Welcome to one of the most active flamenco sites on the Internet. Guests can read most posts but if you want to participate click here to register.
This site is dedicated to the memory of Paco de Lucía, Ron Mitchell, Guy Williams, Linda Elvira, Philip John Lee, Craig Eros, Ben Woods, David Serva and Tom Blackshear who went ahead of us.
We receive 12,200 visitors a month from 200 countries and 1.7 million page impressions a year. To advertise on this site please contact us.
back in the day when I had a hand I did ras ieami and then later when I got good at it, did eami in a continous roll. Was pretty good I might say. Now that I have limited motion in my index finger, Im trying to re-develop it. Now heres the question. I can get by with a ieami twice and then the finger goes spastic. I can do a eami down for a few reps, but dont have the development yet to keep it regular and strikes seperate and not enough dexterity to keep it up for only 3.4 repitions. I have done eami with p up and its not bad except that will fall apart as well and the p i freezes up becaue of the way the surgeon reconstructed the tendons. (dont ask) the question is if the ras is ieami or peami, does it really make a difference as far as sound etc. ? can you get by with either or is there such a difference in timber that the peami would be considered unacceptbale. I know flamenco is pretty wide open but just curious I guess. Dont want to spend my time practicing something and then someday someone tell me thats not right. yr opinions pls.
I'm glad Django Reinhardt didn't ask permission to change his left hand fingerings:-) In stead his alternative 2 finger approach became the new standard. Amount of strokes, direction of stokes, choice of fingering....it's all up to you. If you can manage the logistics involved and produce a flamenco sound/rhythm the flamenco police won't bother you. In fact i cant tell from a record which right hand finger is used with a 100% certainty....al maestro's have there own personal logics/habits and after studying them a lot you develop your own logics/habits. In your case you unfortunately have to adapt an alternative system, fitting your (in)possibilities. Assuming you know which sound to achieve your guitar/ears/fingers will tell you what is right for you and what not.
i stick to paipai/amii/eamii STARTING on the beat (soleares, ii is downstroke/upstroke) and i(up)eami ENDING on the beat (in fandangos/tangos/seguiriyas) quit a lot. On top i added some "unlearned" combinations that developed "the natural way". I can't tell you the exact strokes because i don't know myself and i can only play them full speed. All i know is that they sound well.
I'm with Erik, in an ideal world you should have 100 different rasgueados to use in 100 different places but it's not a necessity. If your limited by physical capability then it is what it is. Stay in compas and you should be good.
well im asking as i used to play with a guy and he was a perfectionist to the max, thats not right, play it like this, blah blah. couldnt make him happy no matter what i did. He taught me a lot but man you couldnt make him happy
Perfectionism and personal freedom does not exclude each other. I'm a perfectionist myself but i only reached my highest levels when i learned to combine the wisdom from the masters with the wisdom hidden in my DNA. Before i could (partly) understand/apply the wisdom of the masters i had to face numerous no's as well. I only personalized a relative small %, but that part is extremely important to become you. The better half of that personalized part is lifting you to even higher levels, the lesser half are just bad habits that somehow must/can't be improved. As long as you make sure the better half of your own input has the upper hand you'll be fine and you can consult yourself or a maestro to tackle the lesser half. Depending on your level/style/attitude (and that of the teacher) things can develop easy or less easy. Problem is that some of the better techniques might need mounts or even years of development/correcting before they pay of. Depending on the ambitions of the student you are stern or less stern. The Paco Peña school i have been through is probably one of the strictest of all. They helped me to develop a basic technique and to find my better me, but from the 11 students that started in my year only 4 stayed long enough to enter the final exams.
maybe p(up)eam rasg would be good or do p(up)am(down)p(down) I'm sure you don't need to do 5 stroke rasg. I've never played with a 5 stroke, no one has ever said I was wrong. My first teacher never used his e finger, and I've not seen my current teacher use it too. or maybe if you really wanna do a 5 stroke you can do p(up)am(down)p(down)p(up)m(down) sometthing like that?
but who cares, I think (not 100% sure) Toddk use use his m finger alot for up down strokes when he was playing with a pick, maybe you can develop that instead of using your i etc. just change it, make it work for you =)
Look, the "marote" triplet was developed just for people like you. You can use the triplet version for EVERYTHING, no joke, but there is actually a quadruplet verion, all of em just have your index sticking out un used.
p up, am (together) down, P down,.... repeat You can make any rhythm with that. Here some examples:
Gallop for tangos or sevillanas etc (always p is up, P is down). Tangos= P down with golpe, pause, p -am-P...p-am-P....p-am-P p, (1 &ah2,&ah3,&ah4 &,) Sevillana/fandango= P (golpe) p-am-P...p am P p (1&ah2&ah3 &) Famous triplets p am P, p am P, p am P, p..... (7&ah,8&ah,9&ah,10), starting up in buleria remates for example. Alegria solea por buleria= p am P p, am P p am, P i up i down etc -> (1e&ah,2e&ah, 3 &, etc...)
You just get it going at whatever spin you need start on any stroke you want, let it end up on whatever stroke it doesn't matter so long as you keep compas going before and after. It is super versitile.
Here is the quadruplet: p up, a down, m down, P down. YOu can involve e for 5 tuplets if you want in similar manner, never using index.
The big problem is the normal grooving usage for i (up and down) is super important and hard to avoid when playing compas. You can see vids of Nuñez since 2010 to see how he makes do with minimal usage. Lots of wrist just up and down instead. But for sure for fast stuff with rasgueado you can't do better then that marote abanico.
At 3:21, Paco Pena says he came up with a triplet ras, which looks like PAI. Was it Paco de Lucia who came up with this triplet rasgueao PAI or made it popular?
The one he describes and teaches in his Toques Flamencos book you should purchase.
I already bought it 2 years ago. Never opened it though. Now it's collecting dust. I don't see myself as intermediate or advanced player. But the time will come. I just looked inside the book. No wonder he uses pinky because it sounds brighter. Btw, I doubt I'm gonna master some old school technique in this book, particularly old school alzapua using index finger.
I read a few bits about necroposting. I didn't know it had a name. But I don't much like it.
Yeah stuff can be added or new ideas come up.
But some of this is unsettling and confusing. Open a thread and see some old member.I think oh wow xxxx is back...only to see the date is 15 years ago. 😂
I think as long as disagreement doesn't lead to an argument, everything is fine. I forgot to mention G. Nunez is a monster player. Glad he did this encuentro video.
Printable Version
New Messages
No New Messages
Hot Topic w/ New Messages
Hot Topic w/o New Messages
Locked w/ New Messages
Locked w/o New Messages
Post New Thread