Spanish Guitar Strumming Techniques

1. Promo Video: Hi, my name is Ada, and I'm a professional guitarist. In this course, you are going to learn about Spanish guitar strumming techniques. And you can learn techniques like Flamenco triplet Rasgaduzap. But today I'm just going to show you how to play the Flamenco rumba technique. Rumba is played in 44 times. Probably this is the reason why it is so popular, because audiences are easily able to relate to this familiar 44 rhythm. The sequence is as follows, with all of the fingers up with all of the fingers down with all of the fingers. When you turn your wrist and up with your thumb up, up, up, up, up, up. Now the question is, how can you make this faster? There are a few steps that you need to do to make this faster. First step, only play with your index or middle finger instead of all fingers. The sequence and index finger, index finger down, and thump up. Or middle finger up, middle finger down, thump. I actually prefer the index finger to use second step. Turn the risk properly. The sequences it up, turn back, turn. If you don't turn your wrist, then you won't be able to make this fast or have power to do this movement properly. Third step, be very close to the guitar. If you stay close to the guitar and you don't make so much movements, then you can go fast. Because if you make too many movements, it will take so much time to go back to the original position. If you see when I'm playing fast, I'm very close to the guitar. I'm only turning my wrist four step. Try only one quick movement and after stop, for example, do one round and hit stop sign up for my course. Have fun and keep on practicing. 2. Basic Rumba Technique: The first technique that I'm going to show you is the basic rumba technique, and after this lesson, you will learn something like this. Rumba is played in 44 times. Probably this is the reason why it is so popular, because audiences are easily able to relate to this familiar 44 rhythm. The sequence is as follows, with all of the fingers up with all of the fingers down with all of the fingers. When you turn your wrist and up with your thumb up, up, up, down, up, up, up. Now the question is, how can you make this faster? There are a few steps that you need to do to make this faster. First step, only play with your index or middle finger instead of all fingers. The sequence and index finger, index finger down and thump up. Or middle finger up, middle finger down, up. I actually prefer the index finger to use second step. Turn the risk properly. The sequences up, turn back turn. If you don't turn your wrist, then you won't be able to make this fast or have power to do this movement properly. Third step, Be very close to the guitar. If you stay close to the guitar and you don't make so much movements, then you can go fast. Because if you make too many movements, it will take so much time to go back to the original position. If you see when I'm playing fast, I'm very close to the guitar. I'm only turning my wrist four step. Try only one quick movement. And after stop, for example, do one round and hit Stop. This will help you later on to connect these movements together and you can do it continuously. Fifth step practice with the metronome to be on time. For example, no, I set up the metronome to 80 BPM and after I will play one movement on each of the beats up, you can set up the metronome to higher speed. And you can follow this return until you can reach the point that you can do one round on each of the beats. Now the metronome is still on 80 BPM, but I will play one round on each of the beats. You can influence the sound once you're comfortable with the technique. If you hit to the sound hole, then you have a deeper sound. But if you hit closer to the breach, then you have a higher sound. And combining these two hits, then you can have a worried technique with a, it sounds like this. If you would like to keep up with the speed with the rumbo, every movement has to come from the wrist. That's why it is very important to warm up the wrist before you start playing. This warm up approach is very similar to a fitness workout. You prepare the wrist for the first movements before you start playing. At first make in 10-20 counterclockwise circular movement, your wrist 1-234-567-8910 And then you can do the same to the clockwise 1-234-567-8910 And then you can turn it away from you for 3 seconds, and then towards for 3 seconds, away from 3 seconds, and towards for 3 seconds. You can just repeat this movements until you feel like that your wrist is ready to go. You can also do the same movements with your other hand as well. The first exercise is changing in between major and major seven because there is only one node which is the difference in between these two chords. This is and major seven. I set up the metronome to 120 BPM and I will play the exercise. But please, if you don't feel so confident, start with a slower speed. 3. Rumba Technique Variations: Before we go on to the rumba variations, I would like to introduce a new technique which is called gop. This is go. Gop is a Spanish word and it means to strike. And it literally means to strike with your ring finger on the soundboard. It is best to have a little bit of nail to get the proper sound, but not too much because it can easily break. Be careful with this technique, you should protect your guitar. If this technique is used a lot, the guitar can become damaged after a period of time. It can even result in holes forming in the wood of the guitar's body. To avoid this problem, some people use a guitar protector called Colador. This can be in bod, below and above the sound hole. To do this technique, the best is to start at first. Without the guitar, this movement is very similar, like catching something with your thumb and your ring finger. But at the same time you need to turn your wrist, it is more like this. To do this on the guitar, at first you need to place your thumb to the east string, But do not it down, just place it there. You make a hit with your ring finger and then you turn until you can do this altogether. The first variation that we will learn is the most common rumba. After this lesson, you will learn something like this. So the sequences gop down with the index finger, up with the top, up with the index finger, down with the index finger, and up with the top, it is still in 44, but there is an accent on the goal pay, which means it is lasting twice as much as every other movement. So it could be like go up, break down, up. It, up, down, up. You can transform this technique to a percasive rumba. And the only difference lays on the left hand, you are incorporating several mutings to the left hand, and then it will sound like very percasive. It will sound something like this. It is exactly the same technique, although the mutings are incorporated, which means you hold the chord, touch the strings, hold the chord, touch the strings. The next variation will be the one not Rumbo. And after this lesson, you will learn something like this. The sequences you go on with your thumb and you end up on the next string. After you go with all of your fingers, with your thumb and with your index finger, it is a little bit softer way to play rumbo, although it can sound very nice because you can play little melodies with your thumb. Also, a new technique was inside this rumbo. It is called pug. Pugar means playing with your thumb, and your thumb always ends up on the next string. 4. Pulgar: Although this book is mainly about strumming techniques, this Sloman Coo guitar technique needs to be introduced because it will be often used in the patterns described later on. Pulgar means stump in Spanish, and it involves playing a string and ending up on the next string below. It is a little bit different from the classical technique because they do not end up on the next string. The best is to practice Pulgar with a metronome, for example, this is one Pulgar. Before we go into the exercises, one more technique needs to be introduced. This is oudado. Oudado sounds like this. Oodado is a technique that uses the index finger to support the tomb. Meaning that the highest string is played with the index finger, and every other string is played with Pulgar. For example, in the A minor, we played every other string with the Pulgar, and only the string played with the index finger. So, Pulgar, index finger. Oh. 5. Flamenco Triplet: The next technique I'm going to show you is the Flamenco triplet, or Abanico. And after this lesson, you will learn something like this. The triplet consists of three notes within a single beat. And the sequences at first you go down with your middle and ring finger only with your fingers and not with your wrist after thumb. And you turn your wrist and turn back with the thumb, it is down turn. Flamenco guitarist actually start the sequence with different movement. They always start with the up movement, it's up, up, downturn. But I show you this way because you can add the hit later on. Mustering the triplet requires that every single movement be performed precisely as follows. By making the first movement, only the two fingers moves and the entire hand remain stable. They end up just below the strings and they are curved like this. The second movement, you use your finger or thump, and you turn your wrist. On the third movement, you turn your wrist back, fingers turn, fingers, turn. The question is, how can you make this faster? First, be very close to the guitar. If you make two big movements, you won't be able to get fast. It is more like second, turn your wrist properly. If you don't turn your wrist properly, you won't be able to go fast. In the end, it's supposed to be like a shaking movement only with your wrist. Third, make one quick triplet and stop. If you are able to make one quick triplet after a while, you can all connect them together. Fourth, practice with a metronome. I set up my metronome to 130 BPM and I make one movement on each of the bits. It looks like this. If it is too fast for you, you can slow it down. And once you are confident, you can go faster with the beats. The best way to practice the triplet is making accent. For example, in the three movements, you can make at first an accent on the first movement all the time. It is a strong kit. And after you make an accent on the second movement, after you make an accent on the third movement, you can do a lot of rounds on this one up until you feel confident and you can go for the triplet itself. Start this exercise at a slower speed first, like 100 PM. But once you're comfortable with the rhythm and the technique, you can go up higher. Like I will play this in 190 BPM. Once you're comfortable with the triplet as well, you can make oxens. This means that you make a triplet on each of the bars at the first time after every other triplets is a little bit lower volume. The other way to make accents on the triplets is combining them with eight notes. This means that you do end after one T two tele, two triplets. You can combine these triplets with the previously learned rumba techniques and it will sound really amazing. 6. Adding Hit to the Flamenco Triplet: After building up the confidence with the Flamenco triplet, you can start adding heat. After this lesson, you will learn something like this. The sequences you go down with your middle and ring finger, like in the triplet before. And you go down with your thumb and turn in the triplet before and turn back and he do. I call this Gabriella technique because Gabriella Quintero from the popular Mexican guitardoor Rodrigo Gabriella using this technique a lot. The, it doesn't necessarily need to be after the first triplet, but you can do several triplets and do a hit. You can do, for example, two triplets and do a hit. It sounds something like this. And you can combine these two triplets, hit with one triplet and the heat. You shouldn't start doing this technique before you can roll the triplet, but once you're comfortable with the triplet, you can start doing this. And you can even make different hits on the guitar. If you hit to the sound hole, it sounds a little bit deeper. If you hit closer to the bridge, it sounds higher. Using this technique, doing the different sounds something like this, and with a chord it sounds something like this. The next song will be the same chord progression, although there will be a triplet and hit and strumming up and hit. The first exercise will be from the song Tamac. And you use double triplet. And it, and after triplet it triplet hit on the chords, alternating in between each other. You can make other variations to make this a little bit more interesting. For example, instead of triplets, you can use up and dance drumming and the heat. After this lesson, you will learn something like this. The technique is your hand is in an open fist position and you go down with all of your finger nails. After you go up with your thumb, finger nail, it is in the end, only your wrist is moving. And that's why you can go fast because you should be able to draw your wrist in the end to make accents on this one. You can just make one done movement and after up. And it, it's up up. When you master all of these techniques, you can practice and combine everything together. And you can use a lot of different progression. But now I will show you an example on a minor, major, major, major. And I will play the different techniques on each of the courts. 7. Replacing Hit with Golpes: Fast and percasive playing can be produced other ways than just making hits with the hands. Replacing the hits with goal pace will add the different feeling for the play. After this lesson, you will learn something like this. To do this, playing your hand is in an open fisted position and you go down with all of your fingers and up with the thumb. It is up, every movement is coming from the wrist. You only move your wrist when you do this movement. After a while, you can speed it up. The next step is incorporating ocent. You can make accent on a vary that you go down strongly and after up, down, up, down, up. You create triplets this way fast. It sounds something like this. The next step is replacing the accents with goal pays. Go pay is hit with your ring finger and you catch with the Tom why you turn your hand. Then the movement will be Goop with a chord. It sounds something like this. Step four is building up different oxens using this technique. For example, you can build up a 44 with this one and then it will be like it sounds something like this. You can build up other types of rhythms as well. For example, some Bork or Turkish rhythm. And then it could be up up, the first will be, the second will be. And of course you can build up any other rhythms that you want to on your imagination is the limit to use this technique. 8. Rasgueado: Rasgiado is a Flamenco strumming technique and it is executed on a way that your thumb is placed on the low E string, and you use one or more fingers from the base of the thumb, and you go down on the strings. The one Stro Rasgiado looks like this or like this. The strings are struck with the finger nails and it gives a much stronger sound than the other techniques, because we use the nail to make the hits. The thumb is placed on the low E string, but do not push it down. Just place it there. Your index finger is in the bottom of the thumb, and you hit the strings with your finger nail. When you end up, you are still curved and you are just below the strings like this. When you do the up movement, you use the treble strings to go up and you go back to the bottom of the thumb when you hit the first one, then you try to hit the bass notes so it has a strong sound. Some people do not flick properly. It's advisable for them to use a coin or any other little things and practice the flicking without the guitar. One sto can be combined with a hit using the ring finger. This technique is also called Golpe, what you are doing, your thumb placed on the string. Your index finger is the bottom of the thumb. And then you make the hit and go down at the same time with your index finger. It is like this with a chord, it looks like this. It can be a bit unnatural movement at first because your index finger and your ring finger is moving towards different directions without the guitar. It is a bit like this form and hold any chord of your choice. To make it easier for us, I will just hold an E major chord, which is this one set up the metronom to 100 BPM and start playing one strum per beat. If you do not hear a strong bass sound, then you need to stop, correct the technique, and start again. For example, it is something like this. You need to stop and start again, but you need to hear the bass sound go away. That's when you know that you play this correctly. Once you are confident with this one, you can start playing two strums per beat. It means you play one Dan Strom and Pst as well. It is the same, same speed, which is 100 BPM. Once you are confident with the speed, you can go higher with the speed. For example, I can set up to 110 BPM and then do the same exercise. And of course, you can go higher and higher, you can keep up with the rhythm. Once you are confident with these ones, then you can go back to 100 BPM and start combining the one strum per beat with the two strum per beat. Then to start with, you start playing four times one strum per beat and four times two strums per beat. It will sound something like this after you can do like one strum per bit and 12 strums per bit, just to make it a little bit more difficult. After you are confident with all these exercises, you can go on further to do something more difficult. For example, Bularias, which is a floor Thm. If we put 150 the metronome, we can play that one. And we can also do the same exercise, but we now add the goal pace to make the oxens. 9. Muted Rasgueado: Staccato is a specific performance technique. It means that the cord or a node is shortened by duration. And there is a brief silence after before the following. It means that it is something like this. Basically you are holding a cord and after you hit with the one stroke rasgiado and release it and you just touch the strings. It is also called, because of this reason, muted rasgiados, because you mute the cord. This technique works the best when you hold a bar and then you can hit and release it very easily. But you can do the same technique with an open cord as well. The best is to try to hold, for example, an E minor cord and try to mute it. Then when you hold minor cord, you can hold two strings together with your index finger after you can use either your ring finger or litter finger to mute it. Some people find it easier in one way or the other one. It looks something like this with the ring finger or with the little finger, it looks like this. For me, it is actually easier with the little finger to mute the cord. The next exercise will be to mute the A Major, and it will be in an open position as well. To do that one, you need to use only two fingers to hold the A major. Your index finger holds the E and A, and your middle finger holds the C sharp note. Actually, this chord is used widely in Flamenco music because you have the other two fingers to do other stuff. To mute this chord, we will use the little finger, it looks like this. Another way to add accents. The conventional strumming is flicking the guitar body with your index finger. After this lesson, you will learn something like this. It is done similar way as the Rasgiadom, although instead of placing the thumb on the E string, it is more like in the mid air when you hit the body of the guitar and you end up on the string. The sound consists of wood and strings together. And you also use your wrist to add a little bit more on the movement. Actually, this technique is widely used at the beginning of the songs or end of the songs, But not many people or nobody is using to strum continuously like this because it can be quite tiring for the index finger. 10. Rasgueado Variations: Now we will learn about the 3.4 stro Crasgiado. Three crasgiado looks like this. For the technique, three fingers are used, and they are always relased in the following order. Ring finger, middle finger, index finger. The thumb is placed on the low E string, just resting on the string, not pushing it down. The other fingers are held in the shape of a fist and flick down from the base of the thumb in such a way that after the dance stroke, they end up just below the strings and remain slightly curved. It is very important to make contact with the bass notes, otherwise the sound won't be so strong. I mean, this sound, it shouldn't sound like this. More like adding one more note, you will get the force throw, cross Giado and it can sound like this or like this. In the first variation, the index finger is used to end the sequence to play both a dance stroke and an up stroke. So it will be middle, indeed, index up. The second variation will start with the little finger and it will look like this. Little middle index, little ring, middle index. How do you practice this? To get the rolling rasgiadom, for example, you can set up the metronome to 80 BPM and you can play three notes per bit. Or you can set up any speed that you are comfortable with. And you can hold any chord. Now will hold an E minor chord. And I will play three notes per beat on 80 BPM. Once you are comfortable with this technique, you can set up the metronome to higher and higher. For example, 90 or 100 BPM. And then you do the same exercise, but if you don't hear the bass sound, you need to stop and correct the technique and go back again. You can do the same exercise on the four through Rasgado, but you need to go lower with the speed because you play four notes per bit. Now I set up my metronome to 60 BPM and I play the first variation. Lastly, you can do the second variation with the same speed. The first few exercises will involve changing the base nodes on the five chord. Five chords are also called power chords and they are widely used in metall music. But influent chords were to create dramatic and powerful effects. They are not major or minor because they do not have a major or minor. They only have root and perfect five. For example, five looks like this, what it consists of. The root is an E and the perfect five is a B. Then it consists of another. And then now I would like to share with you a few more power courts. This is C five, this is five. This is five, this is D five. 11. Hammer-on and Pull-off: Before going on, another technique needs to be introduced. And this is legato, which utilizing the Homeron and the pull of technique. Homeron is like this. Pull off is like this. Legato means that the nodes are played without intervening silence in between them. Technically, it means that the Homeron and the pull off are played without the right hand. You just play one node actually, with the right hand. And after when you do the Homer, you add the next with one of the other fingers on the left hand with the pull of the method is the same. So you don't play with your right hand, you use the left hand to add the next. 12. Tango with Rasgueado: In this lesson, I will show you a way to accompany *** parcito. After this lesson, you will learn something like this. Before I describe this technique, I just would like to say that Argentine Togo players do not play like this. They do not mute every bit. The original milongo is in 24 time. It is just a technique that I developed and I think it sounds good. When I accompany lacomparsita. There are two different ways to do this kind of technique. The first one is using the sad. You hold your thump on the string after you add beats. Why? You incorporate mute things in every single bit, after every single bit, it looks like this. Then there is one part. When you use the three stroke rasgado, after you go back to the staccato or muted agido, There is one more way to do this. One. It is the stroke and the Flamenco triplet. And we are using the muting again. It like this, instead of the three stesgiado, the Flamenco triplet, which is three notes as well, and it sounds quite similar. Maybe the rosgiadove is a little bit stronger. Sound 13. Alzapua: The next lesson will be the Alza poem. After this lesson, you will learn something like this. Alsop is a type of triplet, which is played with the thump, and it occurs almost exclusively in Flamenco guitar. Although Flamenco guitarists use this technique to play solos or falsetas, it can also be used as a written playing in non Flamenco settings. To play the Zap at first, you place your thumb on the string where you want to start it, and you do one pulgar, you go one node down, or one string down, you end up on the next string. The second movement is a turn. You turn your wrist with your thumb and you turn back, It is done turn. When you do the turn, you can go few strings down or all the strings down, it doesn't really matter. Do turn when you go back to the string, then it's good to have all of your other fingers just to end up just below the string so you have a stable position. Also, you can add the goal pay to this movement. And to add the goal pay, you need to audit. On the second movement, it is go pay, turn back. Pay, turn back. Now the question is, how can you practice this and go fast? The best way to practice this is to make accents at first, make accent on the first movement and play this for a while. And then you can make an accent on the second movement and then make accent on the third movement until you are feeling more confident with this technique. And then you can start the exercises. 14. Drumming Techniques on Guitar: The guitar itself can be used as a percussion instrument because the guitar's body can produce a wide variety of percussion sounds. If you hit in different places, for example, if you hit here, it sounds different than hitting it here or here. At first, we will use the rumba technique to drum on the guitar. After this lesson, you will learn something like this. The steps are, at first, you need to mute the guitar with your left hand. If you are right handed guitarist, then it is up, done up. Actually, this was in the seventh lesson. And it is exactly the same technique. But now we will use it as a percassive technique. When you mute it, you can just do it at first, in one place up after you can start hitting in different positions. For example, it closer the sound hole and closer to the bridge. The next step could be to go even further. One heat could be near the soundboard, and the next heat could be over the bridge. Then it can look very nice in a live performance. The last step could be that you move the whole technique and you do exactly the same thing on the guitar body. Or you can involve the strings as well and the guitar body. It's really up to you how much to use this drumming. The second technique that can easily be applied as a drumming technique is the open dance drumming. After this lesson, you will learn something like this. This technique is actually previously described in less than 12. At first, the wrist should be very relaxed because all the movement is coming from the wrist. Then you are in an open fist position and you go down with all of your fingers using the fingernails. And you go up with the thumb fingernails, and you mute the strings with your left hand. Then you just go up. The best is to practice this with a metronome. So you can set up the metronome to any speed which is comfortable for you, and you can do an up movement on one beat. I set up my metronome to 110 BPM and I practice it after. Of course, you can go faster and faster with the metronome until you can roll your wrist. You can do the same thing on the guitar body as well. The next step will be to make axens. So you can do, for example, up, done up, up, up. And the next thing to move this to the guitars body. Then also you can build up rhythms with this one. For example, you can build up 44. It will be done up on the body, it sounds like this. To make the previously described drumming a little bit more interesting, it is great to add hits with the whole hand to this type of strumming or drumming. After this lesson, you will learn something like this. The first thing to develop this technique is to mute the strings with your left hand. And you do the strumming with your right hand. The first thing you could do is up, up, up, it. Then to make this a little bit more interesting, you can do the up, down, up on the guitar's body and the hit on the strings after. You can combine all these techniques together and develop different rhythms and you can reach something very interesting. For example, you can do it up it, then you can do the same thing on the guitar body. Or you can do the open dance drumming on the guitar body and the hits on the strings. The next drumming technique I show you will be the triplet. Because this can be used as a drumming technique. To, after this lesson, you will learn something like this. At first, you need to mute the strings again with your left hand. After the sequence is done, with your middle and ring finger, and turn your hand with your thumb and turn back. You can find this technique on less than ten, where it is explained a little bit more deeply. But once you are confident with this technique, you can start using it as a drumming technique. Also, the thumb part will start when you start combining this one with different techniques. For example, the up and dance strum. And you can make amazing rhythms, for example, you can do. And then the Flaming Ople three times. And then first, let's see how does it sound on the guitar body. It's a little bit difficult to do this one on the guitar's body, but after practicing, I'm sure you can get the right sound. Of course, there are many other ways to drum on the guitar. These are just the techniques that I developed and I used to drum on the guitar of when you play with another player, it can be much more fun. The other player can do some kind of bass drumming or basic drumming, and you can do the solos with these techniques. The question is how to do this bass drumming? There are a lot of different ways that people use or I use. One can be when you use your thumb and your three fingers, your index, middle ring finger to drum on the guitar, your thumb is hitting the bridge and the three fingers hit the body. It's something like this. There are another way that you can do this, bass drumming. And it is using both of the hands and you use this bongo style of drumming. On the guitar, it is something like this. There is even a style which is called Percussion guitar that people use on the steer string guitar, and it sounds very spectacular when they play and drum at the same time. There is actually a record company called Candidate Records, who signed the best guitarist in the world in this kind of music. I highly recommend it to check it out. I hope you enjoy these lessons and it helps you to learn something new and develop your own music. I just want to say I'm so grateful for the people supported this project on the Kickstarter, because without you guys, it could have never happened. I would like to say thank you to my editors, Ron Llano and Mark Wheeler, because without their help, I could have never wrote this book with their proof reading and voluable advices. They help me all the way. I also would like to say, thank you for RP Films in Hungary who filmed the video lessons with me. Hopefully after this book, you will go further with your music studies and you will become a great musician in the future.