Reduction

Playing through the ‘skeleton’ of a tremolo piece helps to reduce it in our mind’s ear to what essentially is happening on the musical front. Spending a large amount of time on developing the fluidity, clarity, speed, and all that goes into a beautiful tremolo technique so often draws a majority of our attention into the micro-discovery world that the thought of the larger macro world of what a tremolo piece is trying to achieve musically is somewhat ignored.

There are various ways to enhance the way we psychologically perceive our pieces to make them seem less daunting. The most tried and true method is to play through them hundreds of times. For tremolo pieces, play through them in an abbreviated way, as illustrated below, at faster tempos:

Another method, which I have grown to like despite the substandard sonic quality, was recommended by Malaysian guitar virtuoso, Philip Hii, in his fantastic book, Art of Virtuosity. In the method below, ami act as one and pluck at the same time. Think of plucking a chord but on one string. It won’t sound pretty but in addition to focusing our attention on the bigger picture, it helps the right hand to discover the angle at which it best moves through one string for tremolo.

Hope this helps!

For tons of tremolo tips check out Six String Journal’s Mastering Tremolo (pdf) or Mastering Tremolo (book).