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RE: Right hand Pinky / Little finger (in reply to rombsix)
quote:
a finger, whereas the i and m are already naturally strong and they work out with many other techniques too. So my conclusion would be to stick to a-i picado.
I agree!! and OLE to Ramzi, great work!! happy to see that happening!
@elie: ana badzakar enu el arrpeggios ta3eenak kteer bijaneno ! sho rayak bil kalam el kanou b7hkoulieh 3an el arpeggios tab3eini?
RE: Right hand Pinky / Little finger (in reply to kudo)
newbie to the forum here, though not to the flamenco guitar, with a follow-up question that probably gets me flamed immediately...
Is it alright to plant my pinky on the golpeador when I'm playing arpeggios ?
I never really had any problem with learning arpeggio technique when I started since I used to play Scruggs banjo before that, which is basically all various pim arpeggios so just had to bring my 'a' in, but banjo technique is to have your pinky and ring finger anchored on the head near the bridge.
I can definitely confirm that anchoring like this is a disaster for most flamenco techniques so have deliberately unlearned it, but for arpeggios and for other falseta passages that have active thumb and fingers (eg octave double-stops, but not tremolo or picado) I find that even though I can play them without anchoring I actually prefer to do so - it feels more natural and lets me play quicker and with more accuracy, but doesn't seem to get in the way of anything else. It seems more efficient than trying to re-anchor the thumb after playing a thumb-stroke too.
Is it a bad habit I should work to get rid of, or can I accept it and just go with it ?
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RE: Right hand Pinky / Little finger (in reply to glowingturnip)
Yeah I reckon that's a bad one. Can't see any benefit that outweighs the negatives. Your thumb should be balancing you.
I know everyone's different but unless you have some particular deformity/hand issue, I don't see why you wouldn't be able to achieve the control and balance required without using the pinky.
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Joined: Dec. 14 2004
From: Washington DC
RE: Right hand Pinky / Little finger (in reply to glowingturnip)
quote:
Is it a bad habit I should work to get rid of, or can I accept it and just go with it ?
As long as it’s not substituting for apoyando pulgar, should be Ok. Also, can you do golpe when it’s anchored? Maybe you lift up on the next to last stroke which I guess is fine too. But you say not for tremolo, which is the exact same tech as arpegio honestly.
RE: Right hand Pinky / Little finger (in reply to Ricardo)
probably a few clues in that to be honest - no I can't do it with tremolo, I find my hand starts cramping up after more than a couple of bars if I try to, so I'm tremoloing using either an apoyando thumb or floating, and no, I can't do more than a token golpe with the finger down, but as you say I will have usually lifted off again by the time a golpe is required.
RE: Right hand Pinky / Little finger (in reply to glowingturnip)
I gave it a try and it's not comfortable at all for me. It unnecessarily strains my a-finger movements. But if it works for you, why not. I'd be curious what your hand position looks like though, the larger question being whether with that hand position you're able to produce a good tone or not.
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RE: Right hand Pinky / Little finger (in reply to Piwin)
tone-wise it's probably better at the moment with it down, just because I can hit those strings more confidently, knowing where they are, as it were. I don't think my hand position varies at all from the 'basic' position with the exception of that finger either.
It's a funny one - in the banjo world (scruggs) you're supposed to have both a and s planted, but so many can't manage it and have to go for one or the other. I could do both, maybe my fingers are relatively independent from each other
RE: Right hand Pinky / Little finger (in reply to glowingturnip)
Makes sense. I was just wondering because personally I have to turn my wrist slightly outward to get my pinky to rest on the wood. In my normal position the flesh barely reaches the wood.
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"Anything you do can be fixed. What you cannot fix is the perfection of a blank page. What you cannot fix is that pristine, unsullied whiteness of a screen or a page with nothing on it—because there’s nothing there to fix."
RE: Right hand Pinky / Little finger (in reply to glowingturnip)
quote:
It's a funny one - in the banjo world (scruggs) you're supposed to have both a and s planted, but so many can't manage it and have to go for one or the other. I could do both, maybe my fingers are relatively independent from each other
The banjo hand setup seems very different from classical/flamenco guitar. I can see why it would be easy to rest your s (and a) fingers in that position, especially with the finger implements making the thumb play nowhere near the strings. It is a much more supinated position compared to guitar (meaning wrist rotated so thumb away from, and pinky into, the strings.
Without the implements on the guitar your wrist should pronate back for the thumb to be able to stroke without getting into the im fingers, and so that a m and i can have more equal access and leverage to play their strings for arpeggios etc.
Once you do that repositioning of your hand, trying to keep that and have the pinky anchored is putting more strain on you hand/tendons as now the excursion of [m and of] a away from pinky is larger than in banjo.
This is important because the m, a, and pinky (marked as 'c' below) are somewhat interconnected, sharing tendon structures; a and s especially, but also m and a. This is unlike p and i which have their independent flexors and extensors and tendon structures. For this reason a standard recommendation in a classical guitar technique context for 'what to do with pinky' is that it should naturally/passively follow its 'a' neighbour as a moves about.
Where I am going with this is that insisting on keeping s (pinky) anchored in the new guitaristic hand position puts more strain on your hand because of the hand's anatomical features (or is it 'bugs'?). Not only are you restricted somewhat in playing various flamenco techniques, but you also run the risk of hand health problems down the line.
So I think, on the balance of it, I agree with Stu completely that the cons outweigh the pros.
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RE: Right hand Pinky / Little finger (in reply to kitarist)
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ORIGINAL: kitarist Without the implements on the guitar your wrist should pronate back for the thumb to be able to stroke without getting into the im fingers, and so that a m and i can have more equal access and leverage to play their strings for arpeggios etc.
yes, I think I see what you mean, and actually that's it - with my pinkie anchored, my i and p are actually in a line with each other, and even meet if I do say a 4321 roll. If I rotate more to get the thumb a bit more forward then, yes, it does become an uncomfortable position with the pinkie down. I shall drop it.
Another thing about the banjo that you will all definitely hate is that it's considered common practice to have your left hand thumb sticking up like a, err, sore thumb, so that you can be ready to wrap it over and fret your 5th string with it ! I never could bring myself to play like that.
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RE: Right hand Pinky / Little finger (in reply to Andy Culpepper)
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ORIGINAL: Andy Culpepper
Or you're one of these gals
Indeed. This is Mme Sidney Pratten (Catharina Josepha Pratten), famous19th-century guitarist and teacher. To be fair, this is a parlour guitar Italian style, nut width 44-45mm, scale around 625mm, significantly smaller/narrower than today's guitars.
She had a published method: http://digital.riam.ie/H41/h_41.pdf wherein she advocated anchoring with the little finger; it is even on her diagram on p.44 which is meant to show good positions of the fingertips
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RE: Right hand Pinky / Little finger (in reply to kitarist)
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Catharina Josepha Pratten
Everyone knows anchoring little finger while doing arpeggio is bad. Never heard of this madam from the 19th century. LoL! These oval marks look like vulva or a lipstick mark.
RE: Right hand Pinky / Little finger (in reply to rombsix)
I started developing independent movement of my right hand fingers. Finger movement comes from the big knuckle as usual.
I practice arpeggio and tremolo this way. My ring finger plucks the string fully independently from index and middle finger and almost independently from the pinky (at least when I play slowly or at a moderate tempo). My ring finger is relaxed immediately after that and comes back to its initial position on its own instead of curling into the palm. What I noticed was my pinky sticks out a bit as a result particularly in arpeggio. So my pinky looks similar when you play picado. When I increase the tempo my pinky follows ring finger a bit though.
In the last few days I've felt a pain or a strange sensation through my palm, wrist and forearm a few times. I can locate it. I guess it's because of my ring finger and pinky. What's happening there? Should I keep practicing this way?