Transcript

Hi, so we’re going to talk now about Flamenco chords. There’s really no such thing as a flamenco chord, but there are flamenco harmonies and groups of chords that kind of go together in a consistent way in flamenco.

A couple of things you might want to know is flamenco when you transpose a song in flamenco, you don’t really talk about keys in flamenco. You talk about positions, A major or E, okay? If you need to move the key for whatever reason, because you’re playing with a singer you usually do this.

The capo is an artifact that creates a permanent bar wherever you place it, and then you keep the same position. The capo can look like this. They come in all shapes and sizes, but you always want to keep the same voices when you play traditional flamenco.

So if I need to raise this key, I put my capo wherever the singer, wherever I decide to play, and I put my capo on a different fret, but I keep my same positions. Then this is how you work your keys around flamenco. You also don’t really talk much about C and A flat keys. You just talk about where you put the capo in traditional flamenco.

Now one thing you might want to know about flamenco chords is for example, how you finger an A major chord. A major is one of the most popular tonalities in flamenco. So this is how we play an A major chord, not with the three fingers, like it says on the books, but you’re going to do a little bar. the finger one is going to cover strings four and three, and then you’re going to add finger two on the second string, on the C-sharp.

This way we have two fingers that are free to do other work around the chord. For example, now I can play. I can add my sharp nine. I can also add my seventh here, and turn this into a diminished chord and back to A, okay? So always get used to playing your A chord like this, so we have two fingers that are free.

Another very popular chord that goes along with the A chord, especially when you play in palos to work in the Phrygian mode is a B flat chord. So I’m going to show you a couple of voices you can do with this B flat chord. You have your regular everyday B flat, but you can also do a B flat with the open B string and then you can add the open E, which is the sharp eleven of the chord, and you get a beautiful flamenco sound.

You can also choose to move your finger three up to the fourth string and you get the fifth, but you leave an open G string which is a sixth of the chord and you get this other sound. You can also play this other voicing with your B flat, and this is a B flat nine, but with a fifth on the bass here and it sounds really nice, you go…

Another substitute for the B flat chord is always the G minor. G minor sounds beautiful. This is a particular voicing you hear a lot. So from A to G minor, G minor six. So these are some voices you can do for your flat two chord when you play in Phrygian mode.

Also, another very popular flamenco chord is the flat nine. Major chord with a flat nine, such as this. This is A or you can move this chord many different places. Not to confuse this chord with the dominant seven with a flat nine you play in jazz, like this.

In flamenco, when you play this chord, you keep a fifth of the chord which in jazz usually you omit, but in flamenco you keep it there, because there’s a contrast. You create a tri-tone interval between the flat nine and the fifth and you get that flamenco sound. And you also don’t have to put the seventh of the chord really.

Right now, I’m just playing an E major triad with the flat nine, which is the F. And there are some interesting voices for this chord, too. You can play it here. I can play two roots, my flat nine here and this interesting voicing with this chord. You can reach, usually if you have a capo, that’s a little easier to move around.

But just explore these chords. Flat nine is very popular, A with all the substitutions, and then all your regular chords; minor sevens, and majors and minors, dominance. So have fun playing flamenco chords.

Transcript

Okay, so we’re going to learn how to play what we call rumba catalana. The style of rumba comes from Catalonia, which is a region in the northeast of Spain, also from the south of France or that area. This style is very popular with bands like the Gypsy Kings and many artists from Barcelona from the 1960’s who made this style very popular.

It features this technique on the right hand that we call ventidalor. Okay, ventidalor is a fan and it’s the kind of fan that you put on the wall or on the ceiling, and your hand is making this move. I guess it looks like a fan. That’s why they call it that way. This is how you do it. Just three moves from your right hand.

Let’s check it out. First move is going to be to mute the strings. So you start with your hand muting all six strings. Then as you lift your hand, your index is going to play up. Then index down, so mute, index up, index down. Then last move is thumb up and mute, again. Yeah, so beat one and beat three are muted. You start with a muted first beat, so mute.

Then you just loop this over and over and over and this is how rumba catalana works. Of course, there are many variations of it, but this is the basic rhythm. So let’s do this again. Mute, index up, index down, thumb up, mute, index up, index down, thumb up and mute. Okay, and your hand will fall into this pattern of… Have fun playing your rumba catalana.

Transcript

Okay, so we’re going to talk about flamenco songs and flamenco form. I think at this point we can make a distinction between popular flamenco or modern flamenco and maybe traditional flamenco. Okay, the styles you play in modern flamenco are traditionally rumba, has become one of the most popular styles, like I’ve mentioned in other videos. Okay, in rumba songs can be just like any other song with the rumba beat on it.

Gypsy Kings have many albums with wonderful songs that you can look up, and they follow the basic pattern of any pop song, just with a rumba band and the rumba beat. Now when we talk about traditional flamenco there’s really no such thing as a flamenco song. It’s more the style you play in and whatever the singer decided to sing or the dancer decides to dance.

When you are a jazz musician for example, and you go to a jazz gig, you might get to your gig and you might have to play with five musicians you’ve never seen in your life, but everybody knows what to do, right? Everybody calls a song, everybody knows it. They call a key, you play an intro, somebody plays the melody, then you take turns soloing, blah, blah, blah. You do the fourth with the drummer and you finish. So everybody speaks the same language.

In the flamenco setting when you’re called to do a gig, and you have to do a singer, it’s a little different. There is no such thing as a set of standards that we know, but we know the styles. So a singer might tell the guitarist, “Okay, I’m going to sing in this style of bulerias.” And you go, “Okay, that’s fine.” And he’s not going to tell you what key he sings. He’s not going to tell you I sing in A Flat. He’s just going to tell you where to put your capo on.

So he’ll tell you I sing bulerias and put your capo on three. Okay, so you put your capo on three, and as a guitarist, you should know more of less the language. How to play it with the singer. Okay, basically start with an introduction. Then you wait for the singer. Then you play your compas for a little bit until the singer warms up. You have these little sections of the piece called falseta’s and these are compositions that are within the style, but they kind of break away from the compas. Usually, they last very little, like about 30 seconds to a minute, maybe even 20 seconds. Then you go back to the compas, singer sings, and so on and so on.

There’s no such thing as a song in this case. It’s just singer reciting poetry that he has in his repertoire and you playing falseta’s and compas that you have in your… So that’s kind of the ammunition you have to come to, to a gig, when you’re playing traditional flamenco. You have to learn how to play at least a dozen of palos, if not more. And you have to have a couple of falseta’s in each one and you have to know how to follow a singer or a dancer. And that’s how a traditional flamenco gig works.

Transcript

So right now we’re going to talk about tangos, flamenco tangos, not to be confused with Argentian tangos. It’s a totally different thing. Flamenco tangos is a style of flamenco that is in the meter 4/4, that means four beats per measure, and it features a 2 measure cycle. Okay, the first measure we’re going to play our B Flat chord from B Flat position and on the second measure we’re going to play our tonic position, which is A.

We’re going to go one measure at a time and we’re going to figure out how to play compas. Just remember compas is a part of the song that defines the style by key, by tempo, and by time signature. Measure one we’re in B Flat, beat one is silent. It’s one of the features of flamenco time, and we’re usually going to do golpe.

Beat two, we’re going to do a rasgueado. This is going to be a three finger rasgueado starting with A, M, I. So be careful, because I is the one playing the downbeat of beat two. These two are doing pickup notes, pickup sixteenth notes. That’s a downbeat. It goes one, two, okay? So be aware. So we’re going to do two of those, so one… From beat two and beat three, we do the same rasgueado, one. And one more time, beat one, golpe, beat two. Beat three and on beat three we’re going to come back with our index.

Okay, one more time, so the end of beat three we come back with our index. One more time, one. Now on beat four we’re going to play our G note with our thumb. We’ll play G here. One more time. Then I’m going to do one of the techniques we learned in one of the videos, which is pulgar indifeco. Here’s the pulgar and indife on the first string. That completes measure one. And the time. Now measure two I do another pulgar indife, but I’m over the A chord, A major chord.

So with that, one. Beat two I’m going to do our rasgueado again, three finger rasgueado. Now remember the downbeat falls on the index and now I’m playing small variations of A, which is A with a Flat 9, so it’s going to be flat there. Okay, so see how far we’ve got, so one, two. So on measure two we begin with thumb down on beat one and we’re going to do an index up.

Okay, one, index technique and I’m going to hold those notes over beat two, and for beat three I’m going to do a rasgueado with thumb up. I’m also not going to play on beat four. So here we go. So there are many variations you can do with the tango compas. This is the one I wanted to play for you today, but the main characteristics are silent one, and this little lick is G to the A. It’s a very characteristic sound of the flamenco tango, so have fun playing flamenco tango.

Transcript

So we’re going to talk about sevillanas. This piece I was just playing right now is a sevillanas. It’s a style of flamenco. It’s a very popular style, mainly because of its dance. The dance of sevillanas is a very big thing in Spain, especially in the South of Spain. It’s a very beautiful dance and it’s accompanied by guitar and singing and a lot of clapping.

Sevillanas is a style of flamenco, so that it’s not played usually in the Phrygian mode. Meaning if I’m in the key of A Major or A Minor, my next chord is not necessarily going to be that B Flat sound. So sevillanas is a style that’s in three meter so it’s in 3/4, and it features a two measure cycle. There are many different sections to the song or to the keys, but I’m going to show you how to play the basic compas, and then you can elaborate from there.

This is the intro to sevillanas and the basic compas, so it’s in three and the first measure we’re going to play in the tonic key. So I’m going to do sevillanas in A Major. First beat we’re just going to do and indife down, then I’m going to do two rasgueardos. For beat two and beat three. Here’s our first measure. Notice this rasgueardo, the beat falls on the index, leads to our pickup notes. These two are pickup notes using your annular and middle finger.

So we’re going to go one, two, three. Okay, on beat three I’m going to bring my index back in to give it a little more groove. So that’s going to be our first measure, one, two, three and. For measure two I’m going to move the five chord, which is going to be in E Major or in E 7. And I’m going to do the same thing I did with on my right hand. Thumb down, rasgueardo on beat two, and rasgueardo on beat three.

But notice this is one of the characteristics of sevillanas. On the beat three of the second measure I go back to my tonic chord. So I don’t wait for one to rasgueardo; I rasgueardo on beat three. Sounds like this. Yeah, that’s one of the main features of sevillanas. Now before the singer comes in or before the dancers start dancing, because this is the part where everybody is preparing, there is a section called a llamada, and that’s when we tell everybody when to get ready to start singing or to start dancing.

Because we can be jamming on this compas for a while, but there comes a moment where everybody’s ready, so then you play this just a little bit different, so everybody know when to come in. And this is how you do it. You play beat one and beat two, and hold beat two over beat three. So we don’t play anything on beat three, so three and then we switch the next measure, and we do the rasgueardo first on beat one, rasgueardo, index down on beat two and we resolve on beat three to the tonic and then we play beat one and beat two, okay?

I’m going to do this again very slow. Three, one, two. After you play that beat two, then the singers start, usually with a long phrase for about two measures, and then you come back in. And the dance begins and everybody is having a great time. Let’s see how this sounds. I’m going to play two measures and then the llamada.

Transcript

We’re going to talk about soleares or solea, it’s also called which is a flamenco palos, which features a 12 beat cycle. Yeah, there’s a couple of palos in flamenco that feature this cycle. Okay, so 12 beats is a long ways from our usual four beats. So how do we count 12 beats in a cycle? This is how they count it in Spain. You divide the 12 beats into two parts, the first six beats are going to be two groups of three notes, okay? We are kind of one, two, three; four, five, six.

What’s unusual about these three beats is that the accent, instead of being on the one, it’s on the last beat of the group. So the accent is going to be on three and on six. So you’re going to count it, one, two, three; four, five, six. That’s your first group. Now the other six beats you group them in three groups of two, just the opposite, but you are always going to put the accent on the second beat of each group. So the accent is going to be on seven, eight; nine, ten; eleven, twelve.

So it’s one, two, three, four, five six, seven eight, nine ten, eleven twelve. Okay, and you start all over, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven eight, nine ten, eleven twelve. All right, so how do we play this. Well, let’s see. We’re going to learn a very basic soleares compas. First we’re going to do a super, super basic, and then we’ll start doing some embellishments. So for the first three beats of the compas we’re going to play and F with an added second there.

Second three beats is a C Major chord, second half of the compas we’re going to alternate between F and and E chord, F and then E chord. It’s going to give us a really Phrygian flamenco sound. So let’s see how we put this together. Also soleares is in a Phrygian mode, which means its usually in a minor key and very slow tempo. One, two, three; one, two, three; one two, one two, one two. This is very, very basic.

Let me count it with all twelve numbers. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven eight, nine ten, eleven twelve. On twelve I do golpe. All right, so let’s throw some flamenco elements into this compas and see how we can spice it up. Over F I’m going to do two rasgueardos. On the first two beats I’m going to do a three finger rasgueardo with my index coming back, which is going to be four notes per beat. Yeah, so it’s going to be one beat. So one, beat two, and beat three since it’s an accented beat, I’m going to do index done with golpe.

So let’s do the first three beats, one, two, three. Again, one, two, three. I’m going to do the same thing on the next three beats, but with a C chord. Let me do those six beats again. Second part of the compas, I’m going to play an F chord, but I’m going to arpeggiate it. I’m going to play it F and then I’m going to throw this little arpeggio roll, middle index middle, A, just like an embellishment. Same thing over E, so it will be seven eight, nine ten, one, two, so eleven twelve. Let’s do the whole thing. So that’s basically your soleares compas.

Transcript

Okay. So, we’re going to talk about different Flamenco styles. Or what in the Flamenco world is called palos. Okay, a palo means a stick basically, but I think it means more like a branch. Okay. Flamenco is a word that encompasses a lot, a lot of different styles. Palos, or styles, are different from each other basically in tempo, meter, and key. Okay, you have the palos that are in the 12 beat cycle. Okay? These are a little tough to handle because they’re not in our usually three or four meter. They’re in 12. Okay? And the accents fall in different places.

These are the palos like the soleás, alegrías, bulerías, soleá por bulería. Even seguiriya is in the 12 beat meter. The Flamenco styles that are in the four meter are tangos, rumba being the more, one of the most popular ones. And three meter, sevillana, as a very popular one. Okay? But there are dozens and dozens of palos. Alright?

And each one originated in a different part of the south of Spain. Some carry the name of the city where they derived from. Like Malagueña, is a palo in three, that derives from the city of Málaga. And sevillana, is a palo in three also, that derives from the city of Seville. And so on. Fandango is also a popular palo that derives from a city called Huelva. They call it fandangos de Huelva. It’s also in three. And rumba is a very popular palo. We’ve talked about it before. It’s one of the most international and popular palos. It’s in four. And it’s very popular in the northeast of Spain, in the area of Cataluña. And the south of France, in that region.

So, those are the palos that comprise the word Flamenco. Okay, they’re all Flamenco and I encourage you to listen to all of them and see which ones you like the most.

Transcript

Hi, I’m Dan Garcia and today we’re going to learn how to play buleria. Buleria is a part of flamenco. It’s a style of flamenco. It’s actually really popular, very sought out because it’s very challenging more than anything. It’s fast. The meter is complicated, so if you can play bulerias you can be accepted at any kind of flamenco circle. So it’s a good style to learn, but it is a bit challenging, but I’m going to explain it in a way that you’re going to catch it very quickly.

So bulerias is played pretty fast, but it follows the same twelve note cycle as soleares does. A couple of differences though. Okay, the accents are in the same places, so in soleares we were doing one, two, three; four, five, six, seven eight, nine ten, one two, one two three. Okay, also notice that I’m counting beats eleven twelve as one and two, just because this is too long to say the syllables, so one two is eleven twelve, just so you know.

Now in buleria we count it much faster, so one, two, three; four, five, six; seven eight, nine ten; one two; one, two, three; four, five, six, seven eight, okay so on and so on. So that’s how you count bulerias and there are many theories on how to count there. What’s the best way, what’s the right way, okay? I think what gets confusing about playing bulerias and trying to follow bulerias when you’re listening to them, and when you’re learning them is, where exactly is beat one?

In soleares we count one, two, three and that one is actually beat one. That’s actually where you start playing. That’s where the falseta’s usually begin, but in bulerias it’s not, and I think that’s what gets a lot of people confused. Our beat one in bulerias is really beat twelve. That’s what we feel is beat one in our music. That’s where the falseta’s start, the singer starts, it’s where everything starts. The only thing is, it’s done as beat twelve, but that’s where everything begins.

So let’s try to put the bulerias compas together in a very basic way, okay? Let me start by just playing our A chord position on beat twelve. I’m going to go all through the cycle and we’re going to start adding elements that you’re going to build into the cycle until we kind of get something similar to buleria sound. Then all you have to do is embellish it and you’re good to go. So let’s start.

So again, the count is instead of starting the count on one, two, three; I’m going to start it on the eleven twelve, and that’s how it’s usually counted, okay? Remember eleven and twelve I’m going to count as one two. This is how we start counting, one two, one, two, three; four, five, six; seven eight, nine ten, one two; one, two, three; four, five, six; seven eight, nine ten, one two. Okay, we’re going to go a lot slower in the beginning and then we’ll speed it up. So remember twelve beat it’s our real one.

So we’re going to strum an A chord on beat twelve, so one two; one, two, three; four, five, six; seven eight, nine ten, one two; one, two, three; four, five, six; seven eight, nine ten, one two. So I encourage you to do that for a while until you get comfortable just counting those beats. The next element we’re going to add is the closing of the cycle, which is on beat ten. So on beat ten I’m going to do a rasgueardo, followed by a mute, and every time on beat ten, we’re going to close the cycle.

It’s going to sound like this, one two; one, two, three; four, five, six; seven eight, nine ten, one two; one, two, three; four, five six; seven eight, nine ten. So on beat ten we do ba-ba-ba and mute the guitar. Okay, one more time, one two; one, two, three; four, five, six; seven eight, nine ten, one two; one, two, three; four, five, six; seven eight, nine ten. Okay, so again I encourage you to do this for a good while until it feels natural to you, okay?

The next big point in bulerias is beat three. Beat three is where the harmony changes to the Phrygian mode. So we’re on beat one, which is beat twelve. We go one two; one, two, three, this is where we go to the B Flat chord, okay, on three? So let’s include that in our cycle. One two; one, two, three; four, five, six; seven eight, nine ten, one two; one, two, three; four, five, six; seven eight, nine ten, one two; one, two, three; four, five, six; seven eight, nine ten.
Okay, notice also that on beat ten when we close I go back to the timing chord. Okay, the A position.

Okay, so now we’ve got a couple of good spots on the buleria cycle, let’s keep adding elements. I’m going to add a bolpe on accents six and eight. Just a regular bolpe and then we’ll spice it up. So again, one two; one, two, three; four, five, six; seven eight, nine ten, one two; one, two, three; four, five, six; seven eight, nine ten. So do that for a while until it feels natural.
Now besides the bolpe, after the bolpe I’m going to add a couple of indexes up with this rhythm, like a dotted sixteenth note. That’s going to come after my bolpe’s on beat six and beat eight. Let’s go for it, one two; one, two, three; four, five, six; one two; one, two, three; four, five and one two; one, two, three; four, five, six.

Okay, so the next step would be to actually play beat six and eight with the bolpe, one two; one, two, three; four, five, six; seven eight, nine ten, one two; one, two, three; four, five, six; seven eight, nine ten, one two; one, two, three; four, five, six; seven eight, nine ten. At this point, basically you’re playing a buleria. Those are the basic elements of buleria. Everything else is just adding little embellishments and just grooving with it. So one two; one, two, three; four, five, six; seven eight, nine ten, one two; one, two, three; four, five, six; seven eight, nine ten, one two. So have fun playing bulerias.

Transcript

I’m Dan Garcia, and I’m a guitarist. I’m originally from Madrid, Spain. I’ve been in the US for about 20 years now, in New York City, since 1998. And I play guitar for a living. I have the privilege to wake up every day and be able to play and teach what I love the most, which is music and guitar playing. I’ve been playing music professionally for over 20 years. In New York, I do flamenco guitar. I also play classical guitar. Brazilian. A lot of different styles, but mostly flamenco guitar has always been my passion.

I played guitar when I was 10 years old in Madrid. Classical guitar. I switched to flamenco in my teens. I used to go to southern Madrid, to this gypsy’s house. His wife was a singer. He was a guitarist. It was very magical. I would spend hours there with these guys, just playing and learning about flamenco.

I’d like to invite you to visit my website, dangarciaguitar.com. There, you can check out my band, CaneliBeat. You can listen to my own music. And I also give lessons online, if you’re interested. Thank you for watching this flamenco guitar series. I hope you enjoyed it. I hope it inspired you to learn flamenco guitar. And I look forward to hearing from you soon. Good luck.

Transcript

I’m Dan Garcia and now we’re going to learn how to play rumba gipsy kingstyle. So this is how they do it. Okay, beat one they do a thumb down with bolpe, very effective. Then you’re going to come up with your full hand. You’re going to kind of fold your hand into a fist and you come up with your thumb, down and up.

So that’ the first part of the rumba group, bolpe with pulgar down and come up with your thumb, down with your hand. and up with your thumb again. Let’s try this slow. Pulgar with bolpe, thumb up, hand down, thumb up. And then as your thumb comes up, you’re going to fall into a full string mute. You’re also going to hit your guitar with percussive effect. Yeah, that’s the first half of the groove.

Second half of the groove, after the mute we’re going to do a little tail with our index, which goes like this, so index up, index down, index up. So again, after the mute we let go of the mute, index up, index down, index up, and that completes the sequence. Let’s do the whole thing now. So one more time, thumb with pulgar, come up and down, come up, mute, index up, index down, index up and our pulgar is ready to go again. Have fun playing with the gipsy kings.

Transcript

Hi, I’m Dan Garcia, and we’re talking about flamenco guitar. We’re going to talk about how we produce sound on a flamenco guitar and specifically about our nails, and how we’re going to produce a tone that makes flamenco sound like flamenco.

So when we strike our strings with the right hand we’re going to have a combination of flesh and nail hitting the string, okay? If we don’t use nails and we only use flesh, if your nails are very short, you might get a good sound, but it’s going to be a very dull sound, very round, it’s going to lack attack.

If your nails are too long and you only use nail, you’re going to get a very twangy kind of metallic and thin sound. So ideally, you want to grow your nails just long enough, so the string can roll through the flesh a little bit, hit the nail and release. If you’re nail is too long, it’ll get caught. If you’re nail is too short, you might not even feel the nail and you’re just playing with flesh.

The way we position our right hand is parallel to the bridge of the guitar. Then we’re going to strike the strings from the tip and we’re going to let it hit the nail, just so we can get that final attack. That attack is going to allow us to control volume and the different tones we want to achieve.

So the question is how long should you’re nails be when you play flamenco guitar? That’s a question I can’t really answer, only you can answer it yourself. Everybody’s hands are different. Everybody’s nails grow in a different way, so you have to experiment that for yourself. Let your nails grow and then start filing them down, as you play and you feel how they feel against the strings.

It’s very important that you take good care of your nails. When you play you want to have a good tone and you’re nails need to be completely sanded with sandpaper or the thinnest part of your nail file, before you start playing. Not just in the morning, but every time you begin playing guitar your nails should be filed and sanded, okay?

I use a very thin kind of sandpaper. Make sure there are no rough edges on my nails and the string can go through it smoothly. If you have like a little bump in your nail, it will be picked up, especially if you’re doing a recording or you’re being amplified. An amplifier will really amplify any little bump your nail has. So make sure your nails are nice and smooth, all the way across and then experiment with different lengths, and see what works for you.

Transcript

Hi, I’m Dan Garcia. I’m going to explain this flamenco technique called pulgar-indice-pulgar, which means thumb-index-thumb. The rhythm I figure that we’re going to use is the triplet, which means you fit three notes on the beat.

First note is going to be with the thumb. The second note is with your index and the third note is again with your thumb, and then your first one is with your thumb again. That means you have to play your thumb twice in a row. So here it goes. We go one-two-three, one-two-three, one-two-three, one-two-three, okay?

When you put it on over a melodic pattern, we get something like this. Okay a good way to practice this technique is by doing chromatic scales with your thumb, and using your index, which should always be leaning on your first string anyway. And all the way up and down the neck and have fun doing this, so this is the pulgar-indice-pulgar technique. Enjoy it.

Transcript

Hi, so I’m going to explain the technique of picado. Picado is a very unique technique and it’s very characteristic of flamenco guitar. It’s done by alternating your index and middle finger on a particular string, usually to play a scale or passage. It doesn’t have to be something very fast, but it can be something very fast. But it’s got a couple of tricky spots and we’re going to explain them. Okay, the key word is alternate.

You have to alternate between index and middle all the time. Also, it’s a restful technique, which means you strike the string and you lean on the string right above it. Yeah, one finger after the other, and thumb is usually relaxed and leaning on the sixth string, and the hand kind of comes out a little more. It’s also relaxed, but it’s got to play with a certain amount of attack. That’s how you do picado.

Now the tricky part comes when we switch strings, okay? Because like I said again, the key word is alternating and this is what happens with picado. When you’re hanging to one string, it’s okay, because you’re alternating and going at a slow tempo. Now what happens when you have to go to a new string. This is what happens and this is what gets people confused. If I played my last note on the first string and I’m doing a free stroke technique, my index finger is already leaning on the second string.

So now my next note, I have to play it on the second string, now since my index finger’s already leaning on there, I might as well play it again with my index. I mean that’s the first thing your brain tells you, especially when you’re learning this and you’re playing very slow. And if you’re playing very slow it might not make a difference, so you would go…

So that’s the first mistake people make when you learn picado, even though yes, you’re index is leaning on the second string; you have to alternate and you have to have your middle play the next note, because the index was the one that played the last note, regardless of what string you play it at. So one more time. I’m going to do an exercise, we’re going to play three notes on each string.So it’s going to be index, middle, index, and then the last one I played was index. Now the next string I start with the middle.

Now I’m going to go to the next string and my middle is leaning on the third string, but that’s not the one that’s going to play the third string. It’s going to be my index and so on. If you don’t alternate your picado, it’s almost like trying to run with one foot. Like taking a couple of steps with two feet, and then hopping on one, you’re not going to get very far, very fast. So learn how to alternate from the beginning, okay?

I’m telling you it’s very tempting to repeat the finger, especially when you’re going slow, but when you start speeding up, it’s going to be a big inconvenience to correct this. So correct it from the very beginning, always alternating, and program your brain to alternate, so you don’t have to think about it. So always alternate and then you can push forward.

Transcript

Hi, my name is Dan Garcia. Welcome to flamenco guitar. The technique I’m going to explain right now is called pulgar technique. Pulgar in Spanish means thumb and this is the technique we use in flamenco guitar to play notes with our thumb on the right hand. On flamenco guitar we always or almost always use a technique called rest stroke as opposed to free stroke.

Rest stroke means we strike the string with out thumb and we rest on the string below. Free stroke means we play the string down and out. Okay, this is more of a classical guitar technique of free stroke, but in flamenco we almost always use the rest stroke. And not only a rest stroke, but a pretty aggressive rest stroke. We always need the help from the wrist. We want to get as much sound as we can from our thumb, so therefore we’re going to need a little help from our wrist.

So this kind of movement is going to be very common for a lot of other techniques, as well. A good way to get our wrist to help and not our arm; this is kind of a big no-no; we don’t want to use our entire arm to push our thumb down. We want to use our wrist. Okay, so we want to keep our index finger almost touching the first string of the guitar. This way when we play our thumb we’re not going to use this technique. We avoid this kind of movement.

So our index stays there and notice my wrist is going kind of in this direction. This is the kind of movement we want to produce. So as you can see it’s a very– you have to dig your thumb very deep in there to get as much sound as you can. So have fun practicing your pulgar.

Transcript

I’m Dan Garcia and I’m going to show you now how to put a tremolo piece together. Okay, like I said tremolo is a technique that’s meant to keep a melody afloat. In this way, we can manage the melody. We can do crescendos. We can breathe. We can do certain things. Without the tremolo, when we play a note, we can still hear it in our memory, but it’s pretty much gone. There’s not much we can do with it. Okay, so I’m going to create melodic line and then we’re going to turn it into tremolo, and maybe you can do the same thing at home, with any kind of melodic line you have.

Melodies that work well with tremolo are usually melodies that move in a slow rhythm. If your melody moves faster than a quarter note, it’s probably not a good idea to put tremolo on it. But if you have like half notes and quarter notes, tremolo might be a good option. So let me just play a little melody and then we’ll turn it into a tremolo piece. It’s going to be in three, so one, two, three; one, two, three; one, two, three; one, two, three; one, two three, okay? So let’s imagine I came up with this nice melody and now I want to turn it into a tremolo piece.

As you can see, when I went up here and I was holding this note for six beats, by the time I got to beat four that note is completely gone and there’s is nothing I can do about it, other than play it again, of course. Okay, the first thing we need to do is find a harmony for this melody. I’m just going to do a simple one, four, five chord progression in A Minor. So I’m going to do A Minor and when I get up here I’m going to play a D Minor chord and then an E 7; E 7 and back to A minor.

So the next step to get our tremolo going is to figure out the bass line when we’re playing. Okay, we have our melody. We have our harmony. Now let’s figure out our bass line. The bass is going to outline the harmony we just did, so A minor. Okay, that’s what my bass is going to do. I’m playing the low A, A an octave higher and my minor third, which is C. I’m going to move up here to D minor, we’ll play a root, third and fifth twice, because I’m holding on there for six beats. Then E 7, I’m playing my root, my fifth here, my B for the fourth string, flat 9. So one, two, three. Then do it again. Fifth again, our seventh and then back to A minor.

Okay, so let’s put everything together now. We have our melody over our harmony, two, three, one, two, three, one, two, three, one, two, three, one, two, three, one, two. So now for every bass note I’m going to put four notes on the melody, so very slow. So now we have this melody turned into a tremolo and let me play it a little faster now. Now I’m going to play it three different ways. First, I’m going to play slow, so you can see it. Then I’m going to play a little faster.

Then I’m going to play it faster, and then I’m going to play it, as I would play it in a performance. Meaning I’m going to breathe here and there. I’m going to maybe do a little crescendo. You know I’m going to make it very lyrical and very beautiful, because that’s really the purpose of tremolo. We don’t want it to sound too robotic. So here we go, slow. Okay, a little faster. So have fun playing tremolo.

Transcript

Hi, I’m Dan Garcia and I’m going to show you how you can practice tremolo. Okay, tremolo’s a technique that it really takes a while to get going, but you need to be patient and you can enjoy practicing it. So there’s several ways to practice tremolo and I encourage you to be adventurous and be creative in your own way when you practice. It makes it a lot more fun, but here’s a couple of way.

I’m going to show you one way where our thumb is going to be playing notes vertically, meaning in a chord, and you’re going to be playing tremolo on the first string. So for every note your thumb plays, you’re going to play four notes on the first string. Remember it’s going to be I-A-M-I. So then you’re thumb is going to move to the fifth string, one string and third string finally, and down and back down. So I’m going to do this very slow.

Okay, make sure when you’re playing your notes on the first string, you have enough attack and volume on the string. If it sounds like a whisper in the back, we’re not doing this right. Tremolo should be really in the front. Okay, so we want our notes to be nice and loud, so do it as slow as you have to do it. We really want to hear those notes in the front.

Now I invite you to figure out some kind of chord progression that you can move in, so you can make this a little more fun. You can either go up the scale to an F chord and all the way up and all the way down. Okay, but figure out your own chord progression. The importance of the exercise is the thumb moving down and up the strings, while the tremolo is happening.

Another way to practice your tremolo is with your thumb going horizontal doing chromatic scales or any other scale you want to do. Okay, you an go all the way, all the down, up down, up down. You can be creative with that, so it becomes more fun. But always make sure the volume and the attack and the tremolo is there.

Also, when you’re comfortable doing your first string, switch to the second string. It’s a little harder, because your fingers don’t have that much freedom and they tend to bump into the first string. Okay, and then get creative. You can go down to your third string too, then move up to the second and to the first. You have to be ready for anything when you play tremolo, because you don’t know where the melody is going to take you.

It might take you into the second string, so you have to switch your tremolo to the second string. Might take you into the third string, even the fourth, we don’t know. But you have to be ready when you’re practicing this technically, be ready for anything that might come your way. So again, I encourage you to be creative and adventurous in your practicing. It makes it a lot more fun.

Transcript

I’m Dan Garcia. I’m going to show you some variations on alzapua. There’s many, many variations on alzapua of course, and once you master this technique you can do variations of your own, obviously. But the most common ones are, we learn alzapua as a triplet, now we’re going to learn it as a pulgar, down, thumb down to the strings, up and then we’re going to play pulgar twice on the target string. This allows us to develop a line in the bass line, sort of like this. One more time.

Another variation in alzapua would be doing the same, but we do a slur. Okay, instead of hitting the bass note twice, we let our left hand do the slur. One more variation in alzapua is having two target notes and a bass note. So instead of going– you would hit two target strings, so you’ll use your sixth and your fifth, kind of like this. Have fun practicing your alzapua.

Transcript

I am Dan Garcia. I’m going to show you how to practice, and how to fit these rasqueos in time. We learned 3 or 4 different kinds of rasqueos, and each one is used in a specific way, especially at the beginning. Once you master your rasqueos, you can fit them in any way you like. For now, we’re going to see how we can fit these in time, because this is a very precise measured technique.

I have a metronome here that’s going to help us keep the beat, so you can see perfectly how these fit in. Our index is going to play the beat, which we’re going to call the quarter note right now. I’m just going to follow the beat with my index, downward. Then I’m going to play the 1/8 note, which is dividing the beat in half, with my index coming back in the other direction.

The next rasqueo we learned was our 2-finger rasqueo, which plays 3 strikes on the strings. Now we’re going to use . . . to fit this in the beat, we need to play triplets, which is 3 notes per beat. Before you try to play it, it’s important that you try to sing it and fit it in time. That’s our beat. We’re going to go 1-2-3, 1-2-3, 1-2-3, 1-2-3, triplet, triplet, triplet, triplet. Tri-pl-et, tri-pl-et; like this. That’s our 2-finger rasqueo, with the index coming back.

Our 3-finger rasqueo is going to play 1/16 notes, that means 4 notes per beat. First note is going to be a finger, any other finger, second note is going to be the middle, then the next 2 notes are going to be index coming down, and index coming up, so 1-2-3-4. Before we try to play it, it’s always good idea to sing it, so, 1-2-3-4, 1-2-3-4, 1-2-3-4, 1-2-3-4, 1-2-3-4. 1-2-3-4, 1-2-3-4, 1-2-3-4.

In our last rasqueo, it’s going to be our 4-finger rasqueo with the pinky and our index coming back. Now we have to fit 5 notes in the beat. 1-2-3-4-5; we call this a quintuplet. It’s not easy as the finger to fit in the beat. Something a percussionist showed me once is to fit a 5-syllable word inside the beat before we play it. 5-syllable word is hippopotamus. We got to try to say hippopotamus and fit it in a beat. It would hippopotamus-hippopotamus-hippopotamus-hippopotamus, hi-ppo-pot-a-mus; 1-2-3-4-5. Let’s try it.

Another subdivision we can once you start getting good at rasqueo is our sextuplet. What we do is take our triplet rasqueo, which is out 2-finger rasqueo, and just double the time. To fix 6 notes in the beat now, 1-2-3-4-5-6, 1-2-3-4-5-6, da-da-da-da-da-da, da-da-da-da-da-da. Let’s try it.

I suggest you practice your rasqueo always with a metronome very slow, and then gradually start speeding up. Have fun.

Transcript

Hi, I’m Dan Garcia. I’m going to show you how to do this technique called a tresillos resqueos in avonico, where we play a really fast triplets, okay? And we use our pinkie and our thumb and a lot of help from our wrist.

It’s a triplet figure and it begins with your thumb in an upward motion, then pinkie in a downward motion, followed by your index. So one-two-three, one-two-three. Then one more time, thumb up, pinkie down, index down, okay.

There’s a lot of players that play this, instead of with the pinkie, they do it with the annular finger. I prefer the pinkie. I feel there’s more momentum with that finger, but it’s up to you. Whatever works for you. So here we go. One-two-three, one-two-three, one-two-three, one-two-three. So have fun.

Transcript

Hi. I’m Dan Garcia. I’m going to show you how to play tremolo, flamenco tremolo. This is a very attractive technique; it’s one of those techniques that people ask you always, “How do you do that? It sounds like 2 or 3 guitars played at the same time.” Yes, it’s one of those techniques that actually sounds harder than it actually is. It’s definitely not easy. You need to practice very carefully and with a lot of patience.

This is how it works: Basically, for every bass note I play, I’m going to play the string that’s playing the melody. In this case, I was playing on the first string. I’m going to play 4 notes for every bass note. The way I’m going to play these 4 notes is with my index first, then A, then M, and then I again. That makes it a quintuplet. This is the flamenco tremolo. In classical guitar, you play tremolo, like plain 1/16 notes, which is 1, 2, 3, 4 notes per beat. A flamenco guitar adds one more note to the mix, so we have a quintuplet.

We play thumb, always first, then index. A, M, I. Thumb, I, M. The purpose of this technique is really to sustain a melody, to keep a melody on the top afloat. The problem with guitar is that the decay of a note is very quick. Sometimes, if we want to sustain a melody, it’s really not possible. We play the note and it rapidly fades away. Violinists and other instrumentalists have ways of keeping a note afloat, with the bow and such. We really don’t. The only way we can do it is repeating it. If we repeat it many, many times, very, very, fast, it gives us that sound or that illusion that the note is being held or almost bowed. Let’s give it a try. Thumb.

That’s how tremolo works. It’s a technique that you have to practice very, very slow. Also, one of the common mistakes with tremolo when you practice tremolo is that if you try to go too fast too quick, what happens is that you lose the attack on the upper string. Make sure you play it with plenty of volume when you’re going slow. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. You speed it up with that same volume. If you feel like you’re really losing volume when you speed up, bring it down a notch. Keep working on it every day.

Transcript

So how do we hold a flamenco guitar and how do we position our hands? Flamenco guitar traditionally was held with both feet on the ground, the guitar up like this. If you see really old pictures of the flamenco guitar players you would most likely see them in this position. In the modern flamenco school you hold your guitar with your legs crossed and the guitar right on top of your legs.

Depending on your size and how high your chair is from the ground, you might want to experiment with crossing your leg over a little more this way or this way. Okay, also if you’re playing a long time you might want to switch because your leg is falling asleep. But these are the two ways you hold a flamenco guitar, either down here or with your leg fully crossed over here.

Now your hands, you want to make sure your elbow is leaning on the top of the guitar. Not hanging like this, but leaning here so your hand can fall freely in a natural way. Okay, you want to try to get your hand parallel to the bridge of the guitar, but without forcing it. Just let it fall naturally in this way, with your thumb sticking out. Try to avoid your thumb, when you play your thumb, going into your palm. Thumb should be always outside, outside of your palm.

So this is the basic hand position for flamenco guitar. Also shoulder relaxed, try to avoid any kind of shoulder… If you find yourself with your shoulder like this to accommodate your hand, it’s not good. The shoulder gets tired very soon, so make sure your shoulder’s relaxed and in a natural position. Your left hand you want it to be parallel to the frets. Okay, you always want to have a little bit of air, a little bit of space between the palm of your hand and the neck of the guitar. If you find yourself with your hand like this all cramped up, no good.

Always make sure you have room to breathe over here, so your wrists should be dropped, thumb, behind the neck; not popping up like this; and a straight hand basically. It’s very common for electric guitar players to have their hand in this position, and that’s great for electric guitar, but it will not work for flamenco. We need to straighten it out and drop our wrists. Okay, so that’s the basic sitting position and hand position for flamenco guitar.

Transcript

Hi, I’m Dan Garcia. I’m going to show you a flamenco technique called golpe. Golpe means strike or hit. It can mean many things in Spanish, but in this case it’s when we hit the guitar, usually in this area here, with our fingers to create some kind of an accent or percussion effect. I warn if you don’t have a flamenco guitar or a guitar that has a plastic protection, don’t do this technique because you’ll make a hole in your guitar eventually. Believe me you will. So make sure you have protection before you do the golpe technique.

Golpe technique is basically, it’s usually our annular finger hitting on the protection above the wood. Usually, to produce an accent that’s in the music as a percussion or to emphasize a particular that we’re playing. This technique is very peculiar, because you have to be ready to do a golpe just about any time. It comes with a lot of different other techniques and you have to learn how to do it at the same time as other things.

The best way to start though is just by doing it by itself. That’s not too hard. Okay, so your thumb is leaning on the sixth string and this kind of curvy movement helps. Next step we’re going to take, we’re going to combine the golpe with our index playing upward. So golpe-index, golpe-index, golpe-index, golpe-index. This is a good way to get you acquainted with the golpe.

Another common rhythmic technique is doing golpe and index twice, but with this rhythm, kind of like a dotted sixteenth note rhythm. Next step is to do the golpe while we’re playing our index down. This at first might feel like rubbing your belly and tapping your head. One of those things where you have to do two things at the same time, but with plenty of practice, it happens. So let’s try it. We’re going to go index down, and at the same time we strike the strings down, we hit the golpe.

Okay, once you’ve accomplished this, next step would be to have our index come up and down as we do the golpe. So golpe-index down and then index up. So golpe is a technique you need to practice slowly and in steps, okay? Don’t try to do it all at the same time, just little by little and make sure you have protection.

Transcript

Hi, I’m Dan Garcia and we’re talking about arpeggio. This next arpeggio we’re going to talk about is the sextuplet and that means we’re going to fit three triplets into the beat. Let me show you how to do this. We’re going to start with our bass note. Remember our thumb always a rest stroke and then we’re going to lean it on the string right below when we play it. Now our fingers are going to play five notes to complete the sextuplet.

So thumb, and we’re going to start with index, middle, annular, back to middle, and then index. So one, two, three, four, five six. Just for the purpose of learning this our index is going to play the third string, second string on the middle finger, first string on the annular finger. So we’re going to play a simple A minor chord and one, two, three, four, five, six; one, two, three, four, five, six; one, two, three, four, five, six; one, two, three, four, five, six; one, two, three, four, five six.

So it’s very important when we do our arpeggios that our fingers don’t hang out on the strings. Meaning don’t lean your fingers on the string, to wait and strike the strings. Okay, the fingers should always be suspended in the air close to the strings, but not on the strings. It’s a common mistake, because it feels safer to be right there. But what happens is you don’t let the guitar ring.

Okay, so the fingers should be only on the string to strike the string. When it’s not touching the string you leave it off the string. So let’s try this again. So one, two, three, four, five, six; one, two, three, four, five, six; one, two, three, four, five, six; one, two, three, four, five, six. So have fun practicing your arpeggios.

Transcript

Hi, I’m Dan Garcia. I’m going to show you this technique I just played. This is an arpeggio roll. Okay, this is very common for introductions to pieces or endings, or maybe when you reach a really juicy chord in the middle of a piece, and you want to arpeggiate it a very fancy way.

So this is how you do it. Your thumb is going to play the bass strings down one-two-three and then your index is going to play the third string, middle is going to play the second string and your annular is going play the first string, but it’s going to play it as a rest stroke.

Meaning your going to play it and lean on the string below, which is the second string. So one more time. Thumb-thumb-thumb-index-middle-A, rest stroke and then we’re going to pull it, going to pull that A finger all the way down the strings with certain attack, so we get that crispiness of the arpeggio roll.

One more time, very slow. Thumb-thumb-thumb.Thumb, obviously has to do a rest stroke, which means you lean it on the next string, so thumb-thumb-thumb-index-middle-A, all the way down. Okay, so let’s put a chord to this fast. Have fun playing your arpeggio rolls.