How To Play Classical Guitar Music
If you are interested in learning about the classical guitar and are wondering how to play it, you might enjoy this post on the ways the classical guitar is different from other acoustic guitars and the techniques employed in playing classical guitar music. I have found some YouTube videos to illustrate the various classical guitar techniques.
Electric guitars and steel string acoustic guitars usually have a cutaway neck to allow the guitar player to fret notes at the top end of the scale. This type of neck is actually a modern innovation. Even though classical guitar players and composers have always made use of the uppermost notes on the guitar fretboard, classical guitars stuck with the original guitar shape. On the steel string acoustic guitar the neck is slightly narrower than the original design retained by the classical guitar. If you try to play a classical guitar for the first time you will probably find this difference a little hard to get used to.
The classical guitar uses nylon strings. They give you a very warm, mellow sound. The use of nylon strings is due partly to tradition and partly to the fact that steel strings are alot harder on the guitar player’s fingernails. The basic difference between classical guitar and other kinds of fingerstyle guitar playing is that plectrums and fingerpicks are not used by classical guitarists. The sound produced is a product of the guitar player’s fingertips or fingernails plucking or striking the nylon strings. It is the guitar player’s choice whether to use nails or just the flesh of the fingertips. Many people think that it is more difficult to play the guitar without nails, but players who just use their fingertips say it is no more difficult to learn to play that way. If you have your right hand close to the bridge of the guitar you will produce a sharp, dry tone. If you pluck the strings with your right hand nearer the neck you will get a deeper, more mellow sound.
The plucking of the classical guitar strings can be done in two ways. The “rest” stroke is where the thumb or the fingers pluck the string and come to rest on the next string.
The “free” stroke is where the thumb and fingers attack the string in such a way as to avoid the adjacent strings.
When you try to use these techniques you will notice the marked difference in sound. Another technique used in classical guitar playing is the tremelo technique where the right hand thumb plays a bass note followed by the index, middle and ring fingers playing melody notes in quick succession.
A famous piece employing the tremelo is Recuerdos de la Alhambra by Francisco Tárrega.
Finally a rather tricky technique is used for playing solos using the sound of harmonics. This involves the right hand index finger damping the string while the ring finger plucks.
When you play chords by scraping the right hand fingers or thumb across the strings it is called a rasgueado. You can strum chords with the thumb using a down stroke, the index finger using up or down strokes or, less commonly, by using the flamenco rasgueado which entails the little finger, ring finger, middle finger, index finger following each other in a down stroke across the strings.
If you are interested in playing classical guitar or using classical techniques to play modern music, sheet music and tabs for classical guitar are readily available on the internet.
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