Regarding THIS post, and the comment I made HERE about not resting my thumb on a string. I used my little Canon PowerShot to make the video.
Regarding THIS post, and the comment I made HERE about not resting my thumb on a string. I used my little Canon PowerShot to make the video.
Wow, that was amazing! Something I noticed… you only used your Index and Middle fingers, and you used a “rake” technique. Do you ever use your Ring finger?
My first teacher was very classically trained… he would have insisted I alternate fingers between strings… but your demonstration makes it apparent that different techniques can work just fine!
Thanks for sharing that!
My picado is usually just alternating i and m with an occasional a-m-i run if I am looking for a triplet feel. I use i-m alternating throughout the piece except for one section that moves across 4 strings from the 2 string to the 5 string. It could be done alternating, but I have been concentrating on other elements of the piece until now. Also, I do think there are exceptions for every rule. Sometimes it is useful to use the thumb of the left hand to fret a chord and sometimes the rake technique just works or feels natural. Both techniques will make most classical guitar instructors cringe. If they protest, just ask them how many songs they have written, how many albums recorded, how many concerts played. We can talk about theory until we are blue in the face – but it is the practical application that matters.
Damn, you learn something new about yourself every day. I just noticed that I seem to always start picado runs with my middle finger, don’t ask me why, but that seems to be the default starting finger… now when I play this Fracture section – if I start with the index finger I seem to be able to play it all the way through alternating i-m, but I just noticed that sometimes I start it with the middle finger and then I get sloppy and do not alternate fingers. How could Victor have noticed that from the crappy video? Anyway, I have started practicing the piece making sure I always start with the index finger and am working on playing the four string downward section run i-m as well. I think it will sound cleaner once I have it up to speed…
It goes by very quickly… After your previous comment I was starting to think I was mistaken!
Well, I mentioned that my first teacher was a bit anal about such things… but what can you do when the fingers are ready to react? I mean, the brain gets a signal that the finger has just made contact with the string and is ready to strike! At one point I was doing a lot of exercises to keep the fingers alternating in difficult transitions, even bring in the “a” finger so that the “m” finger never had to take a step down… it has always felt against my instinct. Oddly enough, in concentrating on such things the right hand ends up feeling detached from the notes being played!
Well, I suppose there’s a time for working on technique and a time to actually make things happen! And Ottmar, your playing kicks ass of any teacher I’ve had!
OL meets RF. Excellent stuff! Fantasy album: OL & RF produced by Eno.