tighter strings or special guitars

[steve]

Just a novice question:

Is there a way to make your nylon strings tighter? I use high tension strings, but I feel that if the strings were tighter I would be able to play picado faster. Are most professional flamaenco players using tighter strings than the normal off the rack flamenco guitars to get that lightning fast picado?

[falseta]

Hi steve,

Welcome to the forum! Interesting question and wish I had a good response for it. The only two secrets I have heard of for speed is practice and maybe a bit of oil or petroleum jelly rubbed on the finger tips to help reduce friction and speed things up a bit.

But nothing seems to do the trick better than time + practice.

[steve]

Originally Posted by falseta

Hi steve,

Welcome to the forum! Interesting question and wish I had a good response for it. The only two secrets I have heard of for speed is practice and maybe a bit of oil or petroleum jelly rubbed on the finger tips to help reduce friction and speed things up a bit.

But nothing seems to do the trick better than time + practice.

thnx for the tip...I don't know why but it seems that every flamenco guitar that I pick up feels like the strings are so loose. Does it matter if you play an expensive flamenco guitar Vs a cheap one, because the strings on all of them all seem loose to me? I feel that if they were tighter than I could play faster.

thnx Steve

[Bob Weisenberg]

Hi, Steve. Welcome to the forum.

I'm guessing the reason guitar strings seem too loose to you is that you are trying to play too hard. If you are able to play a picado fast, you will be able to do it on any strings if your hands are relaxed. After that, as falsetta wrote, it's a matter of proper technique and practice. The relaxed hands are part of good technique.

This is counterintuitive when you hear a great guitarist. It sounds like they are playing with great force, and they are. But that's because they've built up their strength over years of relaxed technique. So when you practice don't put any more force into your playing than you can do with totally relaxed (relaxed, not limp) hands, expecially on the techniques that you will eventually want to play really fast, like picado and rasquado.

All this said, it's true that most of the gypsy guitarists I knew in Spain used extra high tension Savarez strings. But this isn't so they could play faster. It's because they were so strong that they could draw the tone from them and play louder. An average amateur or beginner guitarist would have trouble drawing a good tone out of such tight strings without trying to use too much muscle.

As another example that answers your question very directly, Carlos Montoya played with great force probably with high-tension strings when he first came here from Spain. But as he grew older and sustained some hand injuries, he used very loose strings. He even tuned his guitar a step down to loosen them even further. You can hear this in the difference in tone. But that didn't keep him from playing the picado lightning fast.

Let me know if you have any followup questions.

[steve]

thnx Bob..I assume that also the closer the strings are to the fretboard, the easier it will be to execute picado quicker. I don't know why but I played a 2000 dollar Cordova and it was much more difficult to play picado than a$150 Lucero?...On the Lucero I did notice the strings were closer to the fretboard.
thnx again, Steve

[Bob Weisenberg]

Yes, that would be right. The lower the action the easier a guitar will be to play. Generally the higher the quality the easier to play, but almost all commercially-made guitars are very playable now, ever since Yamaha introduced industrial quality control to inexpensive mass-produced guitars in the '70's.

So what you have left that affects playability is the shape and width of the neck, the "action" (height of the strings), and the string tension. Since there's so much personal preference here, it's not unusual for one to feel a less expensive guitar is more "playable", since they're all pretty playable to begin with.

Classical guitarists are looking for a very full clean tone, so they often have pretty high action, which can make a fine classical guitar relatively hard to play, especially at the higher registers. Flamenco guitarist are actually looking for a more earthy sound consistent with a more earthy art, and many strive for a slight raspiness thats comes from very low action, as long as it doesn't turn into a distracting buzz. This has the side advantage of make a flamenco guitar easier to play very fast.

[Christopher Valencia]

I read your post and may have an alternate recommendation. I am brand new to Falseta and first have to say, what a great site. I have been studying how to make a guitar and in my studies I learned about scale. Not the scales we practice daily but the length of the strings (bone to bridge). Briefly, there are different size guitars. Take for example the 3/4 size guitar. It has a shorter scale and therefore students with smaller hands can play eaiser because the distance between the frets are closer. Most guitars are made at a scale between 650 mm and 665 mm , the former being easier to play. I have a Ramirez 1a with a 667 mm scale which is high tension but is difficult to play. In answer to the question, longer scale requires more tension to tune the string, therefore tighter feel. The opposite is true for shorter scale length; less tension required to tune therefore a looser feel. Also, a flamenco guitar has a shallower body, hence the punchier more percussive sound due in part to reduced vibration of the strings wereas the classical guitar has a deeper body creating more resonance thus more vibration of the strings contributing to the slower right hand finger speed. Look at the difference in speed in playing closer to the bridge as opposed to playing over the soundhole. This should clarify the point. I am brand new to the site and learned a great deal from many of you folks and hope my little contribution helped someone out there.

[Black Sheep]

The other point to consider is 'where' on the guitar your right hand is playing. Flamenco is usually played between the hole and bridge where the string won't vibrating as wildly. Over the hole they are in the middle of the second half of the string, so the amplitude of the vibration is at it's greatest. The further towards the bridge you go, the more staccato or ould-like the sound and less waste time 'finding' the string...