Practice Tip: Quintuplet Tremolo

If you’re like me, you can play tremolo quickly and smoothly on the 1st string but get sloppy on the 2nd and 3rd strings. I realized my problem is that my 1st finger goes out too far; often hitting the adjacent string.

I have found that one way of combatting this is by practicing quintuplet tremolo. The pattern for this is similar to the typical tremolo fingering (pami), but with an extra i finger added, making it piami. It’s a true  quintuplet, meaning that there are 5 notes to the beat and every note has equal value.

This is a pattern common to flamenco guitar and useful for classical guitarists as well. Requiring you to plant i before the other fingers, piami will train you to position the entire hand in the proper position so that you're not swinging too wide and hitting the wrong string. Try it out and tell me what you think!



(Recuerdos de la Alhambra is the perfect piece to practice tremolo on the 2nd string)

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