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I was just reading through the "Ruben Diaz must stop" thread and on page 1 was struck by a technique point in the Antonio Rey video. He pushes his thumb down SO HARD!!! The E string is brought into contact with the A. What does he gain from putting that much tension into his thumb?
RE: Picado technique of Antonio Reyes (in reply to Bliblablub)
Is it really more stable? It looks like it adds more movement into his hand position, you might suspect extra movement could cause accuracy problems if he wasn't so great. Perhaps it is to "improve" (what ever that is) his attack angle on the higher strings??? Perhaps more attractive for smaller hands, but no time right now to check his hand size.
RE: Picado technique of Antonio Reyes (in reply to Dudnote)
Lots of flamenco players rest the thumb on the low E for different techniques. I dont think there's any point in reading way into it. They do it because it works for them. Antonio does not have a great picado because he rests his thumb on the low E string. It just happens that he does it.
Try it, if it feels right, do it. If it doesnt work for you, dont do it.
i dont think there's a "correct" or "incorrect" in this case.
Posts: 15725
Joined: Dec. 14 2004
From: Washington DC
RE: Picado technique of Antonio Reyes (in reply to Dudnote)
quote:
ORIGINAL: Dudnote
I was just reading through the "Ruben Diaz must stop" thread and on page 1 was struck by a technique point in the Antonio Reyes video. He pushes his thumb down SO HARD!!! The E string is brought into contact with the A. What does he gain from putting that much tension into his thumb?
depending on scale length of the guitar and position of fingers for tone, and where you push with thumb, the string may bend more or less. Meaning, if the scale length is shorter and the thumb is closer to the soundhole, the string will necessarily give more than if the thumb and hand is closer to the bridge and the guitar is longer scale. Hope that makes sense.
RE: Picado technique of Antonio Reyes (in reply to Ricardo)
Thanks guys for your answers.
@Toddk my question was not about resting on E but pushing through to rest on A. What alarmed me was the amount of effort and force put in to resting that thumb.
@Ricardo - yeah makes sense, even if at first it seems counter intuitive. Your saying short scale length equates to more floppiness / easier bending of strings.
@Toddk - I have a hard enough time getting my fingers to do what I want with picado with a resting thumb that ain't pushing, so I'm pretty sure pushing my thumb around isn't going to be the key that unlocks the door.
RE: Picado technique of Antonio Reyes (in reply to Guest)
quote:
ORIGINAL: encanto I've seen respected players do picado with the "i" and "a" fingers, which I personally find remarkably inconvenient. Then someone pointed to me some anatomical reasons why this can theoretically work better than regular "i", "m" picado.
Interesting one this. Yes, theoretically there are some good reasons for an IA picado - like a lot of people my I and A are about the same length but M is much longer. Also I and A tend to be more independent - AII rasgueado is a lot more popular than MII
Strange you don't see it more often. Perhaps the difference in tone (A will be nearer the bridge and brighter) is the reason.
Who are the respected players you mention? I can think of one perhaps 'not-so-respected' guitarist who did IA picado, and several examples of it being demonstrated (Nunez Encuentro I think is one?) but I am struggling to name players who's default is IA.
RE: Picado technique of Antonio Reyes (in reply to Blondie#2)
quote:
Who are the respected players you mention? I can think of one perhaps 'not-so-respected' guitarist who did IA picado, and several examples of it being demonstrated (Nunez Encuentro I think is one?) but I am struggling to name players who's default is IA.
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Joined: Oct. 20 2003
From: Phoenix, AZ
RE: Picado technique of Antonio Rey (in reply to Dudnote)
I find that i and a do not interfere with each other, whereas my i and m sometimes trip each other up. Also, my m tends to tense when I'm playing out of control, whereas the a cheerfully goes along with whatever I ask! However, the m is stronger and gets a better tone.
RE: Picado technique of Antonio Rey (in reply to Dudnote)
quote:
ORIGINAL: Dudnote
I was just reading through the "Ruben Diaz must stop" thread and on page 1 was struck by a technique point in the Antonio Rey video. He pushes his thumb down SO HARD!!! The E string is brought into contact with the A. What does he gain from putting that much tension into his thumb?
Maybe he finds it adds security to his right hand. However, about 6 months ago I came across a comment by Ruben Diaz in one of his videos stating that Paco had told him that when practicing picado you should never anchor the thumb - it should be free of the strings. I've been doing this since then and it has improved things a lot. And I believe it's easy to see why: the fingers need to get used to traversing the strings quickly - especially in the most difficult direction, which is low e to high e. Anchoring the thumb prevents the fingers from doing this freely on their own. Once the technique is mastered (after x number of years!) then you can anchor the thumb - since the fingers are already trained. This is for Paco's type of picado with the flat wrist - so perhaps not applicable for the straight finger method.
RE: Picado technique of Antonio Rey (in reply to HolyEvil)
quote:
ORIGINAL: HolyEvil Has anyone done successfully done picado using M and A?
Does it work?
I recently started doing all my picado exercises with im, ma and ia. ma is definitely my weaker, but it has improved quite a bit.
Does it work? Depends how much you work at it
One disadvantage of any picado that uses A is that it is useful to keep A free to play a strong rest stroke at the start of any arpeggio that immediately follows a picado. What do IA advocates do here? You'd have to learn to do MIM downward arpeggios to compensate right? Not sure it would be worth it myself.
Posts: 3532
Joined: Oct. 20 2003
From: Phoenix, AZ
RE: Picado technique of Antonio Rey (in reply to Dudnote)
I had a classical guitar teacher who used ma since his i had developed some sort of dystonia. He could play relatively nimbly with it, maybe sixteenths and 120 bpm. Weirdly, when I started out, I liked to play scale passages with ma because I hated the tone from my i finger.
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