Practice the ending of the piece first, that way, in performance you are heading towards the part you know the best. when you slide to a particular fret, look at the fret you want to land on. Your finger will automatically stop at the right fret. To increase the volume of your bass notes, point […]
As a teacher and player, I am always looking at technique from different viewpoints. From one perspective it seems obvious that we should all be trying to improve our technique. Better technique means fewer mistakes, and an easier, more masterful performance. But improving technique is not as easy as it seems. In truth, our technique […]
The chromatic scale is a great scale to practice on guitar. In this article I will explore different ways to practice the chromatic scale and why it is good scale to practice. The chromatic scale is made up of every note on the guitar (or any instrument) as it moves along by semitone, in the […]
This is a great way to start your practice or lesson. These are simple exercises which allow you to concentrate on what your hands and fingers are doing. The first two exercises focus on right hand walking, then left hand position and synchronisation. The finger ladder will help you develop strength and independence in […]
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 […]
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 […]
Many players are taught to keep their left hand thumb in a fairly stationary position behind the neck of the guitar whilst playing. In some ways it makes sense that in order to stay in position you need to have a reference point which is usually the thumb. The reference point refers to the lateral […]
Rodrigo’s Concerto De Aranjuez is an very well known spanish guitar work, though it’s the Adagio theme which people are most familiar with. Today we are going to be looking at the into to the first movement. The concerto starts with a series of rasguedo chords which are played in a 6/8 and 3/4 time […]
I spend a lot of time explaining my take on correct right hand classical guitar technique. In truth there is no one correct way but here we can go over the basic ideas. I will also show some examples of different players’ right hands and what I like about them. 1. The arm sits on […]
We’re going to talk about how to hold a classical guitar, I prefer to use a footstool though sometimes you can get a device that will help you hold the guitar in a certain way, the main thing is that you should get the neck of the guitar reasonably high. this will assist your […]