This style of columbianas has always fascinated me, the rhythm is so basic, so simplistic it really feels like the true nature of music. Also people usually like this style because it conveys happiness and that is easy to understand.

Paco has really outdone himself on this one. It is a statement of regret and deep sadness, just like a rondena is supposed to be. But the real twist comes near the end, the rhythm he found is unique. Whenever I play this song I feel like I want to repeat it 50 times and then again.

The interesting part is the usual formation of a rondena. In my experience a good rondena will look like it doesn’t make any sense for about 80%, then the last portion is played in a certain rhythm that needs some unique characteristics.

I only played this part of the song because most people like to get to the point fast, but I may include the rest of the song in a future release.

Generally classical guitar music has a dark touch to it, which means the tempo is kind of slow and calculated. The main thing is calm in classical music, whereas in jazz the primary trait is improvisation. Both these qualities can be found in most music genres, but what makes flamenco unique is the expression of Spanish culture.

Flamenco guitar music is made to express the guitarists feelings, and whether they are genuine or not is very much apparent in the music he creates. A joyfull person will find difficulty in playing a sad style, unless it completely changes his mood. This is imperative to flamenco, as this music is all about expressing your current feelings.

For happiness there is alegrias, and a number of other genres, for parties we have bulerias and a few others. The same pattern holds for all the flamenco styles. Each of them is supposed to express defined feelings like anger, despair or happiness. Flamenco guitar music is beautiful because of this peculiar feeling it has.

The best one can do is flourish the rhythm up to the sky, and the only part that allows for freedom of play is generally the falseta portion. Falsetas are variations specific to the genre that the guitarist plays in between the singing and dancing as a flamenco guitar solo. These are different for every style, but you could play a bulerias falseta in a solea, or the other way around because these 2 styles are much the same. Sometimes the key in which solea is played is used to play a bulerias, this combination will be called bulerias por solea, using solea chords to play bulerias.

This key changing thing is very interesting for flamenco guitar solo, as different keys have different peculiarities, so a good guitarist can use them for many different effects, enchancing the quality of the music he plays.

However, even these falsetas are pretty much mapped-out. Though a guitarist can try and compose his own, this is much more difficult than playing what is standard; so you hear a lot of the same variations every day. I encourage you to stop playing what you know and start to create your own music. Forget about what you know and every time you play create a new and different flamenco guitar solo, whatever you can think of. This will make your guitar playing much more interesting.

How does that happen ? let’s suppose you are trying to learn the picado technique, the best thing to do is perhaps take a few videos of Paco De Lucia and study the movement closely, then practice it on the guitar. Problem is that you will most likely miss a few important details, and you won’t be able to move your hand quite like him. So this leads to a faulty technique, which in turn leads to mistakes while playing, which is the kind of thing we should want to avoid.

So how should you learn guitar picking techniques ? Get the general idea, picado – index and middle fingers alternatively, cool – and record it. Record yourself doing the technique, then compare the video with the way Paco De Lucia is doing it. This way it is easy to see the differences and you will easily understand where you are wrong and what you should try to do. This is the technical approach to learning techniques, comparing positions and movements.

Another way is to try and make the guitar sound the same as the song, but this is very unreliable as in the case of picado it is highly unlikely that you will be able to move as fast as Paco De Lucia even if you’re using 4 fingers for a tremolo instead of 2. Still I recommend trying this as well as the other method.

Using both methods should lead to you developing your own style and guitar picking techniques, and that is the point of playing guitar.

Thanks to his rigorous training of 4-10 hours a day since the age of 7, Paco De Lucia has taken most techniques at another level, especially the picados. Many ask how Paco De Lucia plays picado so fast, the only answer is practice, huge amounts of practice. This makes one wonder if there will be any other flamenco guitarist to match his level.

This is not to say that Paco De Lucia flamenco is the one and only, there are many other great flamenco guitar players like Paco Pena, Vicente Amigo and Gerardo Nunez, each of them has created a different style of flamenco, thus ensuring diversity in this art.

In his early years Paco De Lucia met the great master Sabicas, who told him that no one should try to copy another guitar players style, but instead he should create his own. This encouraged young Paco to search for a new and different style.

The result is 50 years of constant touring around the world, a fusion between Paco De Lucia flamenco and all the other big genres of music, namely the jazz fusion with John Mclaughlin and Al Di Meola. The trio is well known around the world as they have toured together in many countries, sharing their beautiful technical accomplishments and melodic phrases.

Today Paco De Lucia is still touring and is intent on releasing a new album. It will be interesting to see the contents of his new album. I am looking forward to it’s release as paco de lucia flamenco is both interesting and challenging for the ear.

There are several styles of guitar finger picking, ranging from classical to flamenco. Intermediate styles like jazz involve using both a pick and your fingers alternatively in order to produce different effects and sounds.

Classical finger picking doesn’t rely so much on anything other than arpeggios and a primitive form of picados. Though some classical songs involve different techniques, they are generally focused on the sound quality rather than being challenging. Jazz and acoustic styles also use arpeggios as the main technique and again are not very challenging since not much speed is required. The focus of all these styles is comfort and relaxation.

In contrast, flamenco is a very complex genre, and it involves several right hand techniques that are unique to this style. The best flamenco guitarist in that he has mastered every technique in existence is Paco De Lucia. His trademark technique is the picado. The picado is the technique in which you use your index and middle fingers alternatively for rapid picking of the strings. Done right it sounds like a flurry of notes with the feeling of a galloping horse. Coupled with the fast nature of flamenco and an excellent control over the left hand patterns the result is remarkable in both speed and power.

Any exercise is good to practice your picado, that is everything helps, both exercises for thumb or arpeggios are very good. These will help you improve your guitar finger picking a lot.

Though his favorite genre is the bulerias, Paco de Lucia has written songs in many different styles like rondenas, rumbas, alegrias and tangos. His alegrias in particular are some of the hardest pieces to play technique-wise.

He usually uses a capo on the third fret, and his best known bulerias are the songs “Almoraima” and “El Chorruelo”, both of them are very complex and blisteringly fast. Paco de Lucia bulerias require a level of technique unmatched by any other, so this makes his songs unique.

The biggest asset of Paco de Lucia is his feeling and natural touch on the guitar, and his instrument is always top notch; Hermanos Conde and Domingo Esteso are his most prized guitars which he uses in concerts. He is said to have practiced the guitar about 8-10 hours a day for the first few years, giving him complete control over most of the techniques.

Paco de Lucia bulerias are characterized by the fast paced falsetas which he alone can muster, and his balance of volume and power make what Paco de Lucia is best known for. Sometimes he plays bulerias in different keys, which technique-wise pose an even tougher challenge, which shows he is the king of bulerias; as he is known.

This style allows much room for improvisation on the dancers part, and this encourages the artists to brag with their skills and to initiate communication with the audience. Sometimes the steps of other popular styles are performed in the bulerias flamenco, but it is done so in a fun and provocative manner.

The fast rhythm makes it suitable for the “jaleo”, which is the habbit of shouting interjections of admiration and encouragement to the guitar player, and hand-clapping. The quick tempo makes it hard for a guitar player without a firm grip of the technique. Not only does the guitar player have to play a flurry of notes, but he must also be passionate and connected with the other singers and dancers.

The meter plays a crucial role in the uniqueness of the bulerias flamenco because it provides the freedom for spontaneous and roguish singing and dancing. For the guitar player the quick meter begs him to play in a high key, most commonly A major and B flat major.

Often times it is used to finish off songs in other styles, most commonly the solea, and every flamenco get-together tends to finish in a bulerias flamenco.

Several guitar strumming techniques are available, but you should develop your own style. If you look at Al Di Meola, John Mclaughlin, Eric Clapton and other guitar masters you will notice they all have their own style. The easiest part to personalise is your strumming technique as it doesn’t have to be precise, and it doesn’t have to copy what is written in the rhythm pattern.

For the rhythm pattern there are a few good ways to remember it. First of all you should always tap your foot to keep the rhythm while you’re playing. When you have a bit more experience with that you can even tap the main beats a little bit harder than the others. Another method is to clap your hands, but this will keep you from playing while doing it. So I recommend tapping your foot at all times.

The most important skill you need to acquire is a technique I call counter-rhythm, which is basically tapping your foot and playing the counter measures of the main beats. Most guitar players change the tapping of their foot to adjust to the new rhythm, but this is a mistake.

A few standard guitar strumming techniques are the simple brush-type up and down movement meant to play the whole chord in one slice, the rasgueado(the typical flamenco technique) and something I call the ‘trio’, which means doing a fast up-down-up or down-up-down motion on all the strings, creating a galloping effect to add flavour to the rhythm.