Rest Stroke

I continue to work on my rest stroke. I played Carulli’s Waltz from Shearer “Classic Guitar Technique”, Volume 1, p66. I’ve been working on this for several weeks, and it’s getting noticeably better, though I still consider that it needs work. He reminded me to play the index finger more softly. Its role in this piece is to fill the space between the bass and the treble, and it should not compete with those two voices.

I played Sor’s Andante II from p73. This piece has a section in the middle which features a rest stroke in the treble voice while the bass note is played free stroke with the thumb. In order to practice this, the bass note is played in anticipation of the beat, and then the treble falls right on the beat with the rest stroke. As these skills develop, the delay is reduced until both notes are played together on the beat.

I played Sor’s Allegretto I from p74. This piece has a few tricky fingerings, but is otherwise not difficult for me. This is a beautiful piece, though quite short.

We looked at Aguado’s Waltz on p77. Again, while it’s not necessary to play rest stroke here, we will use it to give emphasis to specific parts of the treble voice. The first note of each measure is played rest stroke. In measures 20 and 21, the middle note is emphasized. In measure 22, the last note gets the rest stroke. This brings out the ascending melody line, and syncopates the piece. For now, I’m to play the bass note slightly ahead of the treble, as I do in Andante II. This is a good example of how the rest stroke can be integrated into a song. It also shows why the hand position should not be different for the rest stroke and free stroke, as both types of strokes are being played in the same measure, and even at the same time. The finger has a bit of curve, even while playing the rest stroke, though it will give a little bit.

Difficult Fingerings

I played Giuliani’s Allegro on p76. There are some strange fingerings here that are necessary to make the following notes easier. Some of these still give me trouble. He didn’t comment, but on listening back to the recording, I realize I need to be aware of reducing the volume of the index finger again. This is hard to do when I’m concentrating on the other parts of the song. In the places where the position shifts, it’s easy to get thrown off. Just practice that portion up to and including the shift, but not beyond, until you can play that. Then, continue on with the following notes. All the tough spots should be practiced this way.

Graduation

Owen has graduated me to the second Shearer book. Although I will continue working out of the first book, beginning next week, the new work will come from Volume II. The first book contains pieces mostly in the keys of C or G, to make the music as simple as possible and allow the student to focus on technique. The second book is divided by key, so you get used to reading in the various keys. It also discusses harmonics, advanced rhythms, and has some beautiful solo pieces.

Parallel Shifting

I played the C, G, and B Minor scales for him. He asked me to make the shifts parallel without angling the hand. The hand should stay parallel to the frets, and this avoids wasted motion. Transfer pressure from finger to finger so the tension doesn’t build. Then I played every note dead so they made no sound other than a plunk. This is how relaxed the left hand should feel.

He showed me a three-octave G scale beginning on the third fret of the sixth string. I had no trouble with this scale. It begins in second position, and shifts on the octave, then at the octave again. It ends at the 15th fret of the first string. Coming down, it shifts at the 12th fret first string to VII position until the C on the third string. Shift to IV position to D on the fifth string, then shift and finish the scale in II position.

We looked at Aguado’s Estudio on p78 of Shearer I. This piece employs some unusual fingerings designed to make use of guide fingers.

We also looked at Sor’s Allegretto II on p74. It’s important that strings continue to ring and that the lines are played as legato as possible. There are many contrapuntal passages in this piece, so you have to be aware of the voices as you play. The middle note of the three-note figures could be colored with a rest stroke.

He showed me Giuliani’s Andantino on p75.

Rest Stroke

I began the lesson by playing Carulli’s Allegro from Shearer “Classic Guitar Technique”, Volume 1 p56 to show Owen how I had been improving my rest stroke. He commented that I was playing with good form and on the thumb side of the fingers for better tone. When I finished, he was quite pleased and told me that I played with good economy of motion and with no extra tension at all.

I asked him about the slight curl of my right pinky, and he replied that it was natural for it to move along with the other fingers, if it is properly relaxed. He told me not to fight that, and let it go where it wants to go. A slight curl is okay, as long as it’s not curling up into the palm or sticking out straight. It will move as you play and that’s all right. He said you can take a very loose rubber band and tie it around the ring finger and pinky as a reminder that those two fingers should go together.

I told him that I had difficulty getting good tone from the ring finger rest stroke. He told me that we have to work on each finger separately, as each finger is different, and each nail is different, until you find the way to make that finger sound the way you want it. The Carulli piece is a middle finger piece, and Sor’s Study in B Minor is another. He said we will work on some ring finger pieces soon, like Carcassi’s Study in A, or Spanish Romance.

I played Carulli’s Waltz from p66. This piece still needs some work, and I also need to finish memorizing it, as it’s part of my daily practice for rest strokes.

You can improve without practicing sometimes, because the reflexes catch up with the brain.

I played Sor’s Andante I from p72. This piece was exceptionally difficult for me at first, and I was almost fighting the right hand fingering. After a few days work, though, it became fluid. He was pleased with my work on this too.

Free Stroke and Rest Stroke Together

We began work on Sor’s Andante II from p73. This piece has something new for the rest stroke, in that the thumb is playing free stroke at the same time as the fingers play rest strokes. You can save yourself a lot of trouble by playing the bass note slightly ahead of the treble note, and then slowly, over time, bringing them together. The first eight measures are played all free stroke. Beginning with measure 9, and continuing through measure 24, the treble notes of the bass/treble pairs are all played rest stroke.

I played Sor’s Allegretto I on p74. I noted that the fingering on the last note of the first line is only appropriate when returning to the first measure. The low G there should be played with the second finger so the next note, the C, can be played with the third finger. When following the G with the B on the 5th string, however, the B should be played with the second finger, and that means the G should be played with the third.

Fingerings should be thought out and marked on the page so they can be practiced consistently until they become automatic.

Scales – Right Hand Errors

I played the two octave C scale beginning on the third fret of the fifth string. This scale requires one shift on the way up and one on the way down. He caught me repeating a right hand finger when I should have been alternating i-m. “Most people will make an error and repeat a right hand finger on the shifts,” he told me. It’s important to practice the shifts and pay attention to each hand. He had me move up a fret and try again, and he sang along as I played: “i m i m i m i m i…”

The Logic Behind Scale Fingerings

The scales I’m learning use the fingerings that Owen learned from Alexander Bellow. These are not necessarily the most convenient fingerings for playing, as they were designed to develop proper shifting technique. They are arranged so that you encounter certain shifts that are important and difficult to do. It’s hard to make a shift and land on the fourth finger, for example, and that shift is featured as the B Minor scale starts to descend. It also shows up in the descending part of the three-octave G Major scale. When shifting, the elbow leads the hand. The elbow moves and the hand follows, and shifts become easier.

I played Giuliani’s Allegro from p76. There is a repeated figure throughout this piece where the bass moves and the treble stays on one note. He asked me to play the treble notes while alternating i-m-i-m, so the whole pattern looks like p-i-p-m-p-i-p-m. This is a good habit to develop, as it gives every finger something to do, spreads the work load out, and keeps the notes fluid.

Minimal Pressure

I played the 1324 left hand pattern chromatic exercise. He reminded me to let the left hand fingers curve, not the wrist. Don’t arch the left wrist too much. And keep the pressure light. The muscle between the left thumb and index finger should be nice and loose. I also returned to the first assignment he gave me to play 1234 (left hand fingers) all the way across the neck and make every note buzz. He complimented me often, saying, “That sounds awful.” “Thanks so much,” I replied. This exercise teaches the minimum amount of pressure necessary to sound a note.

Rest Strokes

We began the lesson when I demonstrated my week’s work on the rest stroke. I played Carulli’s Allegro from Shearer “Classic Guitar Technique”, Volume 1, p 56. The piece is a series of three note arpeggios. Owen asked me to treat it as an exercise, and to play the middle note, the high note, using the rest stroke. This is a new stroke for me, and it wasn’t until the night before my lesson that I felt like I had it under control. Though it still needs some work, I can now control the quality and volume of this stroke.

We moved on to the other rest stroke piece I had been working on, Carulli’s Waltz on p 66. This piece is a series of six-note arpeggios, and the third and fifth notes were to be played rest stroke. This piece is more complex because the rest strokes come on the first, second, or third string, and in varying orders. The chords are also more interesting. I played fine, but I have occasional trouble with the resting portion of the stroke not coming to a complete stop against the lower string, and this causes some ringing of unwanted strings.

In measure 26, the left hand fingering as marked requires a difficult stretch. I had substituted a partial bar to simplify this, and he caught me immediately. He asked me to finger it as written, and to release the pinky from the D on the second string in order to then play the F on the first string a few notes later. “It’s not necessary,” he told me, “to hold that note all the way through.” When I asked why he preferred that I not use the barre there, he explained that most players at the level of this book are not accustomed to playing barre chords, although they’re easy for me. While this answer doesn’t satisfy me, I can imagine that I have something to learn from practicing the stretch required to play this measure cleanly without the barre.

I’m to play these two pieces every day and polish them until I can do them with ease. These are my rest stroke practice pieces. I need to continue watching my hand to make sure that it’s moving properly and without wasted motion. And I’m to play them at an unhurried pace so I can pay attention to the details.

Scales

Owen asked about my scales, and I showed him the A Major scale at the fifth fret of the sixth string using i-m, m-i, and i-a right hand patterns.

He then showed me the C Major scale that begins in second position on the fifth string at the third fret. This scale requires a position shift when ascending on the second string after the E at the second string fifth fret. This allows the last five notes after the shift to be played on the second and first strings, and extends the scale to a full two octaves for a finish at the first string eighth fret.

When coming down the C Major scale, the pattern is different. It stays in fifth position for an entire octave. After the C on the third string fifth fret, it shifts to second position and continues down to the low C.

When you make a shift, you don’t want to drag the finger along the string, because this friction can slow you down, and especially on the lower strings, it causes unnecessary string noise. You should release the string and hop to the next note. The best way to do this is to take a little pause at the time of the shift and make sure you completely release the pressure. Then, as you perfect the move, the pause gets smaller and smaller until it is gone and the shift is seamless. A small squeak of the string when shifting is an indication that there is left hand tension that is carrying over from one note to the next.

We talked about the change that came about in the 70′s and 80′s where the younger players began to play without the squeaks and noises long associated with the guitar. Now, squeaking strings are rarely heard. I think this is a natural growth of the instrument.

I’m working out of a booklet called Why Scales that Owen Middleton published in 1994. It’s only eight pages long, and contains scales similar to the famous Segovia Scales, but the fingerings are different. It also has some discussion about why and how to use scales, and about playing without dysfunctional tension. It’s available for $3.95 from http://www.andysmusiconline.com . Andy’s is the Mobile, Al, music store where Owen conducts his private lessons.

The B Melodic Minor scale is good for teaching proper shifting, as it has so many. It begins in II (second) position at the second fret of the fifth string and continues to F# on the fourth string fourth fret. Then, it shifts to VI position for five more notes, then finishes in IX position. It descends in VII position for five notes, then IV position for four notes, then the last five notes are in II position again. The descending scale is just the Aeolian mode, the natural minor scale. Ascending, the 6th and 7th tones are sharped. He emphasized again to make a small pause at each shift until I have learned the scale and perfected the no-tension shift. This scale will take some work for me as I’m not used to hearing the melodic minor scale.

English Dance

I played the English Dance again for him, and this time, I played all the way through with no errors. It was musical and at the right tempo, and when I finished he just laughed and told me I should be proud of my playing.

Chromatic Scales

I showed him the chromatic exercise I had been playing, the 1324 pattern from Lesson 4. He reminded me that I need to transfer left hand pressure from note to note and only play with minimum pressure. He showed me the 1342 pattern, where you play the 1, then add 2 and 3 together to play 3, then add 4 and play 4 (all four fingers are now on the fingerboard). Then, release 3 and 4 together and play 2. This should be played on all strings across the fingerboard. When working on left hand fingerings, play simple patterns, like i-m, with the right hand. He suggested that I stick to one or two patterns and learn them well, while playing different right hand patterns. Coordination between the hands is important.

He reminded me to play very softly in order to help reduce tensions in both hands. If your hand gets tired or tight while playing, you know you’re too tense and need to do two things: slow down, and practice playing more softly.

New Pieces

We looked at Fernando Sor’s Andante I on page 72. This is a deceptively simple piece. It’s short with not a lot of notes, but there’s much detail in the right hand fingering. The pattern isn’t repetitive like it has been with the previous pieces we’ve worked on. I had a lot of trouble on my first play through (and later after I got home) playing the right hand part. This will require focus and work, and I’m not sure yet of the logic of the fingerings.

We looked at Sor’s Allegretto I on page 74. This piece is interesting because it requires attention to the voicing of the different parts. The bass line must be emphasized. The end of the first line emphasizes the treble part. The second line begins by emphasizing the bass line again, and the ending is another treble part. The middle voice must be kept soft throughout so as not to conflict with the other parts. The last two pairs of notes should both be played i-a i-a, instead of the i-a p-m that’s marked in the book. The ending of each of the two parts should slow for a slight retard.

We also looked at Mauro Giuliani’s Allegro on page 76. This is an arpeggio piece that’s a good exercise. There are many places throughout that require a special fingering. Otherwise, one finger will be stuck in a place that’s hard to make the next note. It’s important to pay attention to the marked fingerings for maximum ease and best flow.

Adelita

He asked to hear me play Adelita. As I began, he reminded me to prepare the first two notes by placing them together so that the backup for the first pull-off was ready ahead of time. He also noted that I should hold the two-note pair, the octave B’s on the 6th and 4th strings in measure 15, just a little longer before playing the next notes. This measure should not be hurried. He gave me another tip: The two-note chords at the end of the first, second, and third measures, and throughout the piece, should be played softly relative to the single notes. Otherwise the chords will drown out the melody. The fourth measure should be played full and strong.

“What have you been working on? Play me something,” Owen said, as I sat in his studio again.

English Dance and Shaking Hands

I was excited to show him how I could play the English Dance, a piece from page 69 of Shearer “Classic Guitar Technique”, Volume 1, that he had assigned me last week. It’s a wonderful miniature in four sections, each only eight measures long. The bass and treble parts move separately, and there’s a middle voice as well, though it doesn’t do much. I’ve been working it really hard this week, and it’s a piece I plan to record soon, just because I like it. It’s fun to play, and yet it’s easy enough I can concentrate on watching my hands and maintaining correct form.

I launched into the song, and played fine for the first two sections, but I could hear Voice 1, the critical voice, (Ref: “Inner Game of Music” by Barry Green) saying, “There you go, show him how you can play it.” And my hands started to shake and I got stalled beginning the third section. After three tries getting started again, I just stopped and tried to relax a moment, and Owen went to open my book. I complained that I didn’t need the music, that I knew the piece. He just said, “I know you do, but sometimes it’s helpful to use the page to get you going again.” He asked me to slow it down. I’m stubborn, and I finished the piece, but I got stuck a few more times and just couldn’t calm my nerves. Though the ending was fine, the piece was terribly damaged.

“What you need to do now is to focus on the more important line and bring out that part,” he said, and we went over the piece again, much as we had last week. In the beginning section, two notes are played with thumb and finger, but they’re not equal. The finger should play louder than the thumb, the opposite of what the hand wants to do, in order to bring out the melody. That’s hard, especially at faster tempos. Later in the second part of the second section, the emphasis shifts to the bass. We talked about where to accent the treble, and where the bass, and how the strong and weak parts of the 2/4 time bring the piece alive. We played again, together, at a much more reasonable tempo, and we emphasized the parts and focused on sound. It did sound much better, and by the time we were finished, my hands were mine again.

I told him the first part of the song is easier for me to play with good hand form, and he said that’s because it’s simpler, all the same interval, and the hand stays in one place. Later in the piece, the lines have more detail, and the hand has to shift to play. “You can fix that by just slowing it down.” See the excerpt below.

In 3/4 time, the accent is on the first note: ONE two three ONE two three. In 4/4, it’s often STRONG and weak and Not So Strong and weak. Of course, it needs to be subtle.

Introducing the Rest Stroke

He asked to hear Carulli’s Allegro from page 56, so I played it. This one went quite well, and he was pleased with it. He played along with me softly, and sang the melody notes.

“I’d like to use this piece to work on the rest stroke,” he said, and asked me if I had used that stroke before. I said I knew what it was, and had tried it but never really studied it. In this piece, he wants me to use the rest stroke for the second note, the high note, of each three-note figure. The caret above the note indicates a rest stroke, and the letter indicates which finger of the right hand plays it.

Emphasizing the notes with a rest stroke gives the illusion of another part. It brings out the melody. You keep the same curvature of your finger and let the finger go into the next string behind it. If your nail is shaped right and isn’t too long, you won’t have any trouble getting over it. If you turn your finger straight on, you’re going to get caught, and you’ll hear a click. That click is your fingernail crashing into the string. It’s a harsh sound. You place the finger so the string lands in the flesh and nail interface on the thumb side of the fingernail. It starts right on that point, where there’s plenty of flesh to grab the string, and as you move the finger through the string, the curvature of the nail launches it. You get a different kind of sound. Your fingers should be kept in a curved shape and not allowed to flatten out, as the flamenco players do. They can play very fast with an open, flat hand, but their hand is out of position to do anything else. That’s okay for flamenco music, which requires either strumming or rapid single note runs, but a classical player has to be able to throw a rest stroke in there any old time. The hand position should look the same as when doing a free stroke, but it has a different sound. You force the string down a bit, and so it vibrates more toward and away from the guitar, instead of parallel to the top. It has a different color.

I played Allegro again with this new stroke, and I could do it, but found it to be very slow going. He advised me to let the finger rest on the next string after playing until the next note comes along to take its place. He also noticed that my thumb was playing rest stroke as it had a few weeks ago. He told me to play free strokes with the thumb and rest stroke only on the second note of each group. I seem to play rest strokes with my thumb automatically when I’m unsure of what I’m doing, and I need to break that habit, because it distorts my hand.

I’m to do the same thing with Carulli’s Waltz on page 66. This song is in 3/4 time, with groupings of six eighth notes, and the 3rd and 5th notes should be played rest stroke. You can play these pieces without rest strokes and make them sound perfectly fine. He made sure I understood that we’re using these as exercises. Whether I choose to play them this way later will be completely up to me and my interpretation of the piece. This is another piece I had been working on this week. Again, he’s giving me a new assignment with a piece I already know. This helps because I have already learned the notes and can concentrate on the new information. He doesn’t try to make everything new at once. This is an excellent teaching technique.

“Play these slow enough that your hand is still responsible,” he told me. “Don’t distort your hand.” If your hand is rocking back and forth, you’re doing something wrong. Keep the curvature of your hand. The most common problem is trying to do the rest stroke with the middle finger, because it’s longer. Your hand has to move a little bit, because of the extra length. The fingertip should be flexible, almost like a paintbrush, but don’t let the tip flex too much.

“There are some people who say the opposite, who say the finger should be rigid like a hammer or a harpsichord jack. When they play,” he laughed, “you can hear that in their sound. They should just play the harpsichord or the organ, where it doesn’t make any difference how hard you hit it.”

He told me about a man who came to him for lessons who had been playing country music with heavy strings, and he had monster calluses on his hands. He was so proud of them. “All that tells me is he’d played the guitar a lot, and wrong. He’d been wrestling his guitar for 20 years, and he thought he’d been developing these badges of honor.” Eventually, he improved his playing because he realized he was killing his hands.

Fingering Chords

He asked me about my experience with chord playing. He says it’s beneficial to practice chord changes, because there are lessons to be learned in fingering. In going from one chord to another, you can choose how you finger the chords so they flow from one to another and conserve motion. He showed me how he fingered an A chord like the open position D7 with the first finger on the 3rd string second fret, the second finger on the 4th string second fret, and the third finger on the 2nd string, second fret. See the figure to the right. Then, when moving from A to D, the first finger stays put as a guide finger and the rest of the hand just kind of opens up. You will figure some of these things out with experience, but you can also learn this way from the beginning. You choose the fingering you will use depending on the key you’re playing in, or on what you’re going to do next. He showed me four or five ways to play the same A chord, and it just depends on what comes next, to put your hand in the most advantageous position.

I was reminded of the chord sequence my friend Donna showed me in Portland this spring. Donna is a guitar teacher in the Los Angeles area, and one of the songs she shows her students has a very graceful flow of efficient fingerings. Every chord leads to the next using a guide finger or pivot finger. Here is the fingering from the piece called They Call the Wind Mariah. Notice how the the chords have been fingered to leave one finger in place for each chord change. When changing from G to Em, from Em to C, and from C to D7, the support finger is called a pivot finger because it stays in place and the other fingers pivot around it. When changing from D7 back to G, the third finger stays on the first string and slides from the second fret to the third fret. This is a guide finger. These two kinds of support make chord changes much easier, as they help minimize the motion.

Sight-reading with Pre-fingered Music

When you look at music that has been fingered by an expert, or even by yourself, you need to train yourself to read the finger first, and then the note. That tells you what position your hand needs to be in. The finger to use will be written on the staff immediately to the left of the note, where 1 means left hand index, 2 is middle, 3 is ring, and 4 is pinky. See measures 2 and 4 from Carulli’s English Dance, shown in the figure. You read the number first, then the note. This will facilitate sight-reading by establishing your hand position ahead of time. When you number your own music, make sure to put the number to the left of the note (not to the right, or even above the note). Owen said he occasionally has problems with some publishers putting the fingerings behind the notes, and that’s too late. You’ve already played the note by the time you see the fingering.

He told me that by sitting down with a new piece of music and carefully writing in all the fingerings of both hands, you will have much of it memorized before you even begin, because you have put so much effort into it already. Then, you can sit down and just play it.

Hear It Before You Play It

You need to develop the skill of hearing the music before you play it. If you can imagine a note first, then play it, your hands will find the right notes by reflex. What you imagine is probably what’s going to come out. You will have infinitely more control over how the music sounds. After the note plays, there’s nothing you can do.

I said that in coming back to reading after having played for years, I often know what the music will sound like first, and my fingers just know where to go. I can sight read in keys I’ve never studied, because my fingers know the patterns. Once you’ve imagined the notes, the reflexes are put into motion. Scientists have done research on musicians imagining themselves playing a piece, and though the fingers don’t move, the signals can be detected in the fingertips. When you imagine playing a piece, you are actually playing that piece. You are reinforcing those reflexes by thinking about your music.

Broken D-string

I told him that I had broken a string this week, the D string. I had opened the case and found it broken right at the bridge. “Yeah, that’s the one. Either that or the A string. The D has the highest tension on it for its size.” I told him I had just tried to buy an extra D-string there in the shop, but they were completely out of them. He laughed, and said again that’s the string everyone breaks. He also told me that if that happens again, I could just take it off the guitar, turn it around, and reinstall it. In fact, you could do that to freshen up an entire set, because you have a lot of unused string wound on the tuners. He said he has students who even remove their strings, wash them, and put them back on to save money. That works because it gets all the grime off them.

What a delight this cd is. From the spacious opening phrase of Irish Landscapes, to the angry and intensely sad final notes of Just Another Day In May, Peter Finger plays the guitar like no other. His compositions are complex and riveting, weaving through their various themes and sub-themes, breaking at times into runs of blistering speed or layers of chords, but the listener is never lost, and the melodies always return to the familiar. And while Finger plays like the virtuoso he is, the listener never feels that he is witnessing a contest – the compositions are refined and every note adds to the whole. Continue reading →

My husband, partner, lover, and best friend, Brent, is behind every one of these articles, though he won’t claim any responsibility for the messed up ones. He gives all the blame to me on those and I accept them all. Still, it’s time he had his own space to play on our site. I’ve been nagging him for years and he’s finally got somethings he wants to share.

I introduce to you The 12th Fret by Brent VanFossen.

He will be covering a wide variety of subjects that are near and dear to his heart about the guitar. Oh, and not just anything about the guitar. His early childhood days of whaling on his Les Paul electric guitar have matured into accoustical guitar styles including classical and fingerstyle guitar techniques. Taking guitar lessons for the first time since he was a young boy, he will be posting his notes about the lessons he takes and the things that he learns. He has spent the past few years exploring a wide range of guitar playing styles and techniques and music, and he will share those lessons as well.

So stay tuned for some musical fun and interesting information about guitars, guitar playing, and guitar-making.

Adelita

Owen picked up my music book, and Adelita fell out, landing on the stand ready to be played. That was a fortunate accident. I had forgotten I had it tucked inside. He asked me, “What is this?” and I said that I’d been working on it and had a few questions. I asked him about the grace notes. I said they are written before the bass notes. “They always are, but they come with it,” he said. So I demonstrated measures 11 and 12, and he commented, “That’s a hard spot.” I agreed.

I asked why it was written that way, and he told me that it’s assumed you understand that the grace notes are not counted, they’re not part of the rhythm. They’re crushed into the beat. Those are not really sixteenth notes, they’re just whatever they happen to be.

It also depends on what era you’re talking about. If you’re talking about the Baroque era, a single grace note would be on the beat followed by a second one of equal value. But in the Romantic period, the grace notes become crushed into the beat and are no longer counted. Nowadays, it’s pretty much the way it was in the Romantic period.

I told him I had been listening to some of the better players on this song, and he asked who. So I told him Pepe Romero and Narciso Yepes (I forgot Liona Boyd). “I met Narciso once,” he told me. “Blind as a bat. I showed him a piece of music, and he looked at the page from about two inches away, his face right up to the page. It’s amazing he could even read music. He had a five-fingered technique, and could play with incredible speed. I listened to him play a whole concert, and he played on a ten-string guitar… I loved that ten-string guitar. I always wanted one.” So I told about seeing them in Barcelona, and then about a couple friends I had who each own one. He told me he had never had a chance to play one.

Memorization

He asked me about my memorization exercise. He had asked me to memorize a simple piece from the previous week’s work, and to know it well enough that I could start playing at any measure. This particular piece is very simple, and is only twelve bars long. So I played it once from memory (he put the music in front of me, but I refused to use it), and then he asked me to play the 4th, then the 6th, then the 11th measures, which I did with little hesitation. He was pleased with that. “You get better at this,” he said, “and you stop struggling to learn the piece, and you get it thoroughly learned.”

I explained Adelita to him using all the tricks he had showed me, and I played the parts for him. He was very pleased with that little demonstration, and commented again that this makes the piece so much easier to remember, because you can actually think about it without your guitar.

Tips for Adelita (or any technical piece)

He recommended that in a technical place, like measures 11 and 12, you play very softly, and not expect anything for a while. Don’t force it to sound, because if you do that, you learn the forcing along with the music, so it becomes part of the music. Every time you get there, you strain something, because you’re forcing you hand to do something. It’s better to let it just be half there. He demonstrated measure 12, and said, “Just slow it down, don’t push your hand at all. In a short time, this will become real easy. If you force your hand, it will take longer, and even then, it won’t be as smooth.” He said that a person with a smaller hand would have more trouble with this, and that it might be worthwhile to release the sixth string while playing the grace notes, until it starts to flow a little better.

Other Assigned Pieces

I played Prelude No. 12 for him from Shearer 1 on page 47, and he asked me to make sure and hold the bass note as long as possible while the rest of the arpeggio was being played.

I played Folk Song on p53 with Owen playing the second guitar part.

I also played Carulli’s Country Dance on p55, and he showed me how the last two notes of the third measure should be played i-m, in order to set up the i-m of the treble part of the fourth measure. The last note of the 15th measure should be played with the fourth finger so the third finger can get the low G on the sixth string in the 16th measure. In measure 21 and 22, make sure the thumb plays the bass notes on the beat, while the i and m fingers alternate the other notes. At the end of the piece, play from the beginning, but omit the repeats and end at the 16th measure.

He emphasized that all of these pieces should be played at a plodding tempo to allow my hand to relax as much as possible. Make sure the hand is loose between the notes.

We talked about Carulli’s English Dance on p69, one of my assignments for the coming week. He played it for me, then showed me how the index finger plays the notes on the off-beat in the first eight measures like a whisper. Likewise on measures 9 through 12. For these first 12 measures, the emphasis is on the treble, so we make the thumb very soft. Beginning with the 13th measure, the emphasis is on the thumb. This is not as easy as it looks, but this is the kind of detail that brings the piece out. In measures 13 through 15, the thumb plays on the beat with emphasis, and the treble notes alternate between i and m. There is a beautiful contrast between measures 9 through 12, and measures 13 through 15.

Also, in 2/4 time, you have a strong/weak accent. This piece is written with eighth notes, so the count is “Strong-and-weak-and Strong-and-weak-and…” The weak note is weaker than the strong note, obviously, but the “and” is even softly than the weak note. This provides a pulse to the music. Measures 13 though 15 should be played legato.

Scale Work

He talked about scales. We played the two-octave scales beginning on the A of the fifth fret. Pay attention to strict alternation of the right i and m fingers. Then play it m-i. Then play i-a. It’s confusing at first, but it gets to be very comfortable, because those two fingers are the same length.

Play the chromatic exercise at fret 5 with fingers 1,2,3,4. Then play 1,2,4,3. The trick here is to place the fourth and third fingers together, then remove the fourth to play the third. Once that is comfortable, play this with different fingers of the right hand.

The next week, play 1,3,2,4. In this case, play 1, then place 3 and 2 together and play 3. Then, remove 3 and play 2. Then place 3 and 4 together and play 4. You put them down in pairs. This ingrains the principle of preparing the fingers and keeping them close to the strings. Also, you play a note and transfer the pressure to the next one. See my first lesson report for a discussion of this.

Scales are much more useful if you focus instead of just cranking them out. Many players play lots of scales with no focus, and it’s questionable whether it really helps them, and may even hurt them. When you play scales, spend time working where the confusion is. If it takes no effort to do them, “then no wood is burning up here,” he said tapping his forehead with a finger. “Move on to the next one.”

Hand Position – The Segovia Hand vs The California Hand

He commented again on hand position. There is no single right way to hold the right hand. You have to be flexible and vary the position for different sounds. The West Coast players play with a straighter wrist, and the sound is rounder and fatter, but it doesn’t have the projection of the Segovia hand. The Segovia hand isn’t quite as sweet, but it will carry to the back of the auditorium, while the angled hand is softer and doesn’t carry as well. The Segovia hand has a more focused tone, and it has more overtones in it. You need these two styles for different kinds of sounds. Everything is right as long as you have no dysfunctional tension. If it sounds great, it doesn’t matter what your hand looks like, as long as you’re not hurting yourself. If you are playing with too much tension, you’re destined for a short career.

I commented that I found the Segovia sound harsher and less pleasing when I played. He showed me how my first finger was too vertical. Instead, it needs to lean with the knuckle just a bit toward the headstock, so the nail and flesh play together. If this isn’t possible, the nail is too long. See Figure 7 on page 13 of Shearer Classic Guitar Technique Volume 1. If you don’t have the book, the “a” finger is vertical, and “m” and “i” have progressively more tilt to them. This gives the Segovia hand a much nicer sound.

I’ve been assigned to work on Adelita playing as softly as possible. Whisper. As soft as I can make it. This will cause the left hand to also play lighter, and reduce the tension there. Later, after this has become a reflex, we can bring up the volume without bringing up the tension.

My lesson began this week when I told Owen that I had spent the week playing *slowly*. And he said, “Whenever you’re making mistakes, you can count on one thing: You’re going too fast. That’s the reason. And it’s a bad idea to practice mistakes, because that’s what comes out when you perform. It’s not known a priori that by playing slowly, you get to play faster. It’s not obvious.”

He opened my book and asked me to play one of the pieces from this week’s assignment. I remember my right thumb having much trouble finding its way to the right strings. On listening back to the recording, I don’t hear as many mistakes as I remember, but it wasn’t my best performance, and while he said nothing about that, I need to drill the right thumb moving to particular strings. I believe I can extract the bass line from my assigned work and make a good exercise for that.

Hand Positions

Owen asked me to make a fist with my right hand, and then release all the tension. He asked me, “You see where your hand went to? That’s probably a little better place to start. You can move your arm up a little bit, too. We have to be able to play with our hands in all different shapes to get different sound qualities, to be inventive, and to be interesting in our inflection. Like when an actor is giving his lines on stage, he has lots of inflections in his voice. He can direct your attention to this or that, and it helps you to have a complete understanding of what he’s saying. In guitar, we use the right hand to do that, to make inflections and to make interesting phrasing. But that hand position you’ve got right there (the Segovia hand) is probably closer to how you want to play. You can play the other way too (what he calls the California hand, with a straighter wrist) but what I’m trying to do is to get you to the point where you play with no tensions at all. To play with the straighter wrist requires a little tension to hold the hand up.”

He told me that my hand looked much better this week than it had before, and that was good, as I’d put in about a dozen hours of concentrated focus with a mirror to make sure there were no right hand tensions. He did say that I wasn’t completely there yet, which was no surprise. He asked me to play the same piece again with the new hand position, and he seemed pleased with what I did.

I played two more pieces for him, and had the same troubles with the right thumb. He came around behind me and corrected my left hand position too, to make sure there was more space between the palm and the neck, to force the fingers up “onto their toes. It’s like dancing.” My thumb was too high, and we laughed that I hadn’t been watching the left hand this week. As I play, he often sings the dominant part (This may be in my future too. Great.)

We talked about phrasing of the Moorish Dance from p 42 of Shearer 1. The question is the bass melody, followed by the harmony making up the answer. Each phrase is two measures long. After the first four phrases, it starts over and the next four phrases are just repeats of the first four. Then, the next phrase has a new question part, but the answer is from the 2nd phrase. Then we play the fourth phrase, except the ending goes up, whereas the first time it went down. Then, that phrase repeats, and the ending is just a repeat of the answer of the last phrase. Altogether, there are only five phrases, or ten measures, out of a 24-bar piece.

Make Memorization Part of Daily Practice

He assigned me to make memorization a part of every day’s practice routine. He said soon, you’ll be able to take in large quantities of music in a sitting. You can get much quicker to playing, because you understand it intellectually. He asked me to take one of these pieces I had been playing and memorize it. He suggested the Prelude No. 7 on p 29. It’s in ABA form, or “simple song” form. Much like most music from the radio, with verse, bridge, and verse. This piece is a miniature, as the A part is only two phrases long. Only three phrases to be able to play all the way through. You just have to learn to put it all together. Five measures to learn instead of 12. Here, the first, third, and 11th measures are the same. The fifth measure is the beginning of the third phrase. And so on.

We need to be able to play something like that, and to be able to start anywhere. Not instantaneously, but if you can think it up to any point, that would mean that you know the notes. The other kind of memory is called reflex memory, or finger memory, and you get it for free just from playing the piece over and over again. But it’s not reliable at all, and you don’t learn music that way. It’s a nervous process, and anything that interferes in the slightest way with that nervous process, like getting nervous, and all the muscle memory can go right out the window. You could be sitting on the stage saying “What am I doing here? I don’t remember anything.” because you can’t get started with your chain of reflexes.

It’s not important to be able to start with *any note* or even *any measure*. You need to be able to start with any phrase, since music is constructed from phrases. He compared music to a conversation. You could start a sentence in the middle, but what good is that? If you get stuck performing a piece, you would just move forward to the beginning of the next phrase. This happens to everyone. As long as you don’t make a face, most people will not notice the difference.

You can learn a piece this way by beginning with the last phrase, and playing to the end. Then the next to last phrase, and playing to the end. Eventually you would learn to start with any phrase as necessary. This learning by phrases is different from the mindless approach I’ve heard before of simply beginning at the last measure and moving toward the first of the piece. I think this is more powerful and useful.

If you know the piece by phrases, you also know the notes. If you know your pieces this way, you could sit down and write them out. He told me of a piano teacher friend of his who would ask his students to memorize their pieces, and then to play the keys with a pencil. That takes *all* the muscle memory out of the equation. That would be very hard, and I don’t know quite how to translate that to guitar. Even the air guitar technique activates the muscle memory to some extent. This skill, once practiced, makes learning pieces very easy.

We talked about Prelude No. 10 on page 41 that is played in 6ths. The first note is played, followed by a pair of notes up a 6th. This continues through the piece until later, the first note descends while the upper second and third notes hang on the previous tone until the repeat of the first note, and then they drop into the 6th. This is a “suspension figure”. The one note is suspended until it resolves on the following beat. You have to think about this in a different way.

We’re learning the nomenclature of what to call things. If you can verbalize something, you can think about it. You can describe it to yourself and think about it when you’re away from your guitar.

He assigned some new work. Prelude No. 12 on p 47 is an exercise in learning which right hand fingers to use to play the piece. The general rule is if two notes are played on adjacent strings, they should be played with i and m. If they are separated by a string, play them with i and a.

I drove to my lesson last night by a different route, and saved more than 20 minutes getting there, so I had a good bit of time to get tuned up and warmed up before my lesson began. Before I knew it, though, Owen had come out, and as I began to put the guitar back in its case, he said, “I’ll carry the guitar, and you can get the case.” And he played a few beautiful chords and gave me the same look John Doan had given me, and I swear, he said the same words John had said: “Every note is so balanced, every note just sings.” And the look on his face was just a simple amazement at the beauty of that instrument.

Once in his studio, he played a bit more, just a few minutes, and then told me that he didn’t want to give it back to me, and that perhaps it would be best for me if he took it home for a month or two to evaluate its qualities. Shortly, though, I had her back in my arms and so the lesson began.

Playing Free Strokes with the Thumb

He looked through my book and saw and commented on all the marks I had made there (per his instructions). He then asked me to play the first prelude, and as I began, I only got about three notes before he told me to slow it down. I played slower, and when I was done, he asked me if I always played rest strokes with my thumb. To be honest, I’d never thought about it, but I told him that I usually don’t play rest strokes, but that the music was so slow and leisurely, that my thumb just did that naturally. He asked me to play using free strokes. He told me that most of his students who learned to play with a pick played thumb rest strokes, and that habit is one that needs to be broken.

He demonstrated playing the piece with a much softer attack of the right thumb. The thumb is stronger than the other fingers, and if we don’t pay attention, it will play too loudly. I’m to lower the force and volume of my bass parts by controlling how hard I strike the strings with the thumb, and to make sure I play free stroke.

The free stroke and the rest stroke have different sounds, for different effects, and should be used as appropriate. The main stroke should always be the free stroke, and the rest stroke added to emphasize a note or line, or to play more staccato.

My nails are a bit too long, and while he didn’t tell me to trim them, he showed me how the nail is striking the string after the flesh does, instead of together, and that gives the notes a harsh sound. I had filed them shorter just yesterday, but I need to make them shorter still.

Relax the Hand after Every Note

As I began the next piece, he played the second part of the duet, and it sounded quite nice, but he busted me again, and emphasized that I needed to slow things down even more, to release the right hand tension after every note, and to exaggerate the releasing of that tension by relaxing the entire right hand between notes so that I could see the relaxation. And he demonstrated the speed he wanted me to play. This wasn’t “no tempo” speed, and he played very much in tempo, but it was probably 30 to 40 beats per minute. He told me that it was boring to play that slowly, but that there was no substitute for it, and reminded me that we are training reflexes so that the relaxation we’re working so hard to develop now will become automatic with time.

I’m to go back and play all of the pieces from this last week at slower speeds, with exaggerated relaxed right hand, and then he asked me to drop some of the reading exercises I had been doing, and added some new arpeggiated pieces from the next few pages of the book. I don’t feel like he’s pushing me through the book, but rather that he’s giving me enough variety that I don’t feel bored with the material, and yet the material is easy enough that I can concentrate on the right hand.

To my credit, he didn’t criticize my left hand as he had last week, and the best part of my no tension practice had been focusing on the left hand. Maybe that’s because I did that right, or maybe because the bigger problem was the right hand last night and there just wasn’t time.

Question and Answer

We then took a look at one of the duets I had studied, and he showed me how the first two bars formed the “question”, while the next two bars formed the “answer”, and together, they make a “phrase”. The answer is a “sequence” of the question, a series of notes with the same shape as the question, but shifted up or down a note or two. So the question is a six-note pattern beginning on the E of the open first string. The answer is the same pattern beginning on the C of the second string. The second phrase begins with a question identical to the first question, and the second answer is almost the same as the first answer, but with a slight variation. A third similar phrase follows. Then, the fourth phrase begins with a question that is the same rhythm as the first three questions, but inverted, and this is called an inversion. The answer to that is a sequence of the question (or an inversion of the first answer). Each phrase in this piece comprises a question and an answer, and the answer is a sequence of the question, except for the ending of the piece. And so the pattern continued. This, he pointed out, makes memorizing the piece much simpler, because this entire 24-bar piece only has six bars of unique music: a two-bar question, a two-bar inversion, and a two bar unique ending. Everything else is just a sequence of one kind or another of the already learned parts. All you have to do to learn the piece is to learn the unique parts, and then learn the overall structure of the song. To prove his point, he closed the book and called out the first note of each succeeding sequence, and I played the piece. This is a dramatic simplification, and obviously will not work so completely on every piece, but as we’re learning a new piece of music, we should think about it intelligently and use our mind to help us make more efficient progress. [Shearer Volume 1: Classic Guitar Technique, p24, "Prelude No. 4"]

In the same way, if we’re having technical difficulties with a piece of music, we should grab the pencil and put a big circle around the phrase that is giving us trouble, and practice just that. Rarely do we need to practice an entire piece. He compared this with learning a speech; if there is one word that we can’t pronounce, or one phrase that hangs up our tongue, we would fix the problem by going right to the problem word or phrase and fixing that, not by reciting from the beginning of the speech. Then, with that fixed, we would go back and give the whole speech perfectly. Otherwise we’ll drive our family and friends crazy with the repetition.

He also gave me a copy of an article he had written that was published in the October issue of Classical Guitar magazine. It’s called “A Few Good Bricks”, and while I haven’t read it yet, one of the ideas is that if you have a pile of bricks in front of the house, there’s no reason to body-build until you can lift 1000 lbs to move the entire pile at once. Instead, you can start now carrying a few bricks at a time, until the whole pile is moved. This makes complete sense, yet as guitarists, we try to rush and learn the whole instrument at once and jump into repertoire that we’re not ready for, and more often than not, people give up in frustration because they don’t make the progress they think they should. And it’s the job of the teacher to help that student know how much he can carry at a time, and when is right to move on.

Learning Music

When we want to learn a complex piece of music, we should take small pieces of it and play them slowly for ten or twenty minutes a day, with intense focus, and eventually we will be playing the parts. He gave the example of one of his students who wanted to learn a fast piece by a well-known rock star. When he arrived at his lesson, he reported that he had practiced it for five hours the day before, but he still couldn’t play the part. Owen told the student that he was sure he had enjoyed his time, but that he had wasted about 4 hours and 50 minutes, and had actually made the job of learning to play it right even harder with each successive day of trying to force the song. If instead, he had spent ten to twenty minutes a day until he had accumulated the five hours in slow, focused practice, he would have been playing that part fluently, and had a lot more time along the way to do or learn something else as well.

The Smartest Finger

We are a three-toed animal, he said holding out his hand, and he showed me that the thumb and index finger were independent, but the other three fingers share tendons and move together. The index finger is the smartest finger, and while we devote a lot of time to making the other fingers independent, they will never be as smart as the index finger (on either hand). If there’s a note we have to hit, we should play it with the index finger, as it’s the smartest. Years ago, there were some pianists who tried to build strength in their fingers by tying strings to them and moving their fingers to lift some weights. And instead of building strength, they stretched their tendons and were unable to play piano successfully for the rest of their lives. Tragic. They completely missed the mark, as they didn’t need more strength but more control. If strength were all we needed, the strongest person would be the best player. While the muscles contribute to that control, it’s the brain that’s really in charge. Our studies should be concentrated on paying attention to what we do, and on making sure we do what we’re trying to do.

What is Classical Music?

From my lesson, we went to the airport to pick up my mother-in-law, who is here to visit for a week. As I sat beside the truck playing Adelita, one of the security guards came up and asked me about the guitar and music. He asked me if I knew any classical music, “like Neil Diamond”. And Lorelle just broke out laughing and went inside to meet Ramona. So I played something else, and when I was done, he told me that his sister had a restaurant, and that if I ever wanted to play I would be welcome, and that they couldn’t pay much, but to tell them that Terrence sent me. So I know that while the area was noisy and he couldn’t hear me very well, and he certainly didn’t know much about music, I made him happy for ten minutes or so, and that was worthwhile. I asked if “Nancy’s” was a place where lots of musicians gathered, and he said, “No, just you.” Oh, well.

Read along as I sit in my first guitar lesson in twenty years…

Introductions and Goals

As expected, it was rather hard to work all day with the guitar case there under the desk. I succeeded, though, and got a few things done. Then, it was 5pm and I was off to meet my new teacher, Owen Middleton.

He came out at 6 o’clock to find me waiting. He’s rather punctual, and after a brief introduction, he commented on the guitar case. He teaches in the studios of one of the local music stores. In the studio, I opened the case and he immediately said that I had a beautiful guitar and asked me what kind of instrument it was. I just handed it to him. He told me it had a lovely tone, nice action, and he didn’t really seem to want to give it back to me.

He began by asking me to play him something, and I played “The Water Is Wide”. It’s a beautiful piece with a wonderful arrangement, and I played okay, missing the more difficult parts due to a bit of stage fright (when will that ever go away?). He told me that I played very expressively, and then we talked about my sight reading and what I hoped to get from the lessons. I told him that I had learned to sight read from the Mel Bay books when I was a kid, but that I hadn’t really used that skill in years. I told him I was very proficient with TAB, but wanted to learn to read the standard notation. I also told him that while I played the steel string, I was new to classical and wanted to work the classical repertoire and develop the proper form, because I had noticed I played with tension and realized that it was slowing me down, if not hurting me outright.

The Non-Pinch

He had me play some strings, no music yet. Fourth and third strings with thumb and first finger. Not a pinch, per se, but with a wide spread to exaggerate the “V”. He told me that this was one of the keys to playing with volume, that the pinch was weak, but this position was more forceful, with less effort. Then, I did the same thing with fourth and second strings with thumb and middle finger. Then thumb and ring. After each pair of notes, he required me to completely relax the right hand. We’re training the hand, he told me, to always return to a relaxed state after playing, so that eventually that will become the automatic response. These pairs of notes should be practiced for 5 minutes at the beginning of each practice session to develop relaxation after each note.

Transferring the Pressure from Finger to Finger

He had me play with the right hand thumb only while I played a four note chromatic run on a single string. Play with the first finger at the 5th fret. Then, add the second finger at the 6th fret, while at the same time reducing the pressure of the first finger so that it sat on the string, but was completely relaxed. The pressure transfers from finger to finger as the notes ascend. Play the 7th fret with the third finger, and the first and second fingers should be touching the strings, but with no pressure at all. He wiggled my fingers to check me and to show me that they were loose. Then, the pinky on the 8th fret and loosen the other three. Move to second string, and do the same sequence, all the way down to the 6th string. Fingers should play directly behind the frets to get the best sound with the least effort. I can see already this is going to be our theme for a while. I am to play chromatic note series and make sure the pressure transfers from finger to finger, leaving the other fingers relaxed. This is to be another 5 minutes at the beginning of each practice session.

Buzzing the Strings

He had me play the 5th fret first string again, then reduce the pressure until the string buzzed. That is the threshold, and we should only play just a breath beyond the minimum pressure required to sound the note. Any more is wasted effort and will slow us down.

He asked me to practice this week playing a chromatic scale and make sure every note buzzes. I said I thought that would be hard. He said yes, but that way I will learn exactly how much pressure it takes to play the notes. Wow. I’m supposed to make ugly sounds this week.

Back in Kindergarten

Then, I found that I’m back in kindergarten again (Sound familiar, anyone?). Aaron Shearer, “Classic Guitar Technique”, Volume 1. I’m to play all the exercises on the first few strings (learning to read the notes), but to concentrate on relaxing completely after each note, and to play with absolute minimum pressure. He commented that I already knew the reading part, which would allow me to concentrate on the more important relaxation.

He asked me that whenever I play my repertoire pieces, to concentrate on playing as softly as possible, because when the right had plays softly, the left hand will relax and play softly too. My theme of the week is minimal effort out of each hand.

He told me that it is not how much we practice, but rather how focused we are while we practice, and that 5 minutes of concentrated work is more effective that an hour or more of distracted playing. He compared this to burning paper with a magnifying glass in the summer sun. If the lens isn’t focused, it’s just light, but by focusing the light, we can burn the paper in moments.

He told me that I was to focus on the exercises for now, and let him worry about what pieces I would be playing.

I asked and he told me about some of the local coffee shops where some of his students gathered to talk and play guitar, but he didn’t know when. He told me to call Bret Heim (another local professor and recording artist). And he promised to let me know of upcoming recitals or performances.

That was the lesson. He’s very friendly and easy-going. Has a pleasant face and smiles a lot. I’m paid up for weekly lessons for the month of May (set me back a whole $72). I told him that when he thought I was ready, I’d be happier to move from 30 to 60 minutes each. He said perhaps June, but that this was good for now. As it was, I was his last lesson, and he gave me almost an hour anyway.

I have a lot to learn, and he has a lot of things he can teach me. I haven’t heard him play yet, but at the moment that doesn’t matter. For now, I have to go make the strings buzz.