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RE: Elite Guitarist - Flamenco Track (in reply to rombsix)
I subscribed last week just so I could check out the Antonio Rey content. My thoughts are somewhat mixed.
Antonio teaches mostly exercises and a few falsetas por Bulerias and Algerias. Then there are some short “performances” of him playing parts of his pieces. Material is good, But don’t expect a lot of tips or explanation, he just plays. It’s a lot like the Encuentro series. There are no transcriptions of the material that I have seen so far. And the videos are broken down into short 1-2min segments which an introduction at the beginning. So it gets very annoying quick. Also I found some video and audio out of sync.
Posts: 1953
Joined: Jul. 12 2004
From: San Francisco
RE: Elite Guitarist - Flamenco Track (in reply to JasonM)
I'm on an Antonio kick after seeing his concert. Between tabsflamenco's transcriptions, which are very reasonably priced, and the great youtube vids that can be slowed down, it's obvious what he's doing. Doing it the way he does it is another story.
quote:
ORIGINAL: JasonM
I subscribed last week just so I could check out the Antonio Rey content. My thoughts are somewhat mixed.
Antonio teaches mostly exercises and a few falsetas por Bulerias and Algerias. Then there are some short “performances” of him playing parts of his pieces. Material is good, But don’t expect a lot of tips or explanation, he just plays. It’s a lot like the Encuentro series. There are no transcriptions of the material that I have seen so far. And the videos are broken down into short 1-2min segments which an introduction at the beginning. So it gets very annoying quick. Also I found some video and audio out of sync.
RE: Elite Guitarist - Flamenco Track (in reply to Mark2)
quote:
Between tabsflamenco's transcriptions, which are very reasonably priced, and the great youtube vids that can be slowed down, it's obvious what he's doing. Doing it the way he does it is another story.
I agree what he plays is straight forward. Not having a transcript isn’t an issue when you can slow things down or loop parts. But you can’t do that with these videos - it’s more like going back to the old cassette days. Stop ,rewind, play, stop, rewind, play. This takes more time to learn and hence gets you to extend your subscription time!
RE: Elite Guitarist - Flamenco Track (in reply to rombsix)
Looks like it's way more expensive than other bigger and thorough plataforms as it is tonebase (for an example) for little content with short duration, no speed control and no tab/sheet.
RE: Elite Guitarist - Flamenco Track (in reply to rombsix)
One thing I picked up from these videos is regarding Pulgar. Antonio talks about practicing Pulgar and alzapua without using the wrist. Although I don’t understand him thoroughly because my Spanish is not the best. I’ve noticed him doing this before in performance and I assume you can get much faster without using the wrist. You can see him play the same exercise (and picado) from a video a while back.
RE: Elite Guitarist - Flamenco Track (in reply to Guest)
I don’t trust my Spanish but looking at the first two Pulgar videos he says “Solo Pulgar” and he anchors his fingers on the high e string. They don’t leave the high e string like they would if he rotated his wrist.
For the Alzapua I see where he says don’t use a lot of force while he’s shaking his wrist. And he doesn’t use much of any
Posts: 15318
Joined: Dec. 14 2004
From: Washington DC
RE: Elite Guitarist - Flamenco Track (in reply to JasonM)
To be clear, movement from thumb joint, wrist, and entire arm are used depending on the situation, sometimes more than just one. The wrist action is a little counterintuitive for students, it has to have a bouncy feeling at times and the angle of attack is important, so it gets over emphasized as a thing to practice or focus on. Another detail of alzapua that is missed is as the speed increases, the up stroke gets less and less wide so the chord voicing changes. You may do a full A chord slower, but at fast tempos the up stroke might only catch one or two strings like the 3rd or 4th string, as you tighten and focus the wrist motion.
RE: Elite Guitarist - Flamenco Track (in reply to Ricardo)
regarding pulgar.. at least three pros on their lessons have said that the power/attack comes from wrist .. Gerardo Nunez, Oscar Herrero and now Antonio Rey. So, I am pretty sure Antonio Rey did not say that by mistake. That said, Antonio Rey does look like using his thumb joint alot ( clear view in https://youtu.be/UKvtOWYtpS0?t=129 and https://youtu.be/UKvtOWYtpS0?t=142 ). But probably thumb joint getting used is because of general philosophy of keeping hand relaxed and let other joints (not used for power) flex if they want to. probably in certain situations, deliberately using thumb joint is necessary when you are anchoring. see next.
another topic is whether to anchor or not (i.e. anchoring one or more RH fingers at sound board or 1st string) . it "looks" like everyone anchors most of the time but in reality the advice I hear is to not anchor most of the time and what looks like anchoring is really not.
Ricardo has said many words of wisdom on foro and here is what I dug from the past.
Summary: Anchoring is sometimes OK. Ricardo: --- "Often times you do golpes (ring or ring and middle) along with your pulgar to emphasize certain notes percussively. After the golpe you can keep your fingers on the board sort of as an "anchor" but it really depends on how you are attacking the strings. This works only if you are moving just the thumb. (Watch parilla and m. Morao for example). If you are doing something that requires your wrist to move or even your arm to move, then anchoring is not possible. --- Ref: http://www.foroflamenco.com/tm.asp?m=93538&appid=&p=&mpage=1&key=pulgar%2Canchor&tmode=&smode=&s=#94395
Summary: It might look like that people always anchor but it is ...well ... complicated. Ricardo: --- Simply put, there are MANY different ways it can be done so you need a wide sampling.
Here at 5:04 the index appears to "dangle" or tickle the first or second string, but it is not being used other than to be in position for the ending arpegio where we finally hear those strings played, they are dangling sympathetically due to the wrist movement:
Here 10:18 again we see the fingers close to the strings dangling (a bit lower as pulgar is on 3 and 4th strings) but not touching/playing them as wrist is being used to drive thumb:
THere will be many different orientations of the technique and the fingers might end up anchored to a string in preparation for USE, so you end up with a complex mix of pulgar/index/alzapua all at once.....it will depend on the specific falseta. Here is one at :55 is a mix of stuff, there are a couple up strokes with P that make it alzapua at times, you can notice the index keeps out of the way but touching the 1st string at times but not ever "anchored". http://youtu.be/fe8-P3Weiuc --- Ref: http://www.foroflamenco.com/tm.asp?m=283275&appid=&p=&mpage=1&key=&tmode=&smode=&s=#283275
Also, all of the above Maestros mentioned above have practiced thousands of hours and they can play brilliantly without following any of the "rules" , if there are any :)
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Joined: Dec. 14 2004
From: Washington DC
RE: Elite Guitarist - Flamenco Track (in reply to himanshu.g)
Cool, I love it when I don’t have to dig to find my old posts, thanks!
Those video links seem to have expired sadly. When used for educational purposes it’s really frustrating Aspect of the double edged sword called “youtube”.
RE: Elite Guitarist - Flamenco Track (in reply to himanshu.g)
quote:
Also, all of the above Maestros mentioned above have practiced thousands of hours and they can play brilliantly without following any of the "rules" , if there are any :)
I think, there are only one "rule" after all. Play comfortable, with sound good and clear. (Ok, maybe it's more than a single one...) And how you achieve it... anchoring or not, planting or not, use your wrist or use your thumb... your picado is im or am, your rasgueado is with a or with am or whatever... how you sitting, how you hold your guitar...
If it's sounds good and it's sound clear, and it's comfortable to play that is a perfect technique - for the one who's playing.
Of course, there are some rule of thumbs, what works more or less for the majority of us. But we are not the same anatomically, different fingers, different nails... we aren't using the same guitar with the same strings, and so on... There are many, many variations. And so there are many perfect techniques.
RE: Elite Guitarist - Flamenco Track (in reply to Ricardo)
quote:
ORIGINAL: Ricardo Those video links seem to have expired sadly. When used for educational purposes it’s really frustrating Aspect of the double edged sword called “youtube”.
I found one in the web archive; the one this comment is about: "Here at 5:04 the index appears to "dangle" or tickle the first or second string, but it is not being used other than to be in position for the ending arpegio where we finally hear those strings played, they are dangling sympathetically due to the wrist movement:"
(You have to copy and paste the entire link in a browser (had to do it this way to avoid the foro software sending to youtube directly, which results in "video not available")
The video is "Paco de Lucia - Solea (HQ from TVI London); Paco de Lucia - Solea (High Quality from TVI-London-1976). It is a mix of "Plaza Alta" and "Cuando Canta El Gallo" ", and is 5:16 long, so the reference at 5:04 is almost at the end.
The second video has not been archived, unfortunately.
The third video seems to have a month worth of daily archived copies, but any I clicked on said it is not archived. However, one can at least see what it was:
"Paco de Lucia - Bulerias.wmv; La Guitarra flamenca de Paco de Lucia, Bulerias. Add-on recording Constantin Sharoudin, St.Peterbourg, Russia"
I feel like I've seen that name "bulerias.wmv" on a PdL video but cannot find it at the moment.
RE: Elite Guitarist - Flamenco Track (in reply to himanshu.g)
quote:
regarding pulgar.. at least three pros on their lessons have said that the power/attack comes from wrist .. Gerardo Nunez, Oscar Herrero and now Antonio Rey. So, I am pretty sure Antonio Rey did not say that by mistake. That said, Antonio Rey does look like using his thumb joint alot (
Having now watched this a couple of times, I’m almost positive that Antonio is intentionally NOT using his wrist for the Pulgar exercise. It just doesn’t rotate - only to bring the thumb up if any. He also states in the accending/descending exercise “just the thumb, not the whole hand. That is another exercise”. So I do t think he is saying this is how Pulgar is to be played all the time. My view is that you could probably accend strings faster this way than rotating the wrist and hitting the strings like a piano hammer does
RE: Elite Guitarist - Flamenco Track (in reply to JasonM)
quote:
ORIGINAL: JasonM Having now watched this a couple of times, I’m almost positive that Antonio is intentionally NOT using his wrist for the Pulgar exercise. [...] So I do t think he is saying this is how Pulgar is to be played all the time.
Well, even if he is saying this, I would not take it literally. It might have worked exceptionally well for him, but that does not mean it would for all.
Pros use both approaches as needed (or for other reasons - comfort - emphasis..).
As far as which one is faster for alzapua - it should be the wrist approach.
While the thumb trajectory is probably slightly different between thumb-only and wrist rotation, the main advantage of the wrist rotation I can think of is that you have a much longer "thumb", so that you get to move less from the wrist to trace the same span of trajectory; and because of that, you can also go back and forth more easily and likely faster.
Also, intense and fast thumb-only work (without wrist rotation) may irritate the sheaths of the extensor policis brevis and the abductor policis longus tendons; essentially getting something like De Quervain syndrome.
Posts: 15318
Joined: Dec. 14 2004
From: Washington DC
RE: Elite Guitarist - Flamenco Track (in reply to JasonM)
quote:
ORIGINAL: JasonM
quote:
regarding pulgar.. at least three pros on their lessons have said that the power/attack comes from wrist .. Gerardo Nunez, Oscar Herrero and now Antonio Rey. So, I am pretty sure Antonio Rey did not say that by mistake. That said, Antonio Rey does look like using his thumb joint alot (
Having now watched this a couple of times, I’m almost positive that Antonio is intentionally NOT using his wrist for the Pulgar exercise. It just doesn’t rotate - only to bring the thumb up if any. He also states in the accending/descending exercise “just the thumb, not the whole hand. That is another exercise”. So I do t think he is saying this is how Pulgar is to be played all the time. My view is that you could probably accend strings faster this way than rotating the wrist and hitting the strings like a piano hammer does
He was doing pulgar on adjacent strings. It’s like the ppi thing minus the “i”. This tech requires thumb joint only. In fact anything doing down ward motion even an ascending scale, with pulgar requires thumb joint falling action. If you play a descending scale or simply a group of notes on one bass string alone, you must (read as “should because that is what they are advocating however you can still do it thumb only, but it’s not cool”) engage the wrist action.
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RE: Elite Guitarist - Flamenco Track (in reply to rombsix)
if you look at oud players, their motion comes exclusively from the wrist due to the fact that they play with a reesha. it's kind of like pulgar, albeit the difference in hand position. and these dudes get mad speeds. also I believe if you play pulgar/alzapua with the finger only and without/with little wrist motion you might f*ck up your thumb joint very quickly, which is in itself quite a sensitive joint.
RE: Elite Guitarist - Flamenco Track (in reply to jalalkun)
Friends, not trying to be a smartass here, but what everyone calls movement "from the wrist" is not really a wrist motion. It's in fact pronation/supination of the forearm. There is minimal, if any, actual flexion/extension/abduction/adduction of the wrist joint per se.
RE: Elite Guitarist - Flamenco Track (in reply to rombsix)
quote:
ORIGINAL: rombsix
Friends, not trying to be a smartass here, but what everyone calls movement "from the wrist" is not really a wrist motion. It's in fact pronation/supination of the forearm.
Smartass! It is a wrist motion - of rotation around the long axis of the forearm, thus of the whole forearm+wrist+hand from the elbow. Talking about the rotating wrist is a reference of focus, not of exclusion of other parts moving as well. But yes, good clarification.
Also when we talk about finger motion, we are referring to flexors and extensors in the forearm and some little guys in the hand itself (ok a bit unfair comparison)
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RE: Elite Guitarist - Flamenco Track (in reply to kitarist)
Now that we're pronating and supinating, I'll mention a different aspect of the Elite Guitarist site.
Watching Kai Narezo on a different channel, I decided my rasgueados might profit from modernization. Narezo demonstrated by resting the right thumb parallel to the soundboard, distal joint flexed, on the upper side of the sixth string, and flicking the fingers against the thumb. Sounded pretty good.
When I tried it the way Narezo did it, it didn't work. My right thumbnail rested on the string, not the flesh of the right thumb, and it made the whole setup unstable.
My thumbs are about twice as broad as Narezo's, so the right nail needs to be longer than his.
On Elite Guitiarist, Jose Tanaka teaches rasgueado. He demonstrates the way Narezo does it, then says, "Don't do that. Do this." He pronates a little further, hooks his thumb between the string and the sound board, and flicks. I tried that. It worked for me. It lifts the fingers a little bit so they don't catch on "upstrokes."
(Pronation: Hold you hand with the palm inward, parallel to your belly.. Rotate the upper arm so the thumb goes closer to your belly. That's pronation, supination is the other way. The term refers to the direction of rotation, not the starting position.)
I've got a ways to go before I get back up to speed on bulerias, but I feel like it's going to work--and sound better.
Trouble is, Sabicas and Niño Ricardo are starting to sound a little mushy.
The Tanaka video is a free sample. I haven't signed up for the $30/month deal.
RE: Elite Guitarist - Flamenco Track (in reply to Richard Jernigan)
quote:
ORIGINAL: Richard Jernigan
(Pronation: Hold you hand with the palm inward, parallel to your belly.. Rotate the upper arm so the thumb goes closer to your belly. That's pronation, supination is the other way.
My little trick is to think of supination being the one where you rotate your forearm so that one can pour 'soup' into the palm (the supinated hand being the "bowl" which receives the soup) Sort of a homophone-based memory aid.
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(ok a bit unfair comparison) 
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