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How I Increased My Picado Speed or 3-finger Versus 2-finger Picado Story

5/11/2015

10 Comments

 
This subject line sounds a bit like "How I lost 100 pounds in 2 months," doesn't it?

:-) I even have before and after pictures, so keep reading…

In my previous blogpost I told you about how I started to practise flamenco (The Panaderos Story). Here is what happened after that.

So, the next step for me was to play machine gun picado. All I needed was practice right? I had this picado exercise that I made up in 1990, which then was only an apoyando scale drill for classical guitar. Anyhow, I got back to it. Also, to put things in perspective, I only had about an hour to practise per day. I was doing an MFA in film production and teaching at the university. So, guitar was pretty much a hobby.

Just to focus on speed, I used my hourly practice time solely for this picado exercise. I kept practising. Usually I would start at 100 BPM and raise the tempo slowly. The end result was a failure. My technique got better but speed eluded me. I  reached a plateau at around 132 BPM. Some days I'd go a bit faster than that but that's about it.

So, here is the BEFORE picture for you. I posted this video 3 years ago. Skip to the very end to see my fastest performance at the time.

Picado Agility Exercise - 1 

What did I do wrong? My practice was very focused. I raised the tempo incrementally.
Played without mistakes with a very good tone, etc.  Proper picado seemed out of reach.


Therefore, one of my core beliefs was finally confirmed: you don't acquire picado speed, you need to have been born with it. In other words, you can either play fast or not and no amount of practice will change that. I guess Paco simply had fast fingers.

That's when I started looking into the 3-finger picado venue.

In the following video you can see how this technique works.

3-finger Picado Exercise

It basically uses the natural speed burst of a m i fingers doing tremolo action. So, you play 3 notes per string using a m i and when you need to play 2 notes on one string you use m i.

Victor Monge (Serranito) uses this technique quite successfully. He is able to play super fast scales with his three fingers. And I love Serranito's music.

I started getting results with the 3-finger picado technique. I was able to play some of the fast scales from Paco de Lucia's falsetas.

Check this out:

3-Finger Picado - from Solea by Paco de Lucia

Achieving some success, I delved deeper into the technique and published a series of exercises (playlist):

3-finger Picado Exercises

However, I was not happy. Because:

  1. To use 3-finger picado, you need to pre-design the scale you wish to play. Meaning, you cannot really improvise with it. For the 3-finger picado to function properly, you need to know exactly what finger goes where otherwise your fingers will simply do an  ami triplet a for each string ending up with an ugly mess
  2. It is really hard to achieve the punchy flamenco tone with 3-finger picado. Remember my picado speed video. You press your fingers toward the soundboard to get the sound to project properly. But when you do a 3-finger picado run, your concern is to get the right sequence of fingers and you cannot push into the strings, especially with the ring finger.


So, back to the drawing board.

What was the secret?

I looked again at how Paco played picado and thought maybe it's the hand position and shape?

So, I tried that.

Here's me trying out the Paco right hand:

Picado Agility Exercises (Revisited - 160 bpm)

Didn't really work and it gave me a terrible ache in my right hand.

But I'm glad I tried this because it made me realize a few things:

  1. The shape/position of your right hand has got nothing to do with picado tone or speed.
  2. Paco de Lucia DOES NOT play picado only with the tips if his fingers. He plays from the knuckle like everyone else. The efficiency of his technique makes it look like he is only using his fingertips. Also the staccato technique keeps his fingertips always close to the string, and that's why they look motionless when he speeds up.
  3. For picado speed you need to look at the way your fingers MOVE, not the way they look.
  4. Fast picado is NOT the sped up version of slow picado. It is governed by a different set of rules.



This was a BREAKTHROUGH for me. I revised my practice routine. From that point on my process of learning picado was mainly a thought process rather than mindless practice (which I tried before).

I did come up with some principles which seem to work for me at least.

How to Develop Picado Speed

Here are the two picado agility exercises played at 170BPM with my newly acquired right hand technique (this would be the AFTER picture):

Picado Agility Exercises 1 & 2 (Revisited - 170bpm)

and that Paco de Lucia solea run played with 2 fingers:

Picado Exercise - Solea by Paco de Lucia

Once the technical aspects of picado speed were sorted out, I went on to create exercises specifically designed to improve picado tone and agility.

All of that is here:
http://atrafana.com/store.html#picadospeed


10 Comments
Eduardo Heredia
5/11/2015 06:52:22 pm

Hi Orhan,

Phew! Is quite interesting your retrospective. To me, sounds that maybe i need to start slowly only to know the scale exercise, but after that, immediately start to play as fast as i can to increase my picado speed.

By the way, is very illustrative the 4 minutes video. It helped me to fix my picado speed.

Thank you. Great post ;)

Reply
Orhan
5/11/2015 08:06:38 pm

Thanks Eduardo

Reply
Leonardo
11/6/2017 10:46:09 am

"one of my core beliefs was finally confirmed: you don't acquire picado speed, you need to have been born with it"

Is it true? Isnt possible to acquire picado speed with practice?

Reply
orhan link
11/6/2017 10:51:44 am

Read the whole article carefully. I am arguing the opposite.

Reply
Alex link
5/30/2018 08:53:35 am

Man you posted a treasure here thank you so much !!!! I m just trying to figure out this crazy picado now, i m not a flamenco player at all but i d like to use it for impro, and i have enough to be stuck with speed so i looked, quite long on the internet, and even go for a lesson soon... but i just found this article,and you seem to explain perfectly everything i m experiencing step by step...the difference is that instead i/m/a i went for i/a wich worked as well but almost disabled my hand and my middle finger specially..took me a year to bring it back...so i ll try out ur exercices when i see the great result u had for similar previous problems i m full of hope!! thanx again. a.

Reply
Orhan link
5/30/2018 09:05:28 am

Glad to help!

Reply
Jeff Kerr link
11/9/2020 12:54:53 pm

Really great information here; thanks so much for sharing!

Reply
werner schurmans
10/14/2022 01:14:07 pm

very interesting . I have another question : high, normal or low tension strings? Which one to use in function of speed ?

Reply
aprendendo história da arte link
7/17/2023 06:35:39 pm

Hello maate nice post

Reply
East New York Independent Massage link
10/31/2024 04:14:10 pm

Goood reading your post

Reply



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  • Home
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  • Total Training
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  • Flamenco Practice Loops Library
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  • Flamenco Guitar Articles
    • The Alien Technique - Tremolo
    • What Guitar is Made for - Arpeggio
    • Do You Really Want to Become a Good Flamenco Player?
    • One Thumb is Worth 4 Fingers
    • What to Practise and for How Long
    • Classical VS Flamenco
    • hammer-on and pull-off
    • The Thumb: Flesh or Nail or Both?
    • Flamenco Knowledge or How to Learn Palos
    • The Metronome
    • ​Are you Talented?
    • Listen to yourself in the 3rd person
    • Learning Flamenco Forms/Palos: Where to Start
    • How to Compose your Own Flamenco Music
    • Do You Need a Flamenco Guitar to Play Flamenco?
    • Deepen Your Flamenco Knowledge or How to Learn Palos 2
    • How much time do you need to become a good player?
    • Picado Speed Studies
    • Fingering: Makes of Breaks a Player! (tabs)
    • I suck - flamenco guitar
    • Flamenco Guitar Nails
    • Is i - a Picado a Viable Alternative to i - m Picado?
    • Why Do People Take Flamenco Guitar Lessons?
    • Playing with the Right Hand
    • atrafanaSchool Studio Set Up or How to Record Yourself
    • atrafanaSchool Studio Set Up - PART 2
    • Same Falseta on a Negra and a Blanca (tabs)
    • Picado Thumb Placement
    • Nails: How to Shape Them
    • Using the Brain in Relieving Tension in the Hands - Routines
    • Reflexive Picado Speed (tabs)
    • What is Technique?
  • Techniques
    • Flamenco Guitar Techniques: Picado
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    • Flamenco Guitar Techniques : Alzapua
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    • Flamenco Guitar Techniques : Three - Finger Picado
    • Flamenco Guitar Techniques: Pulgar
  • Repertoire
  • Youtube Flamenco Guitar Lessons
    • Youtube Flamenco Guitar Lessons - Punta del Faro (Buleria)
    • Youtube Flamenco Guitar Lessons - Reflejo de Luna (Granaina)
    • Youtube Flamenco Guitar Lessons - GitanosTrianeros (Solea)
    • Youtube Flamenco Guitar Lessons - El Tempul (Buleria)
    • Youtube Flamenco Guitar Lessons - Barrio La Viña (Alegria)
    • Youtube Flamenco Guitar Lessons - Mi Inspiracion (Alegria)
    • Youtube Flamenco Guitar Lessons - Punta Umbria (Fandango)
    • Youtube Flamenco Guitar Lessons - Llanto a Cadiz (Tientos)
    • Youtube Flamenco Guitar Lessons - Gloria al Nino Ricardo (Solea)
    • Youtube Flamenco Guitar Lessons - Cepa Andaluza (Buleria)
    • Youtube Flamenco Guitar Lessons - Aires Choqueros (Fandango)
    • Youtube Flamenco Guitar Lessons - Plaza de San Juan (Alegria)
    • Youtube Flamenco Guitar Lessons - Recuerdo a Patino (Alegria)
    • Youtube Flamenco Guitar Lessons - Celosa (Solea por Buleria)
    • Youtube Flamenco Guitar Lessons - Callejon del Muro (Minera)
    • Youtube Flamenco Guitar Lessons - Aires de Linares (Taranta)
    • Youtube Flamenco Guitar Lessons - Generalife Bajo la Luna (Granaina)
    • Youtube Flamenco Guitar Lessons - Buleria by Paco Pena
    • Youtube Flamenco Guitar Lessons - Rumbeando la Milonga by Paco Pena
    • Youtube Flamenco Guitar Lessons - Riomar (Fandango)
    • Youtube Flamenco Guitar Lessons - Granada En Flor
    • Youtube Flamenco Guitar Lessons - Doblan Campanas
    • Youtube Flamenco Guitar Lessons - Plaza Alta (Solea)
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