[rooster]

Hi,

Recently I have been attempting to learn scales alternating the I and M fingers of PIMA , I am inspired by the below youtube video of Sting playing "Fragile", but when I watch it I notice that when he is "soloing" - single notes, often he is just using the I finger of PIMA alone and occasionally using the M finger, I thought maybe that was bad technique?? I thought good technique was to alternate between the IMIMIMIMIMIMIMIMIM fingers when playing scales or soloing, or have I got that wrong? Or is that technique OK?

Sting; YouTube - Sting - Fragile (Live)

I hope you can help me understand this!

Much thanks,
rooster

[at_leo_87]

the answer is simple: sting does not play flamenco, dont watch him to learn technique.

[rooster]

So his technique awful?!

Should I try not to repeat a strike with the same finger on the same string in sequence like that?

[falseta]

I don't think at_leo_87 was saying Sting's technique is awful...

More like... would you learn brick making from a baker?

If you want to learn to play Flamenco, watch professional Flamenco guitarists like Paco de Lucia, Tomatito, etc...

This way you do not learn bad playing habits that you later will have to break...

HTH

[rooster]

So really it's just not good technique- OK that helps.

I should take a better look at the players you mentioned,

I just saw the Paco de Lucia shreds video.. I nearly choked laughing!

Cheers.

[at_leo_87]

Originally Posted by falseta

More like... would you learn brick making from a baker?

or vice versa? ouch!

rooster, you're on a flamenco forum so im assuming you want to learn flamenco technique. sting does not play flamenco, so you shouldn't copy him. whatever he is doing with his technique is working for his type of music but if you want to learn flamenco then watch flamenco players.

here, learn paco's picado runs in this alegrias.

YouTube - Paco de Lucia "la Barrosa"

[dillonpape]

Originally Posted by at_leo_87

here, learn paco's picado runs in this alegrias.

haha Stop telling this kid to go learn some Paco de Lucia. He is just going to end up disappointed that he can't do it hahaha

But as far as technique, like they said, it's not that he has bad technique (whether or not you want to compare it to flamenco technique). The reason why they say to alternate I and M is because of efficiency. It is similar to using a pick: one can play twice as fast using alternating up-and-down picking than just down picking. It's not that using down picking is bad technique, but if you are going to want to play quickly, then only playing down all the time becomes inefficient. Yet the fastest, most technical guitarists in the world would use only down picking during slower sections of a song because there is no reason to use up-and-down if something can be played just as easily with only down. Technique more has to do with how you use your finger rather than which fingers you use. There is a certain position that the fingers should be in, a certain amount of curvature, a certain nail usage, etc., if you are using the finger in such a way that it is going to hurt your finger, then that is bad technique. Looking at Sting in this video, it looks like he actually has pretty good technique. He seems relaxed, nice curvature of the finger, nice thumb angle. And the song isn't all that fast, so he can afford to use just one finger. He could probably play it with his pinky if he wanted to. Paco de Lucia, on the other hand...not so much. Faster-than-lightning speed necessitates alternating fingers. So if you are just composing a song or learning a song or something, or if you don't intend to want to play quickly at all, then do whatever feels comfortable. But if you are going to actually practice picado technique to strive for efficiently fast playing, then definitely focus on alternating I and M as much as possible.