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

Day whatever, still week one

I am doing the exercises but feel a desperate need for a reward.  I need a song to work on.

But I don't know enough to know what song to pick.


Anyway, I tried to write out the normal notes at the start of the fret board.  Does this look right?

r ransom wrote:Day whatever, still week one

I am doing the exercises but feel a desperate need for a reward.  I need a song to work on.

But I don't know enough to know what song to pick.


Anyway, I tried to write out the normal notes at the start of the fret board.  Does this look right?

Yes, that looks right!

You were talking about "House of the Rising Sun" in the other thread. Maybe that would be a good one to start with?

M Ljin wrote:

r ransom wrote:Day whatever, still week one

I am doing the exercises but feel a desperate need for a reward.  I need a song to work on.

But I don't know enough to know what song to pick.


Anyway, I tried to write out the normal notes at the start of the fret board.  Does this look right?

Yes, that looks right!

You were talking about "House of the Rising Sun" in the other thread. Maybe that would be a good one to start with?

Oh, i like that song

Maybe this version?



Tab here https://www.fingerstyleguitar.rocks/fingerstyle-songs/house-of-the-rising-sun/

That version may be harder, but it also sounds lovely. Maybe it could be a good challenge?

Or if you're not ready for it find another version. But being able to play something that you enjoy--both hearing and playing--will help keep you motivated.

Now I look closer, yes.  That's too mucn song for me. Hammer and pull and weird notes in brackets for some reason.  Not yet,

Hmm, spanish romance looks easier.  At least to the first repeat.

A bit of playing around with the Spanish romance  tonight.

It is a lot nicer sounding on guitar than ukulele.  

The goal is to get good to the first repeat, aka, this page.  My fingers struggle to do section A.  I might get there with practice.   I have no idea how I will get section B to work.  It doesn't seem physically possible from where I am now.

But it's a pretty sound.

It's also the easiest song so far.

I feel a strong need to move away from TAB soon if I'm going to get my brain friendly towards reading music.

Oh, this isn't the version of Spanish romance I'm working from.  So many versions.

For section A, instead of thumb playing string 6 (deepest sounding one) at 5th fret, the version I have, uses string 5 at open fret for those two notes.  Much easier.  I will have to check if they are the same note.  And if so, how do we know which string to play what note if we don't have tab?

Section B is basically the same.  I cannot get my hand to barr the 7th all the way across,  it currently feels like the fretboard is wider than my finger is long.

Note to self for later,  these words are often mentioned in classical guitar forums and appear to be used alongside the book I am learning from

Carcassi Method

String 6 at the fifth fret is theoretically the same note as open string 5. The same is true for all the strings except the third string, where it's the fourth fret in order to make things either more confusing or easier depending on how you look at it. This is one way to tune the guitar in relation to itself, so long as the intonation is correct.

Barre chords are hard. My book will put a 1, 2, 3, or 4 next to a note to indicate which finger is meant to press down on it, or a little circle to say open. Or it might say CIII for barre chord on the third fret.  1/2CV means half (three strings) on the fifth fret. But oftentimes there can be ways to get around them, and you only need to barre as much as you need for what you are playing.

r ransom wrote:Note to self for later,  these words are often mentioned in classical guitar forums and appear to be used alongside the book I am learning from

Carcassi Method

This was also suggested
https://imslp.org/wiki/12_Etudes,_Op.6_(Sor,_Fernando)

M Ljin wrote:String 6 at the fifth fret is theoretically the same note as open string 5. The same is true for all the strings except the third string, where it's the fourth fret in order to make things either more confusing or easier depending on how you look at it. This is one way to tune the guitar in relation to itself, so long as the intonation is correct.

Barre chords are hard. My book will put a 1, 2, 3, or 4 next to a note to indicate which finger is meant to press down on it, or a little circle to say open. Or it might say CIII for barre chord on the third fret.  1/2CV means half (three strings) on the fifth fret. But oftentimes there can be ways to get around them, and you only need to barre as much as you need for what you are playing.

Nifty about the tuning.   I like the sound of the open one better, so I can stick with that way.

Hmmm, I need to learn more about barre chords.  Sounds like I can do some experiments to see how to make that work.

Although I don't think anyone ever said that barre chords are easy (except on a couple of YouTube videos), there are definitely better and worse ways to play them, even on a well set up guitar. I was going to link a video I (think) I recall from Jamie Andreas' Guitar Principles, but I can't find it right now. In any case, she emphasized starting with slow, no-chord practice in simply laying the index finger down across the strings with the thumb behind the neck but barely squeezing, paying close attention to the movement and avoiding unnecessary tension in the rest of the body.

Day whatever, it feels like a week so far

I'm about ready to move on to leason 2 of Solo Guitar Playing 1 by Noad.  This one isn't going to take very long as it focuses on things I learned from ukulele.   But I will spend some time on it as muscle memory for 6 strings isn't developing very quickly.

This lesson includes
More rest stroke but also free stroke.  
Getting the thumb involved
arpeggio (broken cord), i think that's the word
And how to pluck all the strings of a cord together.

We are also doing finger exercises for right hand without fretting.   For example, string numbers played in this order 632123 repeat.  Lots of ways to practice this like focusing on not moving hand up from guitar when doing thumb.  So fun stuff

I  can spend a few days here.

Theae exercises look like a good companion to lesson 2 of the book



Adding some of these in with my daily practice should help keep interest

On a less serious note...

Middle C, E flat and G walk into a bar.

“Sorry,” the barman said. “We don’t serve minors.”

Jay Angler wrote:On a less serious note...

Middle C, E flat and G walk into a bar.

“Sorry,” the barman said. “We don’t serve minors.”

😊, 🎵

Supposed to be happy emoji and music emoji to show I enjoy.

Feeling pretty good I now know enough music to understand the joke.

I just had a big ah ha moment.

And yes, someome mentioned this up thread.  But I wasn't ready for it yet, so I put it in the mental box with "guitar, important, later" written in on it.  (I tried to build a mind palace once, but could only get planning permission for a crawlspace).

1.
In my ukulele excitement, I bougt a couple of classical ukulele books.  Only, when they arrived, the full title read something like classical for low  G ukulele.   I'm not ready for a low G string on my ukulele.  So, sadly, I look at them each morning and dream of the day when I am good enough for a low G string.

And yes, most of you know what comes next.  It's almost like you are prognosticating.  I'll get there.

2.
But first, I had to commit to being a guitar person.  

Borrowing is lovely.  Daily practice, good.  But would I keep going after the time comes to send the guitar home?  

Yes.  

I kind of think I'm hooked,   hooked enough to buy my very own Capo thing.  

I choose a capo for classical guitar as this parlor guitar seems to have a neck and head that is thicker than the guitars I saw in the pawn shop.  It seemed the safest for the guitar.  Not knowing how to use a capo or when, I got bored of it in about 40 seconds.  

And these two pieces of information remained unconnected for an embarrassingly long time.

Today, something happened and I remembered if I put the capo on the 5th fret of the guitar, I can use the first four strings as if ukulele tuned in Low G.  Then I can learn the music I want to play.

The frets are further apart and the marker on the side of the fretboard are different to a ukulele, but with the capo on 5th, it was pretty easy to get used to and for the first time, I didn't need to give 90% of my attention to holding the guitar.   It just sort of found the right place and stayed there.  A good half hour of practice without body pain!  I was only up to 6 min this morning.

Something really big shifted in my brain and body to help it relax and relate to the guitar in a new way.  I don't know what.  With more observation, I hope to amplify this and see where it goes.

Today i learned that i can simply not use the capo and play the ukulele song on the first few frets of the guitar and it still sounds nice.

I wonder where I put my capo

I really enjoyed working through this book:

https://www.thisisclassicalguitar.com/free-classical-guitar-method-book-pdf/

r ransom wrote: (I tried to build a mind palace once, but could only get planning permission for a crawlspace)

I'm going to steal that. 😃

It's inspirational to see the different ways of holding a guitar throughout history and to know that a strap is historically accurate for baroque and Renaissance time.  It's interesting how many different techniques they came up with throughout history.

Fingers crossed, I will have time to start lesson 3 today.

Lesson one and two of Solo Guitar Playing 1 by Noad have had a lot of use to learn muscle memory of where the strings live.  I still stumble around quite a lot so I'm going to keep those exercises for warm-up.

Lesson three is all about reading music as it relates to the guitar.   No TAB here.  

We have a few exercises for learning how to keep time.  This is the first one



And later in the chapter, we have some exercises reading music and playing on the first three open strings.  

And possibly more as I haven't finished reading the chapter yet.

This book feels like a gentle introduction but I'm also grateful i am not taking lessons as this is the stage where I really need to take my time and calmly focus on these fundamental.   A teacher usually rushes through this stuff as it's boring, like what vowels do or the 3 times table.  Instead of taking all week learning what A does to a word, we have to learn all vouls bunched together so they are impossible to tell which is doing what to a word and suddenly we are on ed and ing and i still don't understand why "a" can change sound and why the teacher is convincing tom from tom and jerry is a cat when quite clearly it doesn't look anything like my kitty I have at home. Tom is a drawing, not a cat!  And no, I don't want to learn to tie my shoes, I want to go back to vowels again and yes, I am obviously a difficult child because I can't grasp such a simple concept as all the vowels taught together in one day.  And this adhd diagnosis was more me trying to catch up and learning that asking questions makes adults angry so just pretend and it will make sense eventually.

Vowels still don't make sense and spellchecker technically has devolved dramatically these last 5 years.

Books are much kinder.  I know myself now and I accept my muscle memory takes a long amount of conscious effort.  I'm enjoying taking the time on these early stages as it will make the next ones calmer and easier,

Reading music.

Same issues I was having with TAB and ukulele.  The parallel lines squirm and blend together.

I fixed this with ukulele tab by writing it out bigger.   But I lack patience to write out every single piece of music I want to play.

Made an appointment for my eyes as it's been a few years since the glasses stopped fixing this.

Complications with Lambing season means cutting my fingernails as short as possible every other day.  It's less than comfortable.  

It also means that I can't make the pleasant sound like I could before.  My nails were still quite short, but they were enough to do the guitar strokes as described in the book.

It looks like guitar playing and nails swing back and forth throughout history.  Some centuries all long nails (like now), others only sort nails will do.  So I need to dedicate some time to see how to play during short nail months.

Still at the start of open string music staff reading.   It's proving tricky for my brain, so I'm focused more on metronome and just going over and over the exercises in the Noad book.  Sometimes I try to make each note the same volume. Sometimes the first note per bar loudest.  Trying to keep it interesting while I build muscle memory.

I'm waiting for my fingers to stop forgetting which string is which.  Sometims they loose their place and sometimes the get confused between up and down.  But it's slowly getting better.

This helps explain something I'm struggling to articulate.  I noticed sometimes someone can play a song and be technically perfect, but there is no feeling in the music.

Also, I need to learn this song.

How to restring classical guitar.

For later.

Apparently, a lot of people in town don't do this themselves and the shops charge $70 to $120 to change the strings, plus the price of the strings.

A good companion to the other string changing video.  I do like how tidy the first one had the bridge, this one has classical style specific advise

I'm no expert but have been playing guitar for fun for 48 years I first learned in high school 10th grade mr smiths guitar class. just a suggestion here. t might be easier and more rewarding to learn basic chords first and learn some simple popular songs you might like. this will give you the ability to feel comfortable with the instrument. then you can go on to work on mastering the classical skills. there is no substitute for a good guitar teacher not all of us are born prodigies. and trying to play or learn on a cruddy not set up well guitar has destroyed the aspirations of more than we might know. if I had had a really good guitar teacher after mr smiths class where I learned the basics or had been around other masters of the instrument I would probably be a professional entertainer or even a rock star today. but I was never really interested in popularity or fame.
here is a master guitar player who I greatly respect that blended classical and pop

It does look easier to learn chords.  I did that when i started ukulele and could play a song in under an hour.  But I had trouble with motivation.

There is something weird in me or something.  Playing chords and isn't interesting to me.  It kind of pushes me away.  Although when I get to fingerstyle like in the video, it will become necessary.

I want the guitar to do both the singing (melody) and the background.   That captures my attention. It's not too difficult to do so far.  The Noad book exercises sound like mini songs already and we are still on open strings.  If I had someone to play the teacher part, apparently, it would sound just like a song.

The Sor classical music ukulele book is easier as it has tab.  Those songs are pretty easy so far and since I don't have a low G string on my ukulele, the guitar with capo works really well.

I ended up choosing classical partly because the guitar is set up for this style and there is no point fighting the instrument. Chord holding is a bit more difficult when the action is so high.  But the guitar has perfect set up for classical and fingerstyle.

I could have easily gone the fingerstyle direction first, but I couldn't find a book or tutorial series that worked for my brain and teach me to read music music as that was another goal I hoped to achieve while learning guitar.

I love this. he is a nearly unequaled master. at about 1 minute in for about next 20 seconds then again starting at about 2 minutes 35 seconds in watch very very closely how he uses his left hand. notice how his thumb stands solidly planted in the same place while the rest of his hand moves fluidly over 6 full frets. for mere mortals this might take. oh. about maybe what? 10,000 hours of practice.
something to aspire for and work towards.

Another string m changing video,  this one uses some rope to make it easier to see the knot

Re fingerstyle vs classical.

This explains best what's attractive about classical style to me.  The video focuses on how to incorporate classical techniques into fingerstyle playing.



The video mentioned "Mauro Giuliani’s 120 Right-Hand Studies" whic appears to be public domain and about 15 pages .  But also in music music and nit tab.


I haven't finished the video yet, but it reminds me of the fingerstyle book I got from the library.   The stress is on creating twang which is easier to achieve by pulling or plucking the strings away from the guitar with fingernails, like using a pick.

Whereas the classical style, has us pushing the string into the guitar then moving the finger away quickly.  

R Ransom wrote:

The stress is on creating twang which is easier to achieve by pulling or plucking the strings away from the guitar with fingernails, like using a pick.

 
My bold - twang is something my ears can't cope with.

The nifty thing about the guitar is how many different sounds it can make. I need a mellow sound to my music. I have difficulty with brass instruments, but not harp. I've learned that it isn't actually the quality or type of music - the same piece played with less "twang" or on a different instrument, won't make me cringe. Many people don't understand that. We *all* have different ears and different ranges we hear.

For me, twang needs certain things to sound pleasant.

I tried it on the guitar and ukulele and both sounded in pain and that I should never pull the strings away like that again.  I didn't like it.

The pressing down stroke in classical sounds pleasant.

But some neil young songs have twang and sound pleasent to me.  I think the guitar has metal on top or something.   Banjo sounds good with twang.  

But I don't like twang on classical guitar.

r ransom wrote:For me, twang needs certain things to sound pleasant.

I tried it on the guitar and ukulele and both sounded in pain and that I should never pull the strings away like that again.  I didn't like it.

The pressing down stroke in classical sounds pleasant.

But some neil young songs have twang and sound pleasent to me.  I think the guitar has metal on top or something.   Banjo sounds good with twang.  

But I don't like twang on classical guitar.

I wonder if it is the difference between steel and nylon strings?

Week 3 possibly

Focus is still on Solo Guitar Playing 1 by Noad as my primary source of instruction.

Lesson three is open string.  It does the first three strings for a few exercises, then adds the base strings.  There are also some finger patterns to practice.  The other focus is counting and keeping time, so some days I use the metronome and days like today, I see how well I can match my current emotion.

Although the author insists that I completely master one lesson before moving on, I am going to dabble in the next lesson sooner.  If I wait until I feel like I mastered it, I will use this as an excuse to stay where I'm comfortable and not push myself to learn.  I feel new lessons help when they are safely uncomfortable.

Lesson four is about the first four frets and reading musc.  The first few exercises focus on string one and the whole notes.  That's open, fret one and fret three.

Right away, I'm feeling the limitations of my vision and am looking forward to getting glasses.  I can see the notes as relationship to each other, but which are on what line or space are a blur.

Also I think it’s day 19, week 3 or 4 depending on where you start counting.

Ah ha. I finally figured out that my copy if solo guitar playing by Noad doesn't come with access to the audio files,  it would be handy as most of the exercises are supposed to be played with the teacher playing a different music at the same time to get used to playing and keeping time with others.

That's a shame.  

There are some youtube videos of people playing this, but to be frank, i can't keep my attention span to get through the chatter. I want to find a video series where the person just says the title of the exercises and then starts.

This lesson in Noads book is really good,  there are a lot of exercises and each slowly introduce old concepts we already learned.  Like how we are learning the first string open, and frets 1 and 3.  Then suddenly, an exercise includes string 3 open and it's "oh yeah, I've seen that before,  what was it again?"

Also, i like that it's whole notes.

What is frustrating is my brain.  Dyslexia is showing up really strong.  

I know the music says four open, fret 3, fret 1, 3, open.  I follow it with my eyes.  My eyes and brain see these things.  I have full concentration and calmness.  And yet, My hands play  open 1 3 open 3 1, or some such.  

It's like when I'm trying to copy with hand writing.   I can see and say the letters, but my hand writes a different one.  Cat becomes bat or kaj or catt.

With the music, I'm getting so fed up with how often this happens, that I play through it and can usually correct in a bar or two.  It's not that the error happens in the same place. It can happen anywhere in the exercise.  Even the first note.  

So it's interesting to observe this disability at learning language as an adult.  I've never seen it so clearly before.

It's also interesting to note, that typing has a different error.  I'm better at transcribing, however, the error is more likely to be getting all the letters of the word correct, but changing the order.  And that varies.  It's usually left to right on keyboard, so keyboard becomes something like aedbryk or arranging alphabetically.  But the error happens less often than with writing.

Observation.
With a metronome set a little too fast, I can often make it through the exercise with fewer errors.  But if repeating the exercises, te errors creap in on repeat 3 or 4.

r ransom wrote:It's not that the error happens in the same place. It can happen anywhere in the exercise.  Even the first note.  

That happens to non-dyslexics too, so I wouldn't get too worked up about that issue.

Regarding your overall practice and development, I wonder if you ever try playing a short passage by ear, paying more attention to the musical sounds you're making than whether you're precisely following the instruction. Taking a freer approach occasionally might give your brain a rest while your fingers still get helpful exercise and practice with touch.