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Posts: 3532
Joined: Oct. 20 2003
From: Phoenix, AZ
The picado bible!
Flo, Henrik, over at Flamenco-world they are selling some kind of "flamenco scale book" with lots of "flamenco scales" played by great players such as Paco de Lucia and Manolo Sanlucar. I think there are 47 of them! I'm not sure what that means, but at least this undervalued and beautiful technique is finally receiving some attention from guitarists!
wow thats enteresting !!! i have been saying for years that stuff like this and modes and chords substuitutions are covered very litlle in flamenco.
I would love to see a indepth book of modern flamenco playing with all the modern scales, chords, substitutes etc..
thanks miguel i will try and get my hands on 1, hope is worth it.
I have kind of compiled my own book of scales for each palo out of all the books and tab i have, everytime i saw a good picado scale in any palo i saved it to this book, so whenever i wanna practice scales i just open this book up. I have hundreds of cool scales.
what would a picado book do?...for some im sure it´s a great idea. maybe good for finding ideas when your stuck.. or just a source of inspiration as well.
im sure Ron will buy a copy ....NOT
Henrik el crap
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This is hard stuff! Don't give up... And don't make it a race. Enjoy the ray of sunshine that comes with every new step in knowledge.
I dont know what would a picado book do but mibe we shouldnt be in a hurry to dismiss it, i mean this is a step in the right direction rather than every other flamenco instructional book looking the same. I like the idea of indepth book just for 1 technique. It might not be the best book but it might be the start of a great trend.
Florian. Its not that i don´t like the idea. But id rather have a book of exercises in picado and not "known "picados by diffrent guitarists But maybe this book got a mix of both?? i havent had a chance to take a look at it.
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This is hard stuff! Don't give up... And don't make it a race. Enjoy the ray of sunshine that comes with every new step in knowledge.
I like the idea of focusing on one technique. But there are uncountable flamenco methods that cover ALL techniques, and cost less
What does the book tell you on picado?
The notes/tabs? Get them from the internet for free. How to do a picado? With feeling and alot of practice No, seriously; other methods also describe how the motion "should" be.
But I dont want to prejudice either. Its just that I cant think of any way this book could help me, which I didnt get from other, cheaper resources
To tell you the truth, I put this up more as a joke... who knows, maybe it could help. Sounds like a source of information even if it's just a bunch of picado falsetas transcribed. If you really want to learn picado, in my opinion, you would be better served picking those out by ear.
It reminds me of the flamenco version of "100 Neo-classical Sweep Picking Runs!" or something silly like that.
Picado frustrates me because if I don't practise it at least an hour a day it's nothing special and I lose the speed really fast if I stop practising it regularly. Now I mostly use it for nice little melodies and take my time with the runs...
John, what's interesting is that really great players say the opposite--that picado is easy and other techniques are harder to maintain. For example, Grisha and Paco de Lucia said that...so did ToddK (although Todd's mechanism is different enough that I'm not sure it's applicable).
There must be something very different about how they approach it or use their fingers...
Yeah, that is weird. It could also be that my expectations are too high of myself because I always compare myself to the real pros. Of course I can't do everything as quickly as Paco or Vicente because they're just TOO FAST! Few can. Alzapua and tremolo for some odd reason just always seem to work, although I always have to practise to stay warm on my arpeggios, picado I've always had to do a lot for
I'd love to hear what other pros have to say about it. Grisha, Ricardo, Todd, could you comment?
Hi I got that book, like all the books or almost on flamenco. The approach of this one is simple: all the scales are made in one skill:to go from down (1rst)to up (6th)string you cross with index and to go from up(6th) to down (1rst)you play with medium so you avoid to cross the fingers. The theory is good but you cannot use that on every solo, it s a big work for the left hand..but the 2 warm up exercices are interesting and you can improve you velocity by avoiding crossing the fingers. You can memorize some patterns in a lot of toque..Then you will see that the crossing is easiest and you will not even notice it.
I am not sure I buy that comment Paco made about his picado being the easiest technique. I mean I read his remark too, I am just saying, I never saw him mess up with rasgueados, or tremolo, or arpeggio that I can think of. Maybe he missed a note in pulgar once or twice, usually alzapua is on. But I have video proof and remember seeing him in concert missing notes in the picado, dozens of times. If it is so easy, why would we notice those mistakes?
The reason is, IT IS NOT EASY, IT IS DAMN HARD! Perhaps he means there is not much special coordination in the technique like there is with the others. But the thing is, to simply drive your fingers into the string and alternate, it is hard to keep up the stamina or whatever. Like it is easy to run vs dance, but how fast and how long can you run vs dancing all night?
I agree, I think it is hard, but I just wonder what the coincidence is that Paco, Grisha, and Todd all made a point to say that it was an easy technique (hope I am not misquoting anyone). You know me, trying to put things together theoretically--what is the overarching reason that they would think it is easy? Is it a matter of posture (haha!), or something about their approach that can be copied?
But still the more I think about it, the harder it seems. I have seen Paco fluff notes, and let's be honest, if you see a "semi-virtuoso" in concert, how often can he pull off a long, hard, fast run completely clean? I don't know if I have ever seen a non-pick player do it!
What other technique requires such repeated precision, coordination, and stamina...?
I don´t why but i just thought it was bad. It´s not the speed cause i got a LP with a guitar duo playing this tune at this speed and it´s good so it´s not about the speed. i don´t know..i just didn´t like it.
I did how ever like his look. im gona look like this when im 55-65 ish I promise you all im gona have a Paco harid do when im 60
PS i think the bumblebee is a very good classical tune.
_____________________________
This is hard stuff! Don't give up... And don't make it a race. Enjoy the ray of sunshine that comes with every new step in knowledge.
I think it was his tone that was annoying, like he wasn't really pressing down hard enough to get clean. Not that I blame him. His facial expressions were distracting to me.
OWEH OWE WOW. THAT WAS SO SO FUNnY MAN I had a bad day but that old guy playing flight of the bumble just killed me man, my eyes are watering so bad I can bareley type.
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May we find God through Flamenco instead of Angels and Demons
As you all know, I'm not a fast picado merchant, but here's some of my thoughts on this..
For a start, I think a lot of you give yourselves a very hard time over your picado playing. From the uploads I hear, the picado is usually around at the same standard as the rest of the playing. Not so unusual if you think about it.. huh?
Paco and the rest of the lightning picado players have fantastic picado precision and speed ...but ALL their other techniques are at virtuoso level too.
I have never heard any Flamenco guitarist play fantastic lightning picado but mediocre rasgueado, alzapua, rhythm or compás.
So I don't think you should compare that one single technique alone to the standards of the greats and then give yourself a hard time because you can't approach that yet.
Some other speculation here...
Kids don't tend to analyze so much as adults, but just do what they are told.
A lot of the great fast picado players seem to have been pretty fast in their teens as well. Could this be because they didn't "experiment" with different positions etc but simply practised what they were told, whether it felt awkward or not? Especially if they had a strict teacher, say like Paco's dad? So after time it didn't feel awkward anymore, it felt natural. That is, 10 years of practicing picado exactly the same way maybe gives better results than 10 years practicising, but "modifying" attack angles, hand positions, finger movements every six months?
Could this be because they didn't "experiment" with different positions etc but simply practised what they were told, whether it felt awkward or not?
Ron I also thought about that one, how it could be having started guitar early as child and stuff. Well first, there is simple biology! You learn faster, because the regeneration of neuron cells is much faster. That is one big point, and every child has this ability, if its not ill. Another thing is, children are better able to copy things. They watch someone doing something and are better able to adapt their own actions to it. It seems to work. But if it doesnt, why should someone *not* experiment? Experimenting is just the way to find the best solution by checking out all possibilities. And without trying you wont know if something is better or not.
quote:
I have never heard any Flamenco guitarist play fantastic lightning picado but mediocre rasgueado, alzapua, rhythm or compás.
I think this is just because somebody who wanna play seriously flamenco he or she will be motivated enough to learn that things, coz their very fundamental. If I practice my whole life long only picado, then I will only be able to play picado, thats it. The same goes for my tremolo; Ive never done any practice, and so does my tremolo sound (but I will start it... sometime)
A lot of the great fast picado players seem to have been pretty fast in their teens as well
I think most fanatics (me too) spend hours a day of their teenage years practising flashy things like picado. Recently I watched a video of me age 19 playing Asturias at about 250bpm with such an amazing precision that I could only dream about today. I had more time then than I do now.
I'm sure Paco doesn't practise 4 hours a day anymore either. He's not as fast as he used to be either, but he doesn't need to be since his style has matured to such a degree and he doesn't have to prove anything anymore. He's the man. It's like as a young man you're shooting whiskey, as you mature you start sipping it. And you notice if you catch him in concert when he's just not in the mood to play - I had that with his last concert...
Printable Version
(but I will start it... sometime) 
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