Simple Guitar Exercises To Break Out Of A Rut In Your Playing

Many guitarists do not realise that techniques used in flamenco guitar (known as rasgueos) can be applied to any playing style. Knowing them can make your playing more unique – they're not just for flamenco –  and they work in folk and rock to jazz and classical!

Below we take a look a look at the different right hand techniques used in flamenco guitar and show you how they sound. Then it's up to you to incorporate them into your playing.

The Rumba 

The rumba is the most familiar and 'popular' spanish guitar (or flamenco guitar) style. It's light-hearted and good fun, but also something you can put into your own style of music.

It's in a common time measure / rhythm (4/4), and the percussive 'clap' sound it makes can be adapted for folk and jazz especially.

You can play any chord with it. The technique just requires your right hand.

It consists of four basic steps, so you can become familiar with it very quickly. Play the video above to see how to do it.

Picado

The picado is a technique used in flamenco and classical guitar that involves a single finger striking a single note. When sped up it lets you run through scales quickly. 

Although the picado technique involves 'resting' your finger on the string below, if you let your finger stay in the air (and not resting on the string below) after striking, when sped up it forms a tremelo (see the video below).

5-Finger Rasgueo

Next we have the 'five finger rasgueo'. This involves striking all the guitar strings, with each finger, in sequence. You begin with your little finger, then ring, then midle, and end with the index. After all fingers have struck down, the index comes back up to make beat 5. Take a look at the below taken from Rafael's course for a demonstration.

The key to getting this right is keeping your hand loose and relaxed. This only comes with a lot of time with the guitar, practising, so you get comfortable with it. The same goes for performing: you will naturally tense up your hands, and this only gets better with experience unfortunately! 

As Rafael explains in the summary above, the four finger rasgeo is the same process – just drop the little finger. This makes for a nice filler in many western musical styles.

More from Rafael's flamenco guitar course here.