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MASTERING THE TREMOLO TECHNIQUE
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JBASHORUN
Posts: 1839
Joined: Jan. 23 2005
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 MASTERING THE TREMOLO TECHNIQUE
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Guys, I'm trying to master the tremolo technique but not having much luck. Apparently, my teacher says, it is something that just "clicks" maybe after a month, maybe after a year or two.
My problem is that I just can't build up enough speed. And when I do speed up, my plucks become unevenly timed, and my fingering starts to deteriorate. I find it easier to do the tremolo using Apoyando (or rest strokes), and can do it slightly faster with this method. I also find the double index pluck un-natural and wonder why it isn't played I-M-A-M instead.
The Graf Martinez book doesn't seem to mention tremolo at all. And whilst the Juan Serrano book has a couple of exercises, and says to use Tirando (or free strokes), it isn't that helpful either.
If anyone has any advice on what I can do to improve and speed up my technique, or exercises which will help, I would be very grateful. Thanks.
James
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Date May 1 2005 21:34:21
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gerundino63
Posts: 1743
Joined: Jul. 11 2003
From: The Netherlands
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RE: MASTERING THE TREMOLO TECHNIQUE (in reply to Ricardo)
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Hi James!
Count in bigger time span here, it take you a lot of time ( I mean, more than a year )
To get a clean tremolo.
The thing that really help, but is not fun to practice, is to practice tremolo on the b ( second) string.
So you train yourself to make the movement as small as possible.
Also, practice it without a guitar, on the side of the table, the stearingwheel, the remote control, the bar, etc. 
Peter
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Date May 1 2005 22:41:17
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gerundino63
Posts: 1743
Joined: Jul. 11 2003
From: The Netherlands
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RE: MASTERING THE TREMOLO TECHNIQUE (in reply to Ron.M)
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Hi Ron!
wonderfull piece! and indeed a splendid tremolo!
Ofcourse, everybody cooks his tortilla different, with clean tremolo, i mend to say, there is an even time between every note of the tremolo.
In my opinion, you have to learn that first, and play with it later, give it accents where you want, and even play with the even time between the notes. Like Gerrardo Nunez does.
You made me think though  , it is very good possible, to learn it "big" with wide movement first, and after that, make the movements smaller.
In fact, uncontious, i learned it the same way.
Peter
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Date May 2 2005 0:00:35
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Miguel de Maria
Posts: 3532
Joined: Oct. 20 2003
From: Phoenix, AZ
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RE: MASTERING THE TREMOLO TECHNIQUE (in reply to JBASHORUN)
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James,
if you've only been working on tremolo for a month, I wouldn't worry. It does take time to "click."
Your problem is not speed. If you can type in a telephone number before the phone hangs up, you have enough speed to do a tremolo. Let me share a few thoughts with you.
People think of the action of the fingers in different ways, a) sequentially, as in you play one finger, then you play another finger, and then you play another... or b) sympathetically, that the motions of the fingers are connected. Sympathetic movement is a little less intuitive, but paradoxically, much more common in our daily life. Observe your fingers as you grasp a mug, and you will see that the fingers work in concert. Another, more closely related motion is the act of drumming your fingers on the table, as in impatience. You will see the fingers moving in concert here as well.
The focus of most guitar instruction is on getting your fingers to move independently. However, I feel this can be misguided. the fingers don't want to move independently, and don't need to. In fact, moving them independently introduces tension into the hand.
If you put your thumb on the fourth string, a on the 1st, m on the 2nd, i on the third, and play them all togther, this is a block chord. Used a lot in classical and brazilian music. Now do the same thing, but stagger them very slightly. pami with a tiny delay between the notes. It will be something like a strum. If you can do this, you can make the mental leap to understand that a block chord is pami at infinite speed, and by SLOWING down the other fingers, you can play a pami arpeggio VERY QUICKLY. If you can agree with this assessment, then you will see that extremely fast speeds are available to you.
Of course, this speed, which is based on sympathetic movement, is only usable, paradoxically, by finger independence.
What does this have to do with tremolo? Put the p on the fourth string, the ami on the 1st string, and do the same thing. Play a block chord. Yes, use the ami to pluck the string. Now stagger teh attack, and you will get a very fast ami tremolo on that string. Finger speed is not required, and has no place here. It is control. You have to keep the feeling of playing a block chord, slightly modifying it.
The flamenco tremolo is obtained by adding to this paradigm. It works if you play pi, then ami. It is a compound stroke, thus more complex than the pami classical tremolo. You probably won't have any problems playing pi as fast as you want.
A lot of people will dismiss this technique out of hand, because it goes against everything that is commonly taught to guitarists. It gives results so easily and quickly that it feels like "cheating." You can play the tremolo as fast as you want the first time you do it! Contrast this with the way of teaching you should play one note at a time, very slowly, and build up to speed. This is a kind of "penance" that everyone should go through before they can play what they want, right?
Play using sympathetic motion, and once you have the feeling down, use all the other techniques--slowing down, one finger at a time, stacatto, changing the accents, to refine your control and your touch. But the essential motion is the block chord, which is really the same feeling of grabbing a cup. If you can keep this model of movement in your head when you play, you will play easily and without tension.
I hope you try it! :) It helped me so much.
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Date May 2 2005 17:36:19
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frhout
Posts: 453
Joined: Apr. 28 2005
From: France
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RE: MASTERING THE TREMOLO TECHNIQUE (in reply to JBASHORUN)
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JBASHORUN
You'll need to do it very slowly, tremolo is probably one of the easier techniques in flamenco. It will just come naturally but you must have the patience. A few things to remember, the "ami" fingers must not be too straight, they should be curved on the second joints, almost although not quite at a right angle as against the third joint.
Exercises
1. Just do the tremolos "piami" starting with Em chord with the three bass strings slowly but with some controlled strength on the fingers. Keep doing that.
2. You could then practise "piami, pmami, pamia, pmima" in free strokes.
3. Then, "pimai, pimai ..." in rest strokes.
4. Finally, go back to exercise 2 and do the same in rest strokes.
Of course, that's not all. Once you've done that, you can carry on doing the same with the second and third strings.
You can then try to play the Recuerdos de la Alhambra in the flamenco way. the beginning of this piece is the hardest.
I hope this helps.
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Date May 2 2005 20:29:17
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Ron.M
Posts: 7051
Joined: Jul. 7 2003
From: Scotland
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RE: MASTERING THE TREMOLO TECHNIQUE (in reply to Miguel de Maria)
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I would endorse much of what Mike has said myself.
I feel argegio/tremolo/rasgueado is a sort of "wave motion" and thinking of independant finger movements just complicates matters IMO.
(For example do you think of individual fingers when grabbing a chord with your left hand?)
I'd also like to go one step further though on this "even-ness" thing, though Ricardo probably will not agree! Anyway here's my theory....
Take a recording of any tremolo that you think you'd like to achieve.
Slow it down by one half...(this was easy in the days of 33&1/3 rpm and 16&2/3 rpm for LP's or 7&1/2 ips and 3&3/4 ips and 1 & 7/8 ips on tape, although you had to get used to thinking an octave above...these "slowdowner" things introduce a lot of hash and artefacts..but they are brand-new cool modern technology so they must be good LOL!)
Right...listen to the "rhythm" of the 4 finger strokes.
Yes...they actually do have a rhythm when played at slow speed, which proves they cannot be "even".
Even sounding beats have no rhythm...just timing.
You will find the sound is very different from playing 4 notes with the same finger or with a plectrum.
The tremolo has a distinctive "signature", which is counter-intuitive, since it sounds a bit uneven, but when played at full speed sounds the way you want it to sound.
Aim at reproducing this "flawed" signature and you will reproduce the same tremolo as the original.
It is also easier to do since you are now trying to copy the true human hand and not some pie-in-the-sky idea of what you think of as being "even" in an intellectual way.
Trying to aim at some sort of intangible "even-ness" will only complicate things IMO.
(By the way, like Mark, I too got fed up of the sound of tremolo so lost it, but it was very respectable once, using the above method.)
cheers
Ron
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Date May 2 2005 20:39:17
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Miguel de Maria
Posts: 3532
Joined: Oct. 20 2003
From: Phoenix, AZ
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RE: MASTERING THE TREMOLO TECHNIQUE (in reply to JBASHORUN)
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Patrick,
right on! It feels like cheating, doesn't it? It takes a leap of consciousness to realize that guitar playing is effortless for the great players. Some of these people seemed to achieve this effortless, facile playing almost from the beginning. When we put two and two together, we realize that the reason it is effortless for them is because they are doing it in a different way from us. (Incidentally, Jamie of Guitar Principles said this same thing, but I don't think he understands sympathetic movement himself...)
To make something harder than it has to be is perverse. Of course, to make it sound right, to play it on a professional level, you are going to have to put in the painstaking, detail-oriented work that you will hear people like David Russell, Manuel Barrueco, RichardM or Todd will mention. But I feel that is the process of refining, not the true essence of the stroke. One thing to mention is that a facile, easy way of playing may be the DEFAULT way these guys play guitar. That is, they may naturally, due to whatever factor, choose the way to play that is the most effective. Well, we could talk about this forever...
John,
I think you have a pretty good perspective of the various "takes" on this technique. I think of the flamenco tremolo as a two part, compound action. It might be good to do this pami first. Then you can do piami, or pimami, or pamiami, or whatever you like. There are no rules in music, as much as people will try to tell you otherwise!
My advice runs counter to much of what you will read, so take it with a grain of salt. It is counterintuitive to boot. But if what the average person thinks is right, then the average person would be a lot better player, wouldn't he?
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Date May 2 2005 23:58:21
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Ricardo
Posts: 14822
Joined: Dec. 14 2004
From: Washington DC
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RE: MASTERING THE TREMOLO TECHNIQUE (in reply to JBASHORUN)
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I agree w/ the wave motion/sympathetic speed motion of the fingers moving together as a team. But in addition to the movement, one has to get each finger planted on the string good to make a strong clear, round tone. (Listen to Nunez, Sanlucar, Scott Tenant. They dig in, making a good plant w/ each finger). Regardless if you can move fast and w/ the correct speed or rhythm you want, it is good to practice slow too so you can feel your finger planting good on the string. Playing staccato tremolo for just a few minutes, half speed or slower, will get you feelng a good grip on the string before you need to speed it up. Check out Pumping Nylon. Also Nunez has some inspiring tremolos and excercises for it in his DVD.
As far as "even" tremolos, well, yeah alot of them are uneven. In flamenco, often the bass notes change tempo too. I thought Pena's were particularily even 5's compared to most. With both tremolo, and 5 note rasgueo, I often feel the 2nd 8th note pulse, which should be lost in even 5's. The rhythm is often 2 16ths, followed by 3 16th note triplets, per beat. This sounds like a lop sided or uneven rhythm, because it is! But it is a legit "steady" rhythm none the less. (daka digady, daka digady). To me the most important thing, no matter how you stretch the time, is to make the tremolo notes lead into the thumb bass. So if I were doing a very slow trem for dance say, it would sound more like: Tah, taka taka Tah, taka taka Tah (8th, then 4 32nd notes).
Ricardo
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Date May 3 2005 3:52:36
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