My personal preference is for easy fingerings. Somewhat along the lines of the Buddhist mantra “pain is inevitable, but suffering is optional,” I find playing classical guitar to be a challenging enough endeavor without the need to make it even harder. If there’s a way to employ open strings for shifting, or to arrange a chord in a more “ergonomical” position, I always consider these possibilities very carefully. On the other hand the musicality of any given fingering comes into play quite heavily as well. Is it musically acceptable to use an open string to help with a shift in a given passage? More often than not, I’ve found that the easier fingering is also the more musical one—presumably because I can play it in a more relaxed, flowing fashion.

Sometimes, a slight adjustment to your plucking hand can also come to the rescue. An old assumption is that, by moving fingerings “upstairs” to a thicker string/further up on the fretboard, the player would gain in tone color and expressivity. A good right hand exercise is to try and homogenize your sound as much as possible, so that if needed you could “smuggle” a note or passage on the high E string as sounding fuller and darker, as if you had played it on the B. This way you might end up unlocking an easier way to finger an entire phrase.

A Brief Case Study

Perhaps the most important concept regarding fingerings is that they should never be considered engraved in stone. Case in point: Earlier this afternoon I was practicing a couple of passages from the Villa-Lobos Concerto that have been bothering me for months. Sure, I could play them, but as I approached these measures I kept feeling as if I was putting my success in the hands of some fickle deity. Today I decided to backtrack a bit and reconsider what I had chosen as the “best” fingering for one of the phrases.

It occured to me that the fingering in question had two significant problems:

• To fret the F#, I am moving from fifth to fourth position for a split second. This shift is against the direction of the phrase, since I have to hit a high C, D, and E immediately after. That’s not a very economical approach, to put it mildly.
• Because of this “mini-shift” to fourth position, I was fretting the high C with my pinky, then basically sliding it up all the way to a high G in the space of a few (and rapid!) beats. I felt this “sequential shifting” was likely the culprit of my difficulties with the passage (especially considering I was lifting the pinky a bit to avoid sounding a series of portamentos)

Within a couple of minutes I had already found a viable substitute. Fingering #2 is better in pretty much all aspects: I am shifting in the direction of the phrase, and I am giving my pinky a modicum of relief by using 2 to fret the high D. Although it’s early to tell, I feel much more confident when practicing the phrase—a feeling that helps making the ensuing measures easier to pull off as well.

Some readers may be wondering why I didn’t choose the best fingering in the first place. The honest answer is that I thought the first fingering was just fine, and I just needed to practice it more. The lesson in this? Sometimes we’re the ones building the walls that we end up hitting. If you feel stuck with a phrase or passage, try breaking it down in its essential parts and reconsidering the way you approach it. You might end up slapping your forehead and wondering why on earth you didn’t think of this other solution sooner.

Related posts:

1. Ascending Slurs
2. Speed Bursts
3. They Sound Good, and They’re Good For You: Rasgueado 101

On Fingerings & Breakthroughs from Classical Guitar

The rasgueado originates its striking force as a flicking gesture of the finger, wrist, elbow, or, most often, a combination of the above. I think of this motion as much more “explosive” and instantaneous than the regular plucking one. For finger flicks, I find “cocking” the fingers against the heel of my hand most useful—allowing the fingernails to dig into my palm a tiny bit. For flicks originating from the wrist or the elbow, I let the weight of the hand do most of the work. I should also point out that wrist and elbow flicks are akin to the “rotating” motion one does when turning a door knob, only “looser”.

Get to Know Your Hand Better

Most flamenco books teach rasgueados as going from pinky to index. An often overlooked problem with this approach is that not everyone’s hand is “wired” to unfurl the fingers in that order. Mine most certainly is not: I can fan my fingers open much faster and more seamlessly if I go from index to pinky—and that’s true with both of my hands. To find the way your hand “likes” to open, simply rap your fingers on a table-top, starting from a closed-fist position. Try both ways (pinky-to-index vs. index-to-pinky), and you should find one of them to be much more natural.

I suggest you stick to the most natural finger order when first learning some introductory rasgueado patterns, and then slowly to begin re-training your hand to do some in the opposite way

Bursts Vs. Rolls

Below are some of my favorite finger-strumming patterns, but in this case the sky’s the limit—nothing really keeps you from discovering what works for your hands. The nomenclature reflects the conventional one; however, I’m introducing the letter “h” to mean any combination of fingers (hand-strum).

Generally speaking, rasgueado patterns can be divided into bursts (quick sequence of finger strums used as an accenting devise) and rolls (sequences that can be looped indefinitely). You should strive to learning a couple of useful patterns for each category.

In terms of rolls, I would suggest you eventually build your own: you can do so easily by dividing each roll into sets of motions that allows for some time to recoil in between. In other words, you don’t want to use the same finger twice in a row, or go back to a finger that hasn’t had a chance to recoil to a “ready to strike” position. Also, notice how some use the whole hand as a “big finger”, integrating wrist- and elbow motions into the roll to enhance fluidity and seamlessness. Finally, I should point out that downstrokes (towards the floor) are marked with up-arrows, for consistency with sheet music notation (towards the “high” treble string).

As with every new technique, practice slowly and take frequent breaks. Your extensor muscles might be a bit underdeveloped if you haven’t spent a lot of time practicing these sorts of motions before, but if you incorporate some rasgueados in your daily practice routing you’ll soon see the results of this new technique in all aspects of your playing.

*note: the two consecutive downstrokes are obtained by combining the outward flicking of the fingers with a forearm rotation; returning the forearm to the normal position will yield the thumb upstroke.

**note: return all fingers to a coiled position as you do the upstroke with p.

*note: this one’s tricky. Start with all fingers coiled. Flick i out, then, as you flick c out, recoil i. Unfold each successive fingers. When you loop back to flick i out again, recoil all remaining fingers at once. Personally I find this particular rasgueado quite awkward to pull off, but it’s one of the most widely-taught patterns.

Related posts:

1. Right Hand Movement (Good Vibrations part 2)
2. Guitar Scales: Putting it All Together
3. Technique in 30 Minutes

They Sound Good, and They’re Good For You: Rasgueado 101 from Classical Guitar

Most of you have probably been to a concert where this has happened, and perhaps some of you have been the ones making the buzz (I know I have). Are those buzzes and split notes true mistakes? Or are they one of these errors:

1. Moving All at Once

Most classical guitarists come from some sort of rock or popular music background. So think back to your first guitar lesson. What did you do? Chances are you played some chords.

Then you tried to move those chords around, and your teacher said that you should try to move all your fingers at once.

Moving all at once is not necessary in much of the classical guitar repertoire. Our textures are different, and we don’t really have a lot of instances where block chords need to land all at once. The solution is sequencing.

Put fingers down as you need them. Don’t worry about nailing the block chords; start thinking, “where can I add fingers later? Do I need to have every note of the chord down right away?”

This one little change makes a huge difference in how legato and consistent your sound is.

2. Not Preparing & Carrying Around Excess Baggage

This goes hand in hand with sequencing. Good guitarists find ways to prepare for the next movement before it happens.

In other words, think how you can prep unused fingers for the next shift or movement. You could extend the first finger to prepare for a barre or hover an unused finger over the string where it will be placed next.

The other half of this is keeping unnecessary fingers down. Unless a finger is fulling a musical (controlling open strings, respecting note values, etc) or technical (a guide or pivot finger, etc) purpose, it probably shouldn’t be down. Why do we do this? Because it’s easy to be lazy and not worry about picking fingers up before we have to.

But the truth is that, while it is easy to keep left hand fingers down, often times those fingers create problems in shifting and legato later on. So drop them. And try to incorporate those newly freed fingers into your preparations for the next move.

3. Ignoring Hand Position

Hand position matters a lot for the left hand. Does your hand need to be angled or straight?

Sometimes it’s easier to do one or the other. But the real value in paying attention to your left hand positioning is not that it makes things easier.

Find a left hand position that works well for a given passage or motive and you’re able to replicate it in practice — you can getting into and out of this new hand position instead of leaving it to chance. That’s awesome.

Awareness is King

All of the above have one thing in common: they involve being aware. They involve you stepping up your practice focus and getting your left hand to do the things you need it to do.

The good news is the more you pay attention now, the more good habits — like sequencing, preparation, and good hand position — take over and become the default.

Related posts:

1. Ascending Slurs
2. Secret Alternation Speed Weapon
3. Speed Bursts

Three Left Hand Technique Errors Everyone Makes from Classical Guitar

Classical Guitar Arpeggios

Arpeggios don’t get a lot of love. Which is unfortunate. Guitarists spend a lot of time playing around with arpeggio textures. Some of the most famous pieces of our repertoire include extended sections of repeated arpeggio patterns. It makes sense then that we should spend some time with arpeggios in our technique routine. The Giuliani right hand studies and other similar exercises are some of the most effective ways to practice arpeggios.

Tremolo and cross-string trills also fit into the arpeggios category. They are, after all, extensions of arpeggio technique.

Resources on the CG Blog for practicing arpeggios

• A Right Hand Routine
• Three Ways to Develop and Arpeggio
• How to Practice Cross-String Trills
• Cross-String Ornaments

Slurs on the Guitar

Slurs (aka Hammer Ons and Pull Offs) are one of the most demanding left hand techniques. And, frankly, a lot of intermediate guitarists have trouble with them. Even advanced players have difficulties with trills and other extensions of left hand slur technique. Beyond the obvious technical difficulties of them, improper slurs can often ruing the musical flow of the pieces or even destroy phrasing.

Here are some resources to help with your slur practice.

• Slurs with the First Finger
• Descending Slurs
• Ascending Slurs
• Video Lesson: Beginning Slur Exercises

Classical Guitar Scales

Ah, scales, a guitarist’s best friend, right? Maybe not. Honestly the guitar repertoire doesn’t include a lot of passages of extended scales. And if you happen to be playing a piece with a lot of scales, it makes more sense to practice those scales instead of abstracted major and minor scales. Still, scales are an essential part of guitar technique and should be included in your routine.

Scale practice should include long, short, and burst practice. Not just long, 1 or 2 octave Segovia scales. Try incorporating some one octave scales and five-note bursts into your technical routine. My next ebook will feature some more in depth information and exercises about bursts and short scales.

Here are some resources about scale practice.

• Guitar Scales: The Right Hand
• Guitar Scales: The Left Hand
• Scale Practice Techniques

Left Hand Shifts

Shifting down and across the neck fall into this category. Honestly, this one might be better left in repertoire practice. So much of this stuff is piece-specific that it’s hard to practice it outside of those contexts. Should you want to add this to your technical routine, I suggest you extract portions from pieces and use them.

Also read Sequencing the Left Hand and Practice Techniques: Stop/Go.

Extended Techniques and All the Rest

This is the catch all for all other techniques. Rasgueado is probably one of the most important things that falls into this category. Unfortunately there’s not anything on the CG blog on the subject of rasgueado, but that’s in the works. Barre technique falls here too, but again that may be better left to piece-specific work.

Extended techniques are the weird sounds you hear from guitar sometimes. These are things like nail scrapes and snare drum effects. Again, because these are often very piece-specific, they might be better left in repertoire practice time.

Related posts:

1. Sequential Planting
2. Your Practice Guidebook
3. A Right Hand Arpeggio Routine

The Building Blocks of Classical Guitar Technique from Classical Guitar

I’m going to explain a few things I use to relate movements to students later, but first, let’s talk about why we should teach (and learn) this way.

It’s All About a Relationships

Choice Research has a lot of applicability to practicing. What you’ve read here before was about analogues: relating relatively similar things to each other.

We can think smaller than than practice events for our analogues.

When we relate movements used in guitar to movements we use every day they’re much easier to understand and master. It makes sense to take this “shortcut”, spend more time practicing, and less time worrying about whether or not we’re moving correctly.

So, with that in mind, here are some analogous movements I relate to my students.

Open the Door

Sometimes we need to use different left hand positions to accommodate passages. We change left hand positions primarily with a little wrist rotation.

If you haven’t ever tried to get a young student to rotate their wrist by saying, “rotate your wrist,” you should try it out. It’s very amusing. Most students will swing their elbow around like crazy.

Instead, relate it opening a door handle (or, for others, using a screwdriver). It accomplishes the wrist rotation without the arm movement.

Pick Something Up

Common wisdom on right hand technique is to, “move all the knuckles on the right hand in the same direction.” There’s the even better, more verbose methods of explaining it as well that involve tons of anatomy terms.

How about this: imagine you’re picking something up or wrapping your fingers around something or closing your hand into a fist. In all of these instances the knuckles of the hand move in the same direction and we avoid the dense wordage.

As an aside, I use the “one hand clap” to demonstrate the fingers moving into the palm.

Any other movements relationships you use? Post them in the comments!

Related posts:

1. Technical Exercises for the Absolute Beginner
2. Sequential Planting
3. Kodály Rhythm: An Introduction

Relating Movements from Classical Guitar

Considering the amount of practice/drilling required to develop the technique and the amount of tremolo pieces available to play, do you think it is a worthwhile investment of practice time?

Apologies if I am oversimplifying or just being lazy:) but this is the main reason I haven’t spent more time on it honestly. Let me know your thoughts.

The answer is not very clear cut. Learning tremolo helps out with other things, mainly accuracy and precision in arpeggios. Tremolo is also sympathetic motion on steroids and is the most intense use of the a m compound stroke I talk about in the linked video and in the Giuliani Book. For those reasons, tremolo is a great addition to practice time.

Pete brings up the valid point, however, that not many pieces make use of tremolo. And even fewer use it through the entire thing. Around the net in in books various books, you see ridiculous tremolo routines that could take hours.

Technique practice should take up a small percentage of your practice time. 25% is a good number to shoot for. Adding tremolo to your technique routine is not a bad thing, but be careful. Don’t let it take up too much time, and always evaluate. If you feel the addition of tremolo is helping you progress, keep it up. Otherwise, drop it.

Classical guitar has been a part of my life for around six years now. Before that I was a metal head. During those six years I’ve made a lot of improvement without really practicing tremolo seriously. Don’t feel like your missing out because you’re not practicing it. Let’s be clear: just because you’re learning tremolo doesn’t man you should attempt Recuerdos straight away (please don’t).

Cliff Notes

1. Tremolo has far reaching technical effects beyond just learning tremolo
2. It’s a worthwhile addition to a technical routine
3. Limit the time you spend on tremolo, find a few effective exercises and stick with them
4. Don’t learn Recuerdos first thing

Related posts:

1. Ascending Slurs
2. Secret Alternation Speed Weapon
3. Speed Bursts

Is Tremolo Worth the Time? from Classical Guitar

I’m going to take you through practicing the David Russell a i m p trill. What you need to do is practice fast to perform fast.

You can play fast, but you might not be able to do it for long periods. What to do? Start small.

Treat Cross-String Trills like a Speed Burst

Like a scale, cross-string trills can be practiced in small bursts. Since most of our trills require only a few alternations, we have to start smaller. Try just doing the first few notes of the trill as quickly as possible. Do this with open strings.

After it feels like playing those two notes quickly is effortless, add in planting of the next finger.

Then play m, creating a burst of three notes.

Add another plant with the last finger, p.

Finally, add p at the end, creating a four-note burst. You might have to repeat this process for several consecutive days before it feels like the trill is one motion.

Development

After the trill is up to speed, and you don’t feel any additional benefits from practicing the above, it’s time to use some other practice methods. There’s a couple different ways you can practice this.

You could use Slow Fast Alternation to practice the trill.

You can also start with different finger pairs or start with different fingers. a i m p is a typical, baroque trill that begins with upper auxiliary, but you could also practice classical style trills that begin with the main note. Or start with different fingers for the typical two alternations.

You can also add more alternations to the trill. To do this I’d suggest using the method above: add a plant, then add the finger actually playing. Build up the trill to a greater length rather than trying to just do it.

Related posts:

1. Ascending Slurs
2. Secret Alternation Speed Weapon
3. Speed Bursts

How to Practice Cross-String Trills from Classical Guitar

There’s certainly things we can do to help out, the very first being trying to avoid bad string crossings. In the end, however, you have to practice both good and bad crossings.

Lessons Learned from Shifting

One of the greatest ways to practice a left hand shift is to play one position, then move quickly to the new position and stop. Just focusing on the shift like this takes the pressure of of playing the follow passage. This is a form of stop/go practice.

We can do the same for practice string crossings. Play a burst of notes on one string, then prepare the next finger on the lower or higher string.

This can be done with various finger combinations, and with different lengths of bursts.

Continue

Only after preparing the finger on the next string after a burst feels effortless should you continue with two strings bursts.

Click Here to get a free PDF of these exercises.

Related posts:

1. Ascending Slurs
2. Secret Alternation Speed Weapon
3. Speed Bursts

String Crossing Exercises from Classical Guitar

1 2 3 4

You’ve probably done this hundreds of times: start on the lowest string, play the first finger, then the second, then the third, fourth, next string with the first, etc. All the while alternating right hand fingers.

After you’ve done the basic run through, you probably moved on to different finger combinations: 1324, 1423, etc.

Just Add Arpeggios

Take the above 1 2 3 4 exercise and add it to your arpeggios. Pick a string, and run through the left hand fingers while playing the arpeggio. Check it out:

After you’ve done the exercise using one string, move to another.

Applying a chromatic line in the left hand can be done with any arpeggio. Try it out.

Why?

Four reasons:

1. The aforementioned coordination issue: this brings an element of coordination to arpeggio practice. This is a good time to practice independence as well. While you’re not playing the string that the left hand is working on, try preparing the left hand early. It’s amazing how many beginers have trouble moving one hand while working with the other, and this offers a great opportunity to practice that!
2. Why not practice arpeggios in a more realistic situation? These exercises are more similar to pieces than practicing arpeggios on open strings. It’s the same reason we practice the Giuliani Right Hand Exercises.
3. Using this and similar exercises moves the accent to another string. The string that’s being fretted will pop out to your ear more than the others. This is a great opportunity to work on your evenness and consistency in the arpeggio.
4. Let’s face it, technique practice can be tedious. Especially if you’ve been doing the same thing for months. Spice it up a bit.

Related posts:

1. Ascending Slurs
2. Secret Alternation Speed Weapon
3. Speed Bursts

Coordinating Your Arpeggios from Classical Guitar

Related posts:

1. Ascending Slurs
2. Secret Alternation Speed Weapon
3. Speed Bursts

Video Lesson: Beginning Slur Exercises from Classical Guitar