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Is your picado stuck? Tired of playing the same little scales for months on end without any real progress? I've seen it happen to a lot of people, myself included. This is what Entri gives to advanced students who have the time to burn and are really serious about technique.
Here's a bit secret of the flamenco world: Paco, Gerardo etc are not born with crazy technique. They do **** like this. And they have to keep doing it, to maintain their level.
What you see below is the equivalent to a high intensity, power-set-overload workout designed to get you over a plateau of picado. It will feel awkward as hell at first. It will burn out the muscles in your forearm. Over time it will feel like nothing and arpeggios, tremolo and picado will roll out of your right hand with so little effort you will wonder why it ever seemed so hard.
But it's probably gonna take you at least 2 hours if you've never done it before. You probably won't get through the whole thing; work up to it. I did it every day for a long ass time (and I did it with both I & M and M & A picado). The first time I did the whole thing at once, it was like an awakening. Now I do the same basic thing, but over time I got to do it faster and faster, so now I added a bunch more things to it. ____________________________________________________________________________
Four patterns: one note per string (and two on 1st string), three notes climbing, three notes even, five notes even. Do each of the patterns for each of Entri's 3 chord groups. And here's something ESSENTIAL: Alternate between TIRANDO and PULSANDO. Tirando is "free stroke", pulsando is "rest stroke" or "normal picado". Do the exercise first with tirando, then pulsando. The tirando helps your fingers relax and recover. Entri says Sabicas, Paco etc practice this way.
CHORD GROUP 1 One note per string, tirando. One note per string, pulsando. CHORD GROUP 2 One note per string, tirando. One note per string, pulsando. ETC
Do that with all four patterns. It's around 14,000 notes
Then there is the two string alternation exercise, ****, that's a whole other thing. Feel the awkwardness? Good... that means you found something you need to work on.
Remember: ALWAYS ALTERNATE YOUR TWO FINGERS. There is never any point in any of these exercises where you repeat a finger.
It's a lot of info, I'm probably just gonna have to make a video explaining it. OK, I'm gonna go do this myself now.
Images are resized automatically to a maximum width of 800px
_____________________________
Sometimes music is all you got in this world. Why do I create music? Because there was a time when I had nothing, and music kept me alive.
Posts: 33
Joined: Oct. 24 2008
From: New England, USia
RE: Hardcore picado exercises (not f... (in reply to guitarristamadrid)
This is an interesting idea, alternating tirando & pulsando technique as a way of resting. As far as practicing until my forearm burns away, I think I'll go about it more gently myself. Effort is very much a good thing, but overtraining is very real and rest is of the utmost importance to long term development.
In weightlifting, there are those that prefer to split the muscle groups and really attack one each day until it's completely exhausted. Then that group is given the rest of the week off to rest and fully repair. Then there are those who do more full-body oriented workouts, employing exercises that involve multiple muscle groups and training with effort yes, but not to failure/complete muscle fatigue ... more effort than last time is the goal each workout. With my guitar practice I definitely embrace the latter philosophy.
As you say, this sort of flamenco workout regimen is intended for the advanced player, and by my understanding is for those that feel that they have a deficiency of flamenco technique in this particular area of picado that needs express correcting. If ones ability at picado is roughly the same as their ability with other key techniques, then I feel it would be best to dedicate much more time to playing songs that utilize the full range of fundamental techniques, and thereby maintain that balance in ones playing.
To be clear, I fully intend to give this a try today. I only mean to encourage patience, balance and safety among us passionate players. This may be the kind of thing I would practice all out maybe once a month, with abbreviated versions once a week, and basic picado warmup every day =]
RE: Hardcore picado exercises (not f... (in reply to jonc)
Hi Jonc, Yeah, make it work for you. If you do this with both I & M, and also M & A, you will find that it improves your arpeggios and tremolos as much as it does your picado. The reason is that we are used to working I & M a lot for picado, so they end up being stronger and more independent than M & A working together. Then, because arpeggios (and tremolo) use MA just as much as IM, your arpeggios suffer as force is not distributed equally throughout the hand.
I do this as my basic two hour warm up before I play anything else, and I find it is extremely effective in relaxing and loosening up the hand, the key to speed and power.
Even if you just do the first two patterns with the 3 chord groups (one note per string and climbing 3 notes), that will warm you up very fast and it only takes 20 - 30 minutes.
The funny thing is that I can practice arpeggios all day long, and at the end of the day my arpeggios won't be as good as if I just do this for 2 - 3 hours, and then start arpeggios. That's why I make this the basis for all my guitar warm up. As strange as it seems, it basically improves all my techniques at once, even my rasgeos. My theory is that it comes from relaxing the hand so effectively, because this exercise is so repetitive and forces constant finger alternation.
_____________________________
Sometimes music is all you got in this world. Why do I create music? Because there was a time when I had nothing, and music kept me alive.
Posts: 33
Joined: Oct. 24 2008
From: New England, USia
RE: Hardcore picado exercises (not f... (in reply to guitarristamadrid)
I think that the transition from rest to free strokes is probably one of the more evasive techniques to perfect, and a significant source of tension.
I practice alternating im and ia, and very rarely play ma picado runs. My middle and ring finger (and pinky for that matter) move somewhat sympathetic to one another, and it begins to feel uncomfortable stressing ma alternation. I remember recently there was a discussion about this (vicente's pinky jutting straight out, etc). What is your experience with this issue?
RE: Hardcore picado exercises (not f... (in reply to jonc)
thanks guitarrista great exercices! i think this needs a motivation beer before beginning i'm sure that this exercices will heavily improve tremolo and arpeggio too!
RE: Hardcore picado exercises (not f... (in reply to jonc)
quote:
My middle and ring finger (and pinky for that matter) move somewhat sympathetic to one another, and it begins to feel uncomfortable stressing ma alternation.
This is exactly what I'm talking about. This is a problem that many guitarists have. A huge problem. Why? Because in
-Rasgeos -Arpeggios -Tremolo
your M and A fingers must be able to work independently and be relaxed and strong while doing so. Otherwise, these techniques are going to blur together and produce a hideous SHRUM sound instead of nice clear articulation. This will also throw you out of compas.
Why does this happen? Because we're used to working I and M independently, from day one. We do that all the time, and almost never practice it with M and A. No wonder it feels strange to us.
Look at our left hand. Can you use M and A independently in chords? Can you play 0 2 3 2 0 2 3 0 2 3 2 0 2 0 3 on any string? I bet you can. Why? Cause we are used to practicing independent motion with those fingers on our left hand. When you are typing on your keyboard, can you move M and A independently? Of course you can.
Whatever you practice, is what you can do.
And we actually practice NOT to be able to move M and A independently on our right hand while playing the guitar.
My answer to this is to work tirando and pulsando with MA all the time, just as much as I work it with IM. YES, it will feel weird and uncomfortable at first. Why? Because you aren't used to it. The very fact that it feels uncomfortable is like a big arrow pointing to the technique saying you need to work on this until it feels comfortable.
After I did these exercises continually for a few months, my M and A fingers could move incredibly independently, and it ceased to feel uncomfortable. In fact, it felt as normal as I and M. I could play a faster and cleaner picado with M and A than most people could play with I and M. And each note in my arpeggios and tremolo sounded very distinct and clear.
Of course, to maintain that level, you must do it every day. It does gradually accumulate over time. In order to reach your previous high, it will take less and less effort, and new highs will be found.
_____________________________
Sometimes music is all you got in this world. Why do I create music? Because there was a time when I had nothing, and music kept me alive.
RE: Hardcore picado exercises (not f... (in reply to mezzo)
Yeah rasgeos go great with all this, because they are extension to complement the flexion. After all this flexion the contrary muscle group will be really charged up with power when you hit the rasgeos.
As far as injury, yeah I just work it to the point where my body really tells me "no more" and then I forget about technique for a while, and focus on compositional ideas, like I did recently when I created that stuff on my myspace
I think your body has a perfect natural intelligence, and you must trust it to tell you when to stop. This works better than any artificial system
_____________________________
Sometimes music is all you got in this world. Why do I create music? Because there was a time when I had nothing, and music kept me alive.
RE: Hardcore picado exercises (not f... (in reply to guitarristamadrid)
Thanks for taking the time to do this.
I've been shown similar exercises before but not with the concepts you explained along side like the tirando, then pulsando. And how these exercises can develop arpeggio.
Even if these exercises aren't totally new to me, those Caño roto players are obviously putting them to better use than I have. I'm inspired to get to work!
RE: Hardcore picado exercises (not f... (in reply to orsonw)
thank you brother guitarristamadrid, i cant tell you how much i appreciate this amigo...i dream of those Entry clases and through your generosity you putting right there
quote:
Is your picado stuck? Tired of playing the same little scales for months on end without any real progress?
why do u sound like a late night american informacial
RE: Hardcore picado exercises (not f... (in reply to guitarristamadrid)
ok back .. thank you again for this exercise I've never thought before of improving my M-A technique most of the time I do Picado with I-M or I-A but now I have a new approach to work on .
quote:
It's a lot of info, I'm probably just gonna have to make a video explaining it. OK, I'm gonna go do this myself now.
yes I wish you do this .. because some points of your explanation still kinda mysterious/un-understandable to me ( for sure thank you so much for the explanation ) .
RE: Hardcore picado exercises (not f... (in reply to St33)
Apparently he never posted the promised "current-ability" videos, and then he got banned for basically trying hard to offend everyone :-)
I just read through some of his old posts and seriously doubt the picado exercises he posted as images would have lived up to the hype. But yes, I would like to see them if anyone keeps the images he posted.
Posts: 15242
Joined: Dec. 14 2004
From: Washington DC
RE: Hardcore picado exercises (not f... (in reply to kitarist)
Oh yeah this guy! . Basic scale exercises and fingering exercises most classical guitarist books have. This kid emphasized playing hard and had a bad sound even though he was kind of fast. At the end of the day, despite his arrogance, I might have defending him at some point because I felt he was doing good stuff and trying to share and be helpful in spite of himself. He sent me a nice message and friend request at facebook after getting banned and blocked by this board. A few weeks in my news feed revealed this kid posting up nude pictures of his girlfriend and ultimately himself and finally his account was deleted. Very strange and disturbed individual.
RE: Hardcore picado exercises (not f... (in reply to Ricardo)
quote:
ORIGINAL: Ricardo
A few weeks in my news feed revealed this kid posting up nude pictures of his girlfriend and ultimately himself and finally his account was deleted. Very strange and disturbed individual.
Posts: 1945
Joined: Jul. 12 2004
From: San Francisco
RE: Hardcore picado exercises (not f... (in reply to Ricardo)
Well I can see how the pursuit of picado mastery could drive someone insane so I guess I'm not surprised.
quote:
ORIGINAL: Ricardo
Oh yeah this guy! . Basic scale exercises and fingering exercises most classical guitarist books have. This kid emphasized playing hard and had a bad sound even though he was kind of fast. At the end of the day, despite his arrogance, I might have defending him at some point because I felt he was doing good stuff and trying to share and be helpful in spite of himself. He sent me a nice message and friend request at facebook after getting banned and blocked by this board. A few weeks in my news feed revealed this kid posting up nude pictures of his girlfriend and ultimately himself and finally his account was deleted. Very strange and disturbed individual.
RE: Hardcore picado exercises (not f... (in reply to guitarristamadrid)
Good morning,
Could you be so kind to help me to find exercises for Picado and Arpeggio from El Entri (Cańo Roto). I would like to find Tabs about these two techniques from El Entri.
RE: Hardcore picado exercises (not f... (in reply to guitarristamadrid)
Weren’t there a bunch of stuff like this in Scott Tennant’s book ‘Pumping Nylon’? Emphasis was on mixing up string crossings with scales and a piece of a Bach violin sonata.
RE: Hardcore picado exercises (not f... (in reply to Namibia W123)
quote:
Good morning,
Could you be so kind to help me to find exercises for Picado and Arpeggio from El Entri (Cańo Roto). I would like to find Tabs about these two techniques from El Entri.
Thank you very much for your help.
Best regards,
Frederico ( Namibia W123).
Group 2 is Villa-Lobos Estudio 1 chords, group 3 is from Manolo Sanlucar.
Images are resized automatically to a maximum width of 800px
RE: Hardcore picado exercises (not f... (in reply to Namibia W123)
quote:
Good morning,
Could you be so kind to help me to find exercises for Picado and Arpeggio from El Entri (Cańo Roto). I would like to find Tabs about these two techniques from El Entri.
Thank you very much for your help.
Best regards,
Frederico ( Namibia W123).
this is nearly all the stuff I've got that I saved from when it was first posted to the foro. There is one other document I have. It was saved as a .bmp file, which won't upload. I changed it to .jpg but it's too big. It shows double arpegio pimami applied to the first chord group, so you have all the info already really, but if anyone can advise me on how to post the last doc I will have a go. Also a sheet of anecdotes I will post on another thread. Here: http://www.foroflamenco.com/tm.asp?m=345758&appid=&p=&mpage=2&key=&tmode=1&smode=1&s=#346143
Images are resized automatically to a maximum width of 800px
RE: Hardcore picado exercises (not f... (in reply to mark indigo)
quote:
There is one other document I have. It was saved as a .bmp file, which won't upload. I changed it to .jpg but it's too big.[..] but if anyone can advise me on how to post the last doc I will have a go.
You can upload the jpg or bmp to google Drive or to Dropbox and share the link here.
OR
You can do that and send me the link in a PM instead, and I can reduce the size by a combination of saving a jpg with a slightly lower quality and/or reducing its size in pixels, and post the result here.
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