Someone lent me a guitar - how do I learn classical guitar

A knock on the door and a gorgeous guitar arrived.  It gets to live at my house for a little while so I can find out if I am a good match for the guitar.

I've had an absolute blast learning ukulele .  I had no idea my brain was compatible with making music.  As much as I love it, I am already feeling the limits of my starter instrument.   I want to learn more about string instruments to see what my limits are.  Can I think in six strings?  Can my hand improve enough to handle a guitar?  

If the answer is, a ukulele is the best for me.  That's okay.

But I kind of hope it isn't and I can learn guitar.

So what do I know about guitars?  What is my starting point

- the library has more "beginner ukulele " books then "beginner guitar" books.  But they have a lot of other guitar books.  

- guitars seem to be divided into electric, slightly electric and acoustic.  

- the acoustic style interests me at this time.

- acoustic guitars seem divided into ones that play mostly with a pick and ones that play mostly with fingers.  String type are related to this.

- acoustic guitars are also divided by size.

- size and play style don't seem very connected.

- I really like the play with finger style, especially the spanish and baroque music.  And other music that I know it when I hear it, but don't know the words for it.

- the words Classical Guitar keep coming up, but I don't know if that word means playing music, specific size/shape combination, or if it's any guitar with nylon strings.

- strumming and singing don't interest me much.  I like to listen to it, but playing isn't capturing my imagination at this time.


The book
I borrowed Solo Guitar Playing 1 by Noad from the interlibrary loan as so many forums suggested it as a starting place.  The book so far is a good match for my learning style and goals.

There is no tab, and we don't get to play a song for a month or more.  I am glad to learn to read music.

But I also know myself and need a song to work on in fun time that is a bit beyond my current skills.  


The guitar is absolutely beautiful.

It has a pretty sound and every string on every fret rings clear.  The disadvantage is, any failure will be user error and I cannot blame the instrument.

The strings are nylon, but three are wrapped in metal.

It's parlor size.  This influences the sound to make it more pleasant for playing at home in smaller rooms.  It also means less frustration trying to teach my hand to reach the frets.

Day one, I feel that my hand is no better than a hobbits foot and will never be able to do it.  I felt exactly the same on day one of ukulele.   This will pass.


Anyways, I feel like there are massive gaps in my understanding at this point.  I am missing vocabulary and so much.  I don't even know what I don't know.

Any thoughts are welcomed as I start on this adventure.

The first thing I need to do for my learning style is to create a daily ritual.

For the ukulele, this is what worked.  Although it had the advantage of having free daily YouTube lessons about 5 to 9 min long per day.  

Attach ritual to 2nd coffee.  That usually has 20 min of dedicated time.

1. Tune ukulele
2. Warm up
3. Review previous lessons
4. Watch and do todays lesson
5. Take notes and re-watch tricky bits
6. Review lesson
7. Fun ukulele play time (work on song that is way too hard for me or whatever)

Add to this, I usually get some shadow playing in the evening where I practice silently.   Usually four or five bars of a song I had trouble with during study time.


Guitar will have to be different as I am learning from a book.  I cannot find any YouTube tutorial series I can get along with.  

I suspect it will have to take over some if not all of my ukulele time.  That's okay.

Looking at my ukulele study ritual, on rush days or days that I don't feel like it, the minimum is step 1 (tune) and step 4 (lesson).  If I do that much, I consider it a victory.  And I often keep going even though I didn't feel like it when I started.

So I need to make a minimum effort um...boundry?... for bad days.

 

Typically, 'classic' guitar refers to instruments with nylon strings, and 'acoustic' refers to guitars with steel strings.

My guitar teacher friend will only teach new students on nylon stringed guitars, cause steel strings take a lot more effort and time on instrument to build sufficient callous. I started on steel strings. When I got an instrument with nylon strings, I stopped playing the steel stringed guitar. Though now, my callouses suffice to play either.

Also the classic guitar spaces the strings slightly wider apart, making them easier to play for people with larger hands like mine. The wider spacing makes for easier finger-picking.

The sound produced by classic guitars tends towards mellowness, and steel string tends towards brightness.

I love my classic guitar—wood finish—cause the tone matches my voice closely.

Typically, 'classic' guitar refers to instruments with nylon strings, and 'acoustic' refers to guitars with steel strings.

That changes the classification in my mind.

So, how does this look?

Electric
Semi-electric
Acoustic
Classical

Am I missing anything?

For some reason, I got "all non-electric are Acoustic" from the library books.  The don't seem to mention classical guitar as it's own thing.

But these all give the same lesson pattern
1. How to hold pick and guitar
2. How to riff
3. How to cord
4. Put together in a song and make woawawa sounds

It doesn't seem like what I'm seeking in music.  Maybe they don't know about classical guitar style?

I don't pay attention to electric or semi-electric guitars. I focus on old-fashioned techniques and instruments.  Electric guitars require an amplifier. Any guitar can have a sound-pickup attached to it to plug into an amplifier. (Do they call them semi-electric if they can play with or without amplifier?)

My guitar playing journey coincided with my journey to become a yoga teacher. I thought at first I would focus on campfire style music, but I actually went in the direction of devotional music, specifically chanting. So I stopped playing other people's music, and only play what I invent myself. My own chords, my own progressions. My own way of relating to the instrument and the world. Sure, I learned to play all the chords from official music theory, but I chose a different path for myself.

There is a style called electro-acoustic (i think that's the name) that have an acoustic body but also hookup and an internal speaker so we can play without hooking up, but still have fancy effects.

There seems to be a lot of variations of this technology.   I'm calling it semi-electric as they can be played without hooking up, but, in theory, aren't awesome at pure acoustic sound.

That is all I stored in my brain about these as I want to get to a place where music is away from electrical stuff.

I have steel-string acoustic guitars, and nylon string classical guitars.
I consider them both to be 'acoustic' as they are both generating the sound without electrical amplification.
Resonator types I think of as acoustic too even though they have more metal structure to amplify sound.

I had a steel-string acoustic and an electric guitar for a long time and never learned to play them, partly because of the pain it caused my uncalloused fingertips.

When I got a Classical nylon-string guitar I was finally able to get it.
Depending on the specific guitar, a Classical guitar usually is quieter than a Steel-string acoustic type.
I tend to use guitar as a vehicle for singing which is what I really like.
Mostly I play rhythm chords and sloppily pick out notes now and then.
My playing skills are not great, but it brings me great joy regardless.

I wish you success in your musical adventures!

Much of classical guitar playing and fingerstyle ukulele are transferable. Relative to each other, the four highest strings on guitar are tuned a fourth lower (I think) than ukulele in low G, and then the low strings are all a fourth apart from each other. So standard tuning, low to high, is:

E A D G B E (guitar) compared with...
      G C E A (ukulele)

So with muscle memory, playing fingerstyle guitar is almost like playing fingerstyle a large ukulele with two extra strings at the bottom. I think you will be able to figure it out!

Usually, the lowest three strings are all played with the thumb, while:
G string - index finger
B string - middle finger
High E string - ring finger

This is all flexible too. If you need to move your hand then there is nothing wrong with that... I often play with three fingers depending on the day too.

So for instance if you make the shape for what would be a C major chord on ukulele, and play only those higher strings, then that makes a G major chord for guitar. If you add in a low G (sixth string, third fret) and a low B (fifth string, second fret) then all strings played together make a very big G major chord.

I hope this helps. I am very happy that you have this opportunity now and ask as many questions as you wish!

Parlor guitar and strings.

I have a fear of breaking strings, so I would like to get some backup ones.  Also, I think it's nice to give it back with spare strings as a way of saying thank you for lending me this beautiful thing.

Like how we return a car with a full tank when someone lends it to us for free.  It's the nice thing to do.



I looked up the guitar, it is designed to be used with medium nylon strings.  But can take stronger tension ones if necessary.

Somewhere, I stored in my head, my play style and body wants medium or light tension strings.

Somehow this information should get me to what kind of string do I buy.  Somehow?  Nylon, medium, parlor guitar.

Is there anything specific about Parlor guitar strings?  Or do all strings fit all sizes?

Ukulele does best with the right size string for the right size Ukulele. It makes a big difference (i know because my current strings are the wrong size and it sounds muted)

My friend's son played what she described as "classical guitar" which to them meant "classical music" (think Vivaldi, Mozart, Bach) that could be played by a single instrument.

We all tend to have heard classical music that's played by an entire orchestra, but those same composers often wrote for small groups of instruments and for single instruments. There is no singing or chanting involved, but there is a *lot* of individual note picking.

A songbook that can be played by beginner violin/viola players might give you a starting point, judging by what I saw my friend's son playing, assuming you like that sort of music. I think playing things you like is a huge motivator. Some "sheet music" may be found on the web?

I have wanted a Parlor guitar for years!
I'm not sure why, I just think they are cool and I like the sound they give.  
They are a much smaller body than typical classical guitars and are much quieter than their larger kin.

From what I've read, people use steel or nylon - low tension, light gauge.
But I haven't any personal experience playing one.

classical vs acoustic guitars

To add to the confusion.

Classical Guitars for Dummies begins by saying the classical guitar is a specific type of acoustic guitar.  Then talks as if classical and acoustic guitars are very different things.  Then talks about how impossible it is to play classical guitar on anything but a classical guitar.  Then specifies that when they say classical guitar they mean the playing style and we can use any nylon string guitar for the exercises in this book.  that's the first two paragraphs of a long chapter on what is a classical guitar.  

Defining what a classical guitar is (and isn't) - they say here, it refers to both music playing style and a "guitar that has a particular design and construction, is made of certain materials, and requires playing techniques that are unique to this type of guitar, as compared to other guitars."  It's designed to employ specific right and left hand techniques which together comprise the classical guitar style.  

Classical guitar style is defined  as "to play the music written by the great classical composers throughout history..."

Recognizing how a classical guitar physically differs from its peers - again, considers a classical guitar a kind of acoustic.  "...so all classical guitars are in a sense acoustic guitars.  But not all acoustics are classical."

After this, they treat acoustic and classical as very different things.  

"A classical guitar uses nylon strings.  All other acoustics used for unplugged purposes are built for steel strings."  - I have doubts.  The parlor guitar is built for nylon strings.  Does that mean it's 100% a classical guitar.  Or perhaps they are oversimplifying it in the book?

It seems to stress the defining feature of a classical guitar is 100% the string type.  All nylon string guitars are classical and all steel ones are not.  Folk guitars are something else and doesn't really mean anything...but probably not classical.  

Classical guitars include: all "nylon-string guitar, Spanish guitar, gut-string guitars, and flamenco guitars."

This would have to include a lot of guitars that came before what we know in the 20th century.

BUT

"A classical guitar has only one body size"

Which means it doesn't include all gut strings or nylon string guitars....?  what?

"they're (all classical guitars) all the same size and they all feel exactly alike when you hold them.  So anything you learn on one classical guitar will transfer over to the other without a major adjustment."

I am begging to think this book and I aren't going to be friends.  The author self-contradicts frequently and/or doesn't know much about guitars.  

"a classical guitar has no cutaway." - sure, I sort of understand what that means.  I can accept it until proven otherwise.

"a classical guitar neck is wider than most steel strings and joins the body at the 12th fret". The 12th fret thing seems to be a defining feature in this paragraph that all other guitar types don't have.  The parlor guitar also joins at the 12th, but I don't know enough to know if it's wide necked or not.

no pickguard as this might reduce vibration and since we don't use a pick on this kind of guitar anyway. Again, I don't know enough to evaluate this statement.

Sidebar - the classical guitar size was standardized in 1863 by someone called antonio torres.  

Classical guitars never have fret markers.  Acoustic guitars always have fret markers. ... so by that standard, the parlor is a classical guitar.  It does have dots on the side of the neck where the player can see it.  But not on the front.

"a classical guitar never has the following images painted or stickered onto its surface: skulls, lightning bolts, flames, your girlfriend's name or politically incorrect slogans of any kind."  Um... okay.  But wood guitars are pretty so why would anyone want to?


Other identifying features of classical guitars

- how we hold our hands and techniques.  how we hold the instrument.  there is only one right way to put the right hand.  There is only one right way to put the left hand.  No picks allowed.  Shun tab and read real music.  and it's the only style of guitar that "focuses on technical skill, virtuosity, and musicianship".

---

WOW!
That's chapter one in a nutshell.  

This book and I are not going to get on well at all.  

I was hopeful it would be supplementary to my primary book.  Self-contradictory books that are over confident in their "facts" only to refute them in the next paragraph annoy me.  

I also feel more confused on the topic than when I started reading that book.   Back to the library you go.

I'm sorry to hear you found such nonsense. There is so much of it around.

As for writing on guitars, maybe you have heard: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/This_machine_kills_fascists

I have played classical & renaissance guitar music (mostly the latter) with a steel string guitar. Since I have narrow fingers it seems to work out fine, though the sound is clearly going to be different. I've thought about trying to restring it with nylon when it comes time though, as the tension is so high and it makes it harder to transition from anything else. (Heresy!)

They all will theoretically work, at least so long as they're not high strung or anything weird like that, and so long as the strings can comfortably be plucked individually.

If you can find this book (unfortunately out of print), then it is an excellent collection of fingerstyle guitar music with lots of classical, baroque & renaissance pieces, folk songs, & dances. You'd probably have to save it for once you have learnt at least the basics, though it has many different songs with different levels of difficulty. The easiest are under the header "Simple lute solos", though they use a slightly altered tuning. None of them are absolute-beginner simple though as it is considered an intermediate book.

I looked it up--unfortunately quite rare. Oh well.

Does a capo hurt the guitar?   Are they specific for different sizes guitar?

I discovered if I use a capo, I can do ukulele practice on the first (higher) strings of the guitar, but stretch my fingers and get used to using the guitar.

r ransom wrote:Does a capo hurt the guitar?   Are they specific for different sizes guitar?  

No... I've seen them used on most guitars, however, the width of the neck might matter. If it fits, it fits - if it seems too small, I wouldn't push it.

Jay Angler wrote:

r ransom wrote:Does a capo hurt the guitar?   Are they specific for different sizes guitar?  

No... I've seen them used on most guitars, however, the width of the neck might matter. If it fits, it fits - if it seems too small, I wouldn't push it.

Thanks.  Good to know it's an option.

M Ljin wrote:If you can find this book (unfortunately out of print), then it is an excellent collection of fingerstyle guitar music with lots of classical, baroque & renaissance pieces, folk songs, & dances. You'd probably have to save it for once you have learnt at least the basics, though it has many different songs with different levels of difficulty. The easiest are under the header "Simple lute solos", though they use a slightly altered tuning. None of them are absolute-beginner simple though as it is considered an intermediate book.

I looked it up--unfortunately quite rare. Oh well.

I'll keep an eye out for it.  Sometimes good books show up in the thrift shops.

r ransom wrote:I have a fear of breaking strings

I know of only two ways to break a string that isn't old: Tuning it too high or playing it with extreme vigor.

You mentioned wound strings in an earlier post. The metal winding serves to lower the pitch by making the string heavier while retaining flexibility and tension that's similar to lighter unwound strings. This is done whether the core is nylon, steel, or some other material.

r ransom wrote:Does a capo hurt the guitar?

A capo is a harmless and practically essential guitar accessory. It's most often used to adjust the pitch to better match a singer's voice without changing the chord shapes being played or to allow easier chords to be used. It also can make some difficult finger stretches playable and can alter the timbre in a desirable way. Get one that fits your instrument, and enjoy the flexibility.

I might be able to do some of this.  It looks like a useful first goal.

Solo Guitar Playing 1 by Noad has me starting much simpler.   He suggests that each lesson should take at least a week.   Except at minimum, 2 years to work through the book, so long as I have a good instructor.  Longer for self taught.

Sounds like the biggest challenge will be keeping me focused.  My learning style responds well to bribes, so i need to find practice i can reward myself with when finished the days exercise.

I hope to start the book tomorrow.

Have a look at https://www.guitarprinciples.com/.
I encountered this site only after decades of playing, so it served mainly to reinforce what I had learned the hard way. Jamie Andreas focuses on some important physical aspects that are generally overlooked in other instructional material. Fingertip soreness is inevitable while developing calluses, but other pain is not and can largely be avoided with attention to good technique.

I'm using fenderplay right now to re-learn blues/rock guitar, but they do not offer 'classical' lessons.  Per perplexity ai:

"Classical Guitar Corner stands out as a top choice for structured online classical guitar lessons, offering a comprehensive curriculum from beginner to advanced levels with video lessons, PDFs, live workshops, and a supportive community. Other strong options include ArtistWorks with Grammy-winner Jason Vieaux, providing video exchanges for personalized feedback and repertoire from fundamentals to advanced pieces."

If you search for something like "beginner classical guitar lessons" on utube you will also find a lot of options to get started.

Ability to play on 4 strings or 6 isn't really relevant in my opinion as many musicians play several different instruments very well. Prince, for example, plays strings, brass, keys, and percussion, sings, and composes. He was an exceptional talent to be sure, but we can all pretty much learn whatever we commit to. The primary factor I'd say is having the DESIRE to learn the instrument which applies to about any skill in my experience.

Lessons are a possibility if I get along well with the guitar.  I only have it for a limited time, so I want to be sure to start saving for my own if I like it.  Guitar first, then lessons (online or in person).  

But I'm glad to hear of the lessons that are working for you.  Please keep the suggestions coming.  (when I'm ready, I'll come back and reread the thread)

Day One

I'm using the book Solo Guitar Playing 1 by Noad as my primary guide.  

This first lesson looks too easy to be one whole week.  Until I try it.  

Holding the guitar is the focus today.  Classical guitar instruction seems to be very particular on how to hold the guitar.  I try the book way and I can almost get it to stay, but I know immediately this isn't going to work for my meralgia paresthetica (compressed nerve thing).  I try a few youtube videos and nothing works without extreme pain or risk of dropping the guitar if I don't have both hands on it.

I had this trouble with my ukulele on day one as well.  The solution was a strap.  As I learn to play, I found I needed the strap less and less.

So the strap goes back on the guitar and I have hope I can do this.  

Rest Stroke.  For this lesson we are doing the first three strings.  This is the right hand "plucking" the string but not plucking.  Pressing and moving sideways.  I can make a very loud noise with very little effort.  Sometimes I mess it up.

I'm a little bit confused if I'm supposed to have my fingers exactly perpendicular to the strings and do it with exactly the tip of my fingers, or do I have my fingers pointing very slightly towards the bridge and do it with the side of the tip of my finger.  I like the sound this second style does better, but the first style has a stronger... sharper?... sound.  I guess I use the one that is most comfortable and makes the desired sound?  Maybe?

Anyway, I'm to do this with my index, middle, and ring, on the first three (highest sounding) strings.  And practice alternating fingers on the same string as if "running up a hill"

Fretting - I'm not as clear as to what my homework is here.  It's a bit like hammering on.  I press down suddenly and firmly with my finger on the fret board to make a clear note.  In theory I should be able to have all four fingers of my left hand touching the fret board at the same time.  

At this time, it feels that's an impossible task.

So I move to the fifth fret and try the exercise in the video where two fingers are walking around the fret board at a time.  I can almost do it with my index and middle finger.  I feel like I've climbed a beanstalk and  am in the land of giants.  Is it possible for a woman's stubby fingers to do this?


Observations:


The angle I have the guitar neck influences how far I can reach and how many fingers can touch the fretboard at a time.  It ends up being almost vertical and I can get my thumb on the back of the neck and fingers around to the frets without having to bend my wrist too much.  It's lovely having dots on the side of the fretboard where I am (and not on the front).

I think I will focus on just feeling where the different frets are so my left hand can do it's thing without too much help from my eyes.  

I also have confidence this will get better.  Or, more to the point, I will get better at it.  I also want to acknowledge it doesn't feel that way today.  I can see why so many people quit at this stage and it's only faith that will encourage me to practice and see if my hand can learn how to do this.  

Fretting... you don't need to make the string vibrate with your left hand, only shorten the vibrating length by bringing the string into contact with the frets so that when your right hand plucks, it will sound right... I think this is what you're saying but might be wrong?

You can bend your wrist as much as you need, even up to a right angle (I can't physically go past that but maybe you can!) and put your thumb anywhere on the back of the neck--if any rule doesn't work for you I advocate throwing it out! But if reaching turns out to be a persistent issue, then finding a narrower necked guitar for yourself in the future and putting nylon/other classical style strings on it could be a solution. I don't think it would be an issue since a guitar made for steel strings should be able to handle the tension of any less tense strings such as nylon or gut. But perhaps I'm wrong...?

As you continue it can be good to give your fingers time to increase in flexibility and independence. My friend who I'm teaching ukulele is still at the stage of teasing apart the "claw hand" muscle memory where all the fingers try to come together at once involuntarily--it takes practice!

I also recall hearing in a few places that previously, guitar was considered more or less a women's instrument. It is interesting how these perceptions switch around century by century or decade by decade, like the perceived genders of various names. Similarly it seems like fiddle/violin used to be considered masculine and now feminine.

And holding the guitar... tradition can be very specific about how to do it but it may not work the same for everyone. What works for me typically is setting the guitar on the right leg, and then having my right hand hovering somewhere in the general vicinity of the twelfth fret, which is much more comfortable than trying to pluck lower near the sound hole, or set it on the left leg, and it also has a richer tone. It is quite unconventional but works for me, and gets the guitar to be at the ideal angle from the ground. Although it may be at any angle depending on circumstances.

In general I would take what "they" have to say as suggestions, experiment, and alter them to suit yourself. It is good to at least give things a try, but if it continues to feel unnatural, and you can play something that sounds good without doing it, I don't see a reason to carry on.

On one of Judson Carroll's videos he talks about Elizabeth Cotten's strange picking style which sounds good but is a very unusual one--picking left handedly on a right handed guitar, with all the strings in a right handed arrangement. There are always ways to learn, and adapt our technique to fit ourselves and our instrument.

Fretting... you don't need to make the string vibrate with your left hand, only shorten the vibrating length by bringing the string into contact with the frets so that when your right hand plucks, it will sound right... I think this is what you're saying but might be wrong?

I often think about the goal the teacher has and why they might suggest a practice.

This is my best guess at this time.

I suspect the exercise is to gain strength in the fingers.  But also to think about the hands as individuals.   If that makes sense.

Observing today's playing and dedicated practice, when i fret poorly and pluck, i can get a good enough sound.  But when i do this hammer practice, it won't make a pleasing sound unless i place the finger on the specific part just before the fret.  

Part of me doesn't want to because it's really hard, and surely a good enough sound is enough just starting?  

But part of me can see the benifits of practicing the two hands independently of eachother. It would be harder to fix this later.  So I try.

So it's an exercise! That makes more sense.

Wrist

I know from other repetitive motion tasks, if I can keep my wrist straight and relaxed, I have a lot more stamina and finger strength.  

Same with ukulele. My natural tendency is to accept a wrong note than have to twist my writst to see where I am fretting wrong.

I am going to keep observing how my body reacts to to the guitar.   So far, I am at less than five minutes per session (but I managed two sessions today).  I want to get up to an easy hour without my body complaining.

Oh, definitely, it is much more ergonomic to have the fretboard facing away from you!

I found in the course of regular playing I don't tend to bend my wrist very much. Except if I am playing a lot on the lower strings.

Maybe set up a mirror for practice?

Although one exception to that is the Hawaiian or steel guitar which is played quite differently...

day two

Same again.

Very slightly easier for fingers.  

Strap is a blessing as I can keep my body more square and relaxed.


I need to find an advanced beginner song to work towards.  Because i need something difficult to work on to motivate me to do the exercises.

Spanish romance to the first repeat looks easy-ish.  Nice repetitive rythm for plucking.  But there are some rough areas where we bar a bunch, then reach down three or four frets with our pinky.

I wonder if Concerning Hobbits would be a better advanced beginner piece.  The version I am working on on ukulele sounds dull on the high notes and like it's missing something. In part user error, in part the limits of an affordable ukulele.

Maybe guitar could play it better?

Or other suggestions on a song that is beyond my skillset but an advanced beginner can play?  Apparently, my brain needs the reward of it being a proper song.  Like dark chocolate vs chocolate substitute. The chocolate like substance doesn't work for bribing me to do the desired behaviour.

day three

Getting more comfortable.  

The rest stroke is feeling pretty confident, except my nails sometimes get in the way after the stroke and buz against the steing I just played.

With the two finger walking from the vide exercise, I can almost have my pinky and ring finger on the fretboard at the same time.  Although my pinky isn't used to being asked to do stuff and sometimes wanders off.  It's like all the negative symptoms of my adhd focus into my pinky for a few seconds.

Hammer on exercises are still hard.  Solo Guitar Playing 1 by Noad suggests that I want to be comfortable with this in all my fingers before  moving to lesson two.  I think that might take more than the suggested week.  But, it's only been a few days and daily progress is difficult to see.

Day...i lost count, still first week.

More of the same exercises.   I can alternate between the 3 exercises for over 5 min per practice session now.  I still find myself leaning my head forward to try and see what my fingers are doing.  This seems to be the main source of pain.  I am probably going a bit slow with my fingers so they don't develop pain early which will hamper my motivation.

The strap is a massive help.

I am beginning to suspect my clip on tuner is betraying me.  It seems confused.

I tried the tuner on both chromatic and guitar,  but it gives me inconsistent results.  On guitar, it can't tell which string I'm trying to tune.  On chromatic, it picks up the vibration from the other strings easier than the vibration from the one I'm trying to tune.  I suspect this is because the head of the guitar is too thick and the tuner clip cannot make good contact.  

Solo Guitar Playing 1 by Noad suggests pitch pipes but seems to be more fond of tuning to itself.   If i understand correctly, we tune string 6 to something external.  That's the low sounding string (i say for my own reminder).  Then, we can fret 5 or 4 and it will give us the right sound for the next string.

I need to find a way to tune the first string i guess.  Forks seem to come in too many varieties and pipes are about 12 times as expencive as a clip on tuner.  Maybe bigger clip on tuners exist?  But do I really want more batteries in my life?  Batteries never last more than a few weeks near me.

Thankfully, the guitar doesn't need tuning as often as the ukulele.  And for the exercises I am doing  now, I'm  not bothered if it's not just right.

Returning to Classical Guitar for Dummies to see if there is anything useful to be mined.

I am struck again with the feeling of cleaning up scraps of paper after a night of party games for authors.   Do you know the game where a group tells a story.  Each person writes one sentence, then folds the paper so that the sentence is hidden and only one word remains.  The next person writes a sentence without knowing what the last one wrote, and so on.  

Anyway.  

I want to find out what this is called so I can find one big enough to read the letters.  Even photographing and zooming, I cannot make out the writing.  

Any suggestions on how to find a clearer version of this chart?

I can read it fine. It is letters A-G, with sharps and flats. The sharps are hard to make out but you know if they're not a flat (the little thing that looks like a lowercase b).

It could be my brain and not my eyes as this is an area I have trouble with.  I suspect on the picture of the neck, there are letters.  But the parallel lines won't let me read them.  

What words could I use to find a new picture with the letters visible?

There is a variation of the chart here without the shading.    it's mildly easier to read.

I am tempted to make a bigger version by hand.  It might help with memory retention.  Then again, there is a high risk of error

r ransom wrote: I suspect on the picture of the neck, there are letters.  But the parallel lines won't let me read them.  

There are absolutely letters and symbols on the neck of the guitar. Even doing Control+ to 200 zoom on my big screen, it was tough to read them well enough that I would be sure of them. Someone who knows how to read music would have better luck because they might have a better chance of knowing the pattern enough to be sure they are correct.

I couldn't be absolutely sure they were the same notes as on the music below. I flunked reading music because after I gave up, I found out I had a mild astigmatism which was interfering with me keeping the lines straight. Now with the computer age, I could try again a) by simply enlarging each page and b) wearing my strongest glasses. I could read the eye chart easily, so everyone thought my vision wasn't a problem.