Rumba Strumming is a very useful tool for performing flamenco music. This video will take you through the Rumba technique as used by Paco De Lucia and Gipsy Kings (and many others). The chord progression we are using is Am – G -F – E . We start with a thumb down and […]
The Four Times rule is something you can use to improve the quality of your practice and eliminate small and annoying mistakes that can creep into your playing. Sometimes mistakes do happen when practicing or performing and thats ok but we can definitely minimise them through methods like this one. One often finds that under performance […]
Here is an example of incredible guitar skill and mastery. The great Paco De Lucia performing on Parkinson in the UK. The piece is Almoraima which is a Buleria. Amazing rhythmic control and depth.
Alzapua is a flamenco technique involving the thumb. the term comes from the word alzar which means to raise. It is usually played as a fast flourish of notes in quick sequence. The thumb plays all notes using down and up strokes. Played accurately and fast it can sound fantastic as a high point of a falseta or […]
What is the circle of fifths chord progression? Well, chords and tonalities have various relationships to each other. For example, the chords C, F, and G7 are all part of the key of C. They form the chords I, IV and V7. Put another way, they are the first, fourth and fifth chords in that […]
Performance nerves can be a real issue for guitarists, especially because of the nature of how we create sound on the guitar. Nerves can manifest themselves as shaking of the hands, sweating, memory slips, loss of focus and more. There things can amount to technical breakdown, buzzing, wrong notes, and many more unwanted effects. There […]
Here are 4 Bossa Nova exercises, each exercise uses the same 2 chords : Am6 and Am7 with voicing on strings 2 to 4. Its a good idea to practice with a metronome at a comfortable tempo. Note that the bass part is always on beats 1 and 3, while the chords vary between begin […]
Here is an excellent documentary about Andres Segovia and his life. Filmed in 1968 when Segovia was 75, the documentary features interviews with the Maestro and a number of performances. Segovia plays beautifully and has an amazing tone, there is a nice quality to this film. This is an informative and inspiring video about Segovia. […]
Here’s a video I came across in which Sharon Isbin talks about how she uses and applies vibrato. Vibrato is given to a note by applying and relaxing pressure to a string in a lateral direction. Lateral direction along the line of the string. The pressure towards the bridge with the hand motion coming towards […]
Here are a couple of nice guitar arrangements of the popular Brasilian Bossa Novas: Girl From Ipanema and Mas Que Nada performed by Milos. Milos has exploded onto the classical guitar scene in recent years helped by heavy promotion by Deutsch Gramophone. Much of the music he plays is Spanish and South American and his […]