique as well as to music. The more you commit to hand memory, the more your mind is freed to concentrate on other important stuff. Like expression. And picado is one of the techniques that is hard to get into hand memory. Think about tremolo. Another technique in which the notes come too fast for the player to think about each one. And SURELY you don't think about each note in tremolo. And yes, I know tremolo and picado are very different, and tremolo is easier to learn, but the principle is similar if not the same. Think back to your first halting attempts at tremolo. You got it quickly, and (if you're like me) it took much more time to get a clean fast picado run going, but in both, you had to get to the point where you didn't have to think about each note. To a point where the technique became natural. The point where it was committed to hand memory. But with picado, there is a PATH to that point that makes the passage easier: start with an easy run you can play cleanly and fast, and progress to fast and difficult. Don't start slow and difficult, and expect to increase speed until you can play fast and difficult passages. That way lies frustration. I suppose the absolute easiest picado is simple (clean, fast) alternation of a single note. Most students can learn that as quickly as they learn first-string tremolo. Quicker. And at that point they have the embryonic beginning of the technique. From that point, I maintain that taking that clean, already-fast picado and and increasing the difficulty of the passages is the most effective way to learn the technique. I certainly find it is the most effective way to teach it. In fact, the principle of increased difficulty also applies to learning tremolo -- it's just that there are fewer steps. Change to strings other than the first; fit in 3-note triplets (like in Tarrega's Recuerdos de la Alhambra bar 15). 4- note tremolo. quote:
Now this sounds a lot like that your ability breaks down at medium tempo No. A good teacher will guide students around that barrier. My ability broke down at some intermediate level of difficulty. Still does, because there are always challenges of difficulty. But NOT speed. Again, here you are focused on increasing speed until the technique breaks down, and ignoring the more productive path of increasing difficulty. I don't want to seem argumentative, here, but it seems to me you are thinking like an experienced player, not an experienced teacher. Either that or I'm not communicating very effectively. What you describe above is, again, exactly what I didn't do when I learned, and exactly what my teacher said was the worst way to learn the technique. For my teacher, for me, and for my students, learning fast picado is about avoiding exactly the speed-dependent breakdown you talk about. About going around that barrier rather than butting the head against it. I don't know how to say it any more clearly. To learn the technique, increase levels of difficulty, NOT levels of speed. As a progressing student, there was a level of DIFFICULTY where my ability broke down. To challenge me, my teacher always took me to that boundary. But speed? I (like you, I'm sure) was lightning fast at simple alternation of a single note from day one. And I doubt I've gotten much (if any) faster since. But now I can play far more difficult passages AS fast. Don't know if I made the point this time or not. Cheers, Tony Arnold
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