Tag: practice

How To Get Really Good At Classical Guitar

Nicole Neal8 Comments
English: Image based on this one, so I credite...
 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

 

 

So you want to be a classical guitar hero? Or at least play as half as good as one?

 

Simple. Get born with, like, really, really, stupidly good musical or guitar-playing genes, right?

 

Nope.

 

OK then. Find a bottle, potentially with a genie in it. Rub said bottle and hope genie pops out. If genie does pop out request as one of your three wishes granted to be able to play classical guitar with the technique, proficiency and panache of your dreams?

 

Nope.

 

Clone some brain cells from Julian Bream or Karin Schaupp and have them implanted into your own brain?

 

Nope.

 

There’s a much easier solution. Easier, much more enjoyable, and one that will also exercise your patience muscle and appreciation for the journey – technical work!!

 

Your scales, arpeggios, exercises and studies are THE fundamental building block to excellent playing. They are not the be all and end all, and should always be studied, played and applied relevant to the repertoire you’re learning or playing at any given time.

 

And I should know.

 

I went for years, ages, aeons without really partaking in any technical studies, scales or exercises. I was motoring along, learning new repertoire pieces in quick succession, flying through graded material and more. My playing was going really well; really, really well. I managed to become a fairly reasonable player this way. And I thought I was a pretty good player too.

 

After a number of years, however, I began to hit a wall – and nothing that I was doing could help me break through. Doing the same things in the same way (without any really considered, methodical and applied development of my technique) was no longer taking me forwards. At this point I received instruction from a new teacher who opened up my eyes to the massive value and benefit of some good, solid, yet musical, technical study.

 

And, boy oh boy, did I have some work to do. Firstly, undoing some bad, old habits. Secondly, instilling new, good habits. Thirdly, getting my technical proficiency up to a level where I needed it to be – to the music I was hearing in my head that was just dying to bust loose, but couldn’t due to the relatively poor conduit it had.

 

So you can get so far without intentionally focussing on the technical aspects of playing – and yes, musicality is very, very important. In fact, technical work and musicality are in no way mutually exclusive – they are two sides of the same coin. They very much need to occur together in order for you to realise your full potential – musicality can be given its must full and generous expression being facilitated by a good, reliable technique.

 

Exercises that train specific aspects of playing or movements such as slurs, barres, rasgueado technique, tremolo, free stroke and rest stroke, playing in different positions on the fretboard, percussive techniques, or various combinations thereof can definitely be introduced through your repertoire pieces.

 

There comes a point though where the technique required to execute certain elements as well as you’d probably like needs a bit of looking at in isolation to really get to grip with it. And we’re all different in that, some are stronger in one technique than others, so I can’t really advise what it is that you should looking at here.

 

So you work on particular aspects in isolation – you study it from various angles with exercises and studies (they call them this for a reason…) and then apply it. You reveal the relevancy of the energy exerted, the movements carried out and effort you’ve just made, by applying it in a piece.

 

Then when you bring that reviewed and refreshed technique back to the piece you’re playing, chances are it will fit right in it, and make the piece easier to play and articulate and infinitely more musical.

 

How much of it should I do and when?

 

Well, the answer to that question really depends on what it is you’re trying to achieve at this particular point in your learning or playing. The short answer, however, is something (with whatever may be appropriate for you at the time) and often, or at least as often as you’re able to pick up your guitar – aiming for at least five days out of seven is probably a good target.

 

It’s like a daily walk, or physical exercise – as we do daily physical exercise to keep us fit and healthy (or we’re supposed to!), so we do the same with our guitar-based technical exercises. It’s the minimum we need for a fit, healthy and balanced approach to our playing lifestyle.

 

Whatever technical studies or exercises that you’re looking at, it should always be a means to an end however, for whatever you’re working on or working towards at a particular moment in time.

 

And if you’re not sure what technical exercises to start with, it really doesn’t hurt to go past a scale or three. One of my favourite quotes from Andres Segovia (which I’m sure I’ve quoted numerous times before on this blog) sums up the point of scales very nicely:

 

“The student who wishes to acquire a firm technique on the guitar should not neglect the patient study of scales…..he will correct faulty hand positions, gradually increase the strength of the fingers and prepare the joints for later speed studies. Thanks to the independence and elasticity which the fingers develop through the study of scales, the student will acquire a quality which is difficult to gain later: physical beauty of sound…”.

 

 

 

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Back To Basics with Classical Guitar Practice

Nicole Neal3 Comments

About once or twice a week I like to put some “back to basics” stuff into my classical guitar practice schedule. This involves taking some technical exercises right from the most elementary or preparatory of exercises. I’m talking ridiculously simple, pre First Grade kind of stuff.

Why is this important?

It’s important as these simple movements, these simple exercises of creating some of the most basic sounds on the guitar (i.e. the open strings) are our foundations. Perhaps more than that they are the bedrock into which we need to build our foundations to construct a fantastic playing technique. Without sturdy solid bedrock, the foundations can do nothing and if you try to start building on it you’re not going to get too far before it starts to crumble!

And so we need to check out our foundations and our bedrock from time to time to ensure they remain stable and solid and fulfiling their role. Checking in regularly with our fundamental left hand movements and right hand movements and sound production can help to instill and reaffirm good playing habits, promote physical awareness of your playing technique, reduce tension and nip any pains in the bud and help to make playing with a  good sound less of a fully conscious thing all of the time.

So, what kind of exercises are we talking about here?

Here are three example exercises I like to do on a regular basis. These are:

(1) Right hand only open string alternating thumb (p)  and fingers (i, m and a) – starting with p on the bass E string (6th string), alternating that with top E (i,m,a) then the B (i,m,a), G (i,m,a) and then the D (i,m,a). I then repeat this pattern with the thumb on the A string and then again with the thumb on the D string. I also do each pattern with both rest stroke and free stroke.

This helps with finger-thumb alternation, but also allows you to really listen in to your most fundamental tone production on the open strings. You should always aim for beautiful tone production with this.

(2) Right hand only open string three and four-string chords across different string groupings with differing fingerings, using p,i,m, p,m,a and p,i,m,a. across all combinations of open strings. This makes you think about where your fingers are moving from to play the chords (i.e. the big, finger base knuckles) and eveness across each of the fingers (i.e. no one digit louder than the others). You can also focus on practicing different dynamics with this too to practice your volume control. And of course you should always be thinking about the tone being produced.

(3) Shifting three note chords focusing on left hand articulation, shifting and positioning. Building on the open string exercises this particular one adds in the left hand for left-right hand coordination, involves all the aspects above for right hand plus focus on what the left hand is doing in terms of shifting and accuracy.

With fingers 1 and 2 of the left hand on C and A of the second and third strings, start this one with thumb playing bass E string and i and m playing the A and C (so a three note chord) as a crotchet and then an open top E as a crotchet on its own following on from that. Then shift up a semitone with the left hand with fingers two and three on C# and A# and play the same pattern, then shift up another semitone with fingers three and four on D and B, again playing the same pattern.

Repeat this by shifting the whole hand position up to the fourth position, repeating that whole cycle starting with fingers 1 and 2 on D# and B# (C). You can then do this all the way up the neck and back down again. You can also practice this exercise on other strings too.

(Question here for you folks – would it be helpful if I posted up a video of me executing these exercises to help you?)

How do you go about practicing it?

I often like to come to this material after I’ve been working on something challenging for around 30-45 minutes for example. Why? Well, it acts as a kind of or refresh button for the brain and fingers after having played and worked through some previously challenging material. It also acts as a check point for you to ask some crucial questions of yourself and your playing. By playing through thoughtfully and with care and consideration I find it helpful to ask myself two key questions:

  1. How is my sound quality? Is this the sound I want to make?
  2. Am I holding any unnecessary tension anywhere in my body? How are shoulders, my arms, my hands, neck, jaw, upper back, lower back, legs?

So I don’t always start out a practice session with this material. In fact, I find it’s often good to get stuck into some of the most challenging stuff on my practice list first – the tricky spots in a piece, learning a new section of a new work – whilst my brain is freshest and most up for the challenge. Starting a session with this kind of “back to basics” material can settle you in, however, if you need a bit of a mental and/ or physical warm-up into your practice session.

And don’t forget, no one is ever too far advanced to get back to basics!

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