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Practice it very, very slowly. If you have a metronome put it on 60 and do one stroke per beat. Make sure each note sounds clearly. You should be thinking mostly about eliminating tension, as tension is the number one problem in most technical matters. Do that for awhile, and slowly increase speed. There are other things, but do this for a few weeks and then come back and we can work on that. Okay? See you in a couple of weeks!
Hi Rick, Best advise I can offer is to be mindful of your index finger, I mean when you play your tremolo, be aware of what it is doing and make sure it is doing the right thing. Might sound daft but my experience is that this didget is the key, the other fingers will follow along quite nicely. Hope it makes sence to you and helps. Cheers Jim.
I can't play tremelo but I can say that my teacher in Granada had a devil of one and he says "start slooooowwwly, work for power and consistency then the speed will come",. In Spanish of course, and they have all the time in the World
Rick, I took your email address out of the subject and changed it to Tremelo. Members can email you without knowing your address from here and, like Monty Python, we have plenty of Spam!
The most important thing to develop in playing Tremolo is evenness. There is an exercise on my web site for that purpose. After you are able to play with an even tempo you can increase speed.
Actually I found apayondo with the thumb extremley difficult, it tends to create a break after the fourth stroke of the fingers, and the volume of the bass seems too loud, but I think the rest stroke should only be gentle. Billy
The reason for the rest stroke is to have the melody line played by the pulgar sound louder then the tremolo on the treble strings. However, I also like to use free stroke with the pulgar to make the tremolo softer. If you have a teacher the chances are you will have no choice! You will use rest stroke!
The question must be 'where is the melody?', because this is the line that needs to be prominent.
I've heard tremolo in flamenco where the main melody is in the bass and the tremolo is really the accompaniment, as Tom says, so it makes sense for a bass rest stroke.
But on the other hand, there are plenty of examples where the melody line is clearly the tremolo and the bass is merely an accompaniment, like the (usual) classical guitar tremolo, so a softer touch on the bass makes much more sense from a musical perspective (mind you, dogma seems to outweigh musical considerations sometimes in flamenco...)
Jon, you can either lighten up on the bass or crank it up on the treble strings. This can be done and is very appropriate in flamenco. If you want to have a good tremolo, playing the trebles at a high volume is part of the package. It's very possible, although there is a trick to it.
My experience is different. I am 61 and have been listening to flamenco since I was 4. I would say that at least 95% of what I have heard uses a melody line in the Tremolo. Well, that may just be me.
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