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Can’t seem to get any speed with this one. It’s at the start of a siguiriyas by Sabicas. Any tips to play it correctly and build speed please? I have been playing it slowly, as relaxed as possible and accurately with a metronome for a week, and have only increased speed a small amount. It seems hard to do without tension.
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Posts: 1967
Joined: Jul. 12 2004
From: San Francisco
RE: This Rasgueado is difficult for ... (in reply to silddx)
Slow and steady wins the race. Having said that, it's an unusual move to follow a down stroke with the index with a downstroke of the pinky. For me at least. So here are my comments: 1. Did he really do it that way? 2. You could change it to amii(first three strokes are down, i is up), which is more common 3. You could also do sami, all down, which is an old style, also difficult 4. You could explore other patterns.
I'm sure you know that different players have their favorite ways of doing rasueados, and can be difficult to have the same facility in a lot of different ones. I guess it comes down to how bad you want this particular one.
Long time ago Chuscales showed me a 13 stroke one for sig, and it is great but I never took the time to master it to the point where I actually used it.
s a m i i a m i i a m i i d d d du d d du d d d i
Just tried it again for the first time in years, maybe I'll work it and see
RE: This Rasgueado is difficult for ... (in reply to Mark2)
quote:
Long time ago Chuscales showed me a 13 stroke one for sig, and it is great but I never took the time to master it to the point where I actually used it.
s a m i i a m i i a m i i d d d du d d du d d d i
Interesting, I'll have a try.
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The early bird catches the worm. But the second mouse gets the cheese.
Posts: 3462
Joined: Jan. 20 2004
From: Austin, Texas USA
RE: This Rasgueado is difficult for ... (in reply to silddx)
I can't say whether Sabicas actually used isam in Duelo de Campanas, but I watched him up close several times at after-hours juergas at the club Zambra in New York City.
He regularly used isam, also sami. Sabicas' playing was generally very slightly less vigorous than Paco de Lucia's, though with a little more nuance of tone, dynamics and tempo.
it was more common in the 1960s and '70s than nowadays. Most players I knew developed a pinky stroke as strong as the other three fingers. I attribute lack of pinky rasgueado strokes to Paco, though it may have originated with somebody else.
RE: This Rasgueado is difficult for ... (in reply to Richard Jernigan)
Thank you, Richard.
Perhaps obviously, it's the i to s I can't get up to speed, especially after a sequence of isam. It's an issue of preparing the sam fingers quickly enough after the i.
_____________________________
The early bird catches the worm. But the second mouse gets the cheese.
Posts: 1967
Joined: Jul. 12 2004
From: San Francisco
RE: This Rasgueado is difficult for ... (in reply to silddx)
After hearing the recording I think the best way to achieve that sound would be amii-all down except the last stroke. But maybe you can do it the way it's notated. Juan de la Mata was a great guitarist-maybe that's the way HE did it, or as Richard pointed out, maybe Sabicas did it that way too.
Posts: 292
Joined: May 3 2017
From: Iraq, living in Germany
RE: This Rasgueado is difficult for ... (in reply to silddx)
I would suggest: learn Sabica's rasgueo. It's like a SAMI rasgueo just starting at I, with the last I being an up stroke, rest is all down strokes. remember to always hit with one finger only at EVERY BEAT and retracting every other finger right away after every hit. also try to practice I and S down strokes only, to make the rasgueo nice and fluid without interruptions.
this is a great rasgueo to train general elasticity in the hand and independence for every finger while also getting a feeling for the compás. you could also use this rasgueo in soleá for example, when you put a golpe on the last down stroke I for one bar. if I hadn't had shoulder surgery 4 weeks ago I would've recorded a little video for you to illustrate better 😂
I used to practice rasgueos on my pants, on my playstation controller, on tables, all day. it would never only be on the guitar. stay on it and fight through the frustration
RE: This Rasgueado is difficult for ... (in reply to silddx)
It's not isami. It's samii. Don't look at the transcription. You have audio example. Just play the 1st bar and the 1st half of the 2nd bar as a 5 note continious rasgueado samiisami. The last i in sami part is obviously a downstroke and the 1st note of the 2nd bar.
Posts: 292
Joined: May 3 2017
From: Iraq, living in Germany
RE: This Rasgueado is difficult for ... (in reply to devilhand)
you really think you could differenciate what kind of rasgueo sabicas used just through hearing?? or that sabicas cared on what finger he started the rasgueo with? 😂 this man had machine gun fingers of nearly equal strength and did all sorts of extremely elaborate rasgueo patterns. he could literally make you a drumroll rasgueo with isami.
Posts: 15413
Joined: Dec. 14 2004
From: Washington DC
RE: This Rasgueado is difficult for ... (in reply to silddx)
Learn both. The first one is wrong, but now that I work with Mel Bay, I suspect Juan Serrano is responsible for the influence of the first version you shared up top. The "s" is for "short finger", which is English. "e" was used by Edward Freeman in Texas, and others I assume, and means "extender". P for "pinky" is no good as it overlaps with "pulgar". M for muñeque, neither. "ch" was in a Japanese book, for "Chiquito". "c" is ok alternative Not great either. I would love to promote the use of "§" but I doubt it will catch on. . I was asked to use "s" to avoid confusion with Vol 1 by Serrano. Regardless, no need to make a big deal since it only matters in rasgueado where it is obvious what is going on.
Anyway search videos of Juan Serrano demonstrating the thing slow. (see below). He had it better than anybody (it is tricky to get power out of the pinky with no preparation) to great effect. Similar to Cepero using iami for everything super fast, it is sort of one dimensional when there could be more variety. But worth developing just in case you want to use it. I can do it, but abandoned it long ago. The trick is just getting that index pinky, index pinky, both down, very well timed. It IS useful if you want to say roll only on bass strings with no up strokes breaking the flow.
The second correct version comes from Montoya's famous siguiryas and I show it in the Formative Works book. PDL used in Celosa Soleá and the Fandango (I have tutorial on that as well, Paco tutorial 7), and is super effective as the lack of need of a double stroke at the end with index, means you can do this pattern super fast in bulerias.
Paco did not abandon pinky rasguedo and still used them up till death. La Barrosa the most obvious but many others. My teacher Nuñez is one of the few that know that deliberate NEVER uses pinky, as he explains in Encuentro, for not good reason.
Here, 3:16, note that he does NOT hit the high E string at all.
RE: This Rasgueado is difficult for ... (in reply to silddx)
quote:
Can’t seem to get any speed with this one. It’s at the start of a siguiriyas by Sabicas. Any tips to play it correctly and build speed please? I have been playing it slowly, as relaxed as possible and accurately with a metronome for a week, and have only increased speed a small amount. It seems hard to do without tension.
I thought Sabicas used cami all down (i have used c for chiquito too long to change now), but could be he used icam, so next index downstroke falls on the beat following the rajeo as in this example... there is video of Sabicas on YT so you can check if you really want to dig into his playing...
otherwise, as others have already said, you can just substitute the more common amii (down, down, down, up) or cami icami ii (cam all down, i down then up).
If I wanted that specific rajeo bad enough I would probably use one of the other substitutes I can already play at speed and practise the specific all down stroke one separately until I could use it in situ.
The trick with any continuous rajeo is always to get the fingers back in the hand - that's true (I think) whether you use amii, camii, cami or icam. I think I am flexing c a m back into palm when i is playing downstroke [extending] - I'm pretty sure I practised like that when I learned it.
The other thing to bear in mind is that ANY transcription not written by the composer (and Saba didn't read or write music or tab AFAIK) is necessarily an interpretation, so there is no compulsion to follow it exactly. I believe Juan de la Mata played with Sabicas, so that carries a fair weight of authenticity, but it's still Juan de la Mata's INTERPRETATION. When I was learning some of Bronce gitano and Campiña Andaluza I remember various details were different/wrong between the original recording and book.
RE: This Rasgueado is difficult for ... (in reply to Ricardo)
quote:
The "s" is for "short finger", which is English. "e" was used by Edward Freeman in Texas, and others I assume, and means "extender". P for "pinky" is no good as it overlaps with "pulgar". M for muñeque, neither. "ch" was in a Japanese book, for "Chiquito". "c" is ok alternative Not great either. I would love to promote the use of "§" but I doubt it will catch on.
I mostly use q for pinky. Can't remember where that comes from. Any idea?
Posts: 15413
Joined: Dec. 14 2004
From: Washington DC
RE: This Rasgueado is difficult for ... (in reply to devilhand)
quote:
ORIGINAL: devilhand
quote:
you really think you could differenciate what kind of rasgueo sabicas used just through hearing??
Yes. In youtube audio example the 5th note is an upstroke. One can clearly hear Sabicas hitting treble strings. Ras upstroke sound usually stands out.
The most sabio comment to ever come out of you devil. Congratulations!!
The first of those two videos Mark Indigo posted, suggests a full concert that this was extracted from. Sabicas clearly uses the i up stroke with the pinky, again it is from Montoya. He got it from ear supposedly which is impressive to me. (unless he was as gifted as Devilhand now is, in his youth! )
Anyway jokes aside, if anyone can find that full concert it would be great.
Posts: 15413
Joined: Dec. 14 2004
From: Washington DC
RE: This Rasgueado is difficult for ... (in reply to Stu)
quote:
That 1st ras pattern looks utterly impossible.
Welcome to America!! (we are exposed to strange smaller aspects of flamenco, Carlos Montoya stuff, Serrano, Diego del Gastor etc., and given a wrong impression about what is NORMAL coming out of Spain, and other Europeans don't have this issue). Well, just watch the video I posted above Juan shows how he did it. As far as I can tell, he invented it IMO. It is not as hard as it looks, but as you see he changes to catch the first string when he speeds up so that the index extends. That is harder than the version he shows slow, but it gets you the idea.
Jaun acts as if this thing is NORMAL, the way it is done in Spain, etc., and it is likely 100% unique to him alone. However he set up a program in Fresno California where you can get a DEGREE in flamenco guitar, and full curriculum with classical too etc. and guess how you have to do a rasgueado????
EDIT:come to think of it, maybe sabicas does this when he rolls up and down the neck? Gonna check. ok no...looks like 5 tuplets with 10 notes each time the note in chord changes.
Posts: 2770
Joined: Jan. 30 2007
From: London (the South of it), England
RE: This Rasgueado is difficult for ... (in reply to silddx)
quote:
Or perhaps I should stop being so hidebound
I think this is valuable
It's noble to want to reproduce/ play a thing the exact way is played or notated. (But not really in a flamenco sense)
I don't see why amii or some abanico wouldn't work here.
I wouldnt get too attached to playing complete pieces or playing something one way. Sure if you want to learn a falseta from a favourite artist then note for note that's understandable.. but with ras/compas patterns it should be a bit more easy come easy go
RE: This Rasgueado is difficult for ... (in reply to silddx)
quote:
ORIGINAL: silddx
s = little finger, which I think of as 'chico'.
Perhaps you were thinking schlong
I do know one teacher who openly advocates for masturbation as a right hand rasgeado development exercise. He’s also a tissue and paper towel distributor.
Posts: 15413
Joined: Dec. 14 2004
From: Washington DC
RE: This Rasgueado is difficult for ... (in reply to Stu)
quote:
I don't see why amii or some abanico wouldn't work here.
It is like accents. Some people don't care about that detail, but if we are honest, it reveals where a person is from. Like if someone does the wrong rasgueado, it gives me an idea where they were born. . That is why I said "welcome to America!" before. And now even DEVILHAND can hear it! . So, as much as I can as a teacher I try to show the way it should be done, and if I personally change it, I let people know why I am changing it. In the end perhaps you WANT the accent there. Like I am sure Juan Serrano is aware he does it different than others. To me, it is obvious that he does NOT want to break the uniform sound all down strokes produce vs intermittent up strokes.
It is like saying "pobre Gitana" vs "probe Gitana". Both are correct and tastes will dictate. But to see something like that and not confront that, well, is excuses, laziness, etc. At least when learning. AFTER you have it down, and tastes say you don't like it....then do what you want on the stage, or in your bedroom, for your grandma, whatever.
last thing, anecdote: I will never forget the day the abanico came into question in Gerardo's class, he did the "Marote" and then went around the room, one by one to see how different people were doing it. Well, in America that is ALL we do for dance so I do the heavy duty one, compared to the rest of folks, p up AMI together down, and P up with golpe under. I blasted that thing out and Gerardo, Tino, EVERYBODY in the damn class BURSTED out in laughter. Cuz it was so ridiculous loud compared to everybody they thought I was joking. It is no freaking joke, that is how we do it in 'Merica.
So, I knew it was louder, but until then I had no idea it was so loud it was FUNNY. I gradually got a clue and fixed my rasguedo concept, so don't take it lightly. I would say Rasguedo and pulgar....get those right with good taste. The rest is not a big deal.
Posts: 2770
Joined: Jan. 30 2007
From: London (the South of it), England
RE: This Rasgueado is difficult for ... (in reply to Ricardo)
ahha. nice story!
quote:
That 1st ras pattern looks utterly impossible.
I actually tried and its not impossible at all. I wasn't really paying proper attention to this thread sorry.
quote:
But to see something like that and not confront that, well, is excuses, laziness, etc
but so what? bedroom guitarist? really need every obscure rasguado? or if we are saying there's a benefit to that particular one then cant that benefit be taken from another more comonly used pattern/exercise? (btw im not making a case for cutting corners or laziness, just being realistic)
What's unique about this pattern?
but hang on didn't we agree that its notated incorrectly?
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