Originally posted by Masel
How about the opposite of the carpma, this is what I use more: stirking a note and immediately after pulling the finger off so that the open string
plays. It has a really nice arabic feel.
Another thing is where you would perhaps normally play tremolo on a long note (or just strike it once and let it ring), you can play a sort of
"half-speed" tremolo, especially at the end of a phrase, so that it sounds very grandiose. Onto this you could add a quick legato, and cut the tremolo
in half again, which would result in the combination of these two ornamentations. For example, play an open string G (in arabic tuning), and hammer
on an A without striking the string again, then when you release the A note strike the string again, ad infinitum...
One last thing that is used in both arabic and turkish music (I think) is inventing short sequences when improvising, or when filling gaps in between
longer notes. If the numbers represent degrees of the scale (1=tonic, 2=second, 3=third etc.), for instance try instead of 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 to play 5 6,
4 5, 3 4, 2 3, 1 2, 1. I hope this isn't too clumsy of an example, it's really recognisable and easy to understand if you hear it. This type of music
is made up of many sequences that repeat, probably because the melody is free-er when not bound up by harmony. |