My friend William Bajzek is always sending me various Youtube clips of musicians that catch his eye. William has great tone and technique, so i always try to pay attention to what he has to say.
He sent me this video the other day, and i was amazed at this insane flamenco player. I knew flamenco guys could play fast, but i guess i had never really seen their technique up close, or thought about it much. The guy in the vid does two things that William has mentioned to me alot in the past, so they must be worth learning. One is to depress the string in towards the top before plucking it, the other is two let the tip joint of the finger relax and totally extend. Then you hinge from the big knuckle joint and bring the finger back towards the palm. This guy explains it much better than i can. I am still working on it all, trying to be consistent and accurate.
Comments 2
I like what he says about playing the scale as though it was in 1. Learning to group physical and musical actions together can do wonders for fluidity of technique and phrasing. I have been practicing a lot of my stuff with the metronome clicking once per bar. It can be a little tricky to get the feel for it at first, but it helps enormously with the phrasing.