Over the years, I’ve posted several times about tremolo technique and even wrote the book Mastering Tremolo. Check it out if you haven’t yet! Nevertheless, there are times when I decide to spend a lot of time working on certain techniques to brush up, improve, try new approaches, revisit, and revise. I did this with tremolo this week and though I may have mentioned them in my book, some stood out to me. Here are a few entries I wrote in my practice notes:
- The movement from p to a is key – This is a feel thing. Think of snapping with p and a. As p articulates the bass note, a lands with some energy. It is almost like they are landing at the same time but not quite, allowing the melodic note on the higher string to vibrate justy a bit more.
- Nails – Each nail has to offer identical resistance to the string so that the quality of evenness is built in. If you are negotiating different stroke strength from finger to finger, it is too much effort.
- Proximity – Watch fingers closely and observe their distance from the string before the contact point and subsequent stroke. If there is too much discrepancy between the lineup, it can lead to galloping.
- Evenness – When practicing slowly, evenness is very important for both the attack and the silence or momentarily planting between notes.
- Left Hand Softness – Make sure the choreography of the left hand is worked out well. Abrupt motions in the left hand to make shifts can manifest in the right hand as accents. Keep the left hand as relaxed as possible.
- Right Hand Fingers – Sometimes increasing the perception of space between the right hand fingers seems to help me even out the notes. Try it.
Six String Journal 