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

I've invested in my own copy of Solo Guitar Playing 1 by Noad.  It's awesome for my brain.  I especially like that I don't need my gadget in the same room.

Started exercises 23 and 24 today.  The focus is on string 2 and the first three frets.  But it adds in stuff we learned from the previous lesson like open string 3 and the first string frets.

My brain hurts

But also, I'm looking forward to getting my eyes checked in a few weeks.  I cannot tell if it's worse with or without reading glasses.

Can't wait to practice again tonight,

Although second coffee is dedicated to the guitar, and I have have only missed one practice so far the day I ran out of coffee...i feel like my progress is slowing dramatically.

The noad book is great, but the notes are so much smaller and there are 5 parallel lines.  The tab in my ukulele Sor study book are lovely and only have 4 parallel lines.  

Most of my practice time this week ends up with a capo and using the guitar as a low g ukulele.  

The level of love for making pleasant sounds is still extremely high.  Just a feeling like the effort I put in to it before isn't yielding the same amount of progress.   Do I sacrifice time from something else and move it to guitar.  Or am i making invisible progress and just keep going as i am?

Don't know if I'm happy that there is a simple cure for my music reading problem or sad.  Eye guy says there has been a significant change in my reading glasses prescription.  Thankfully, my distance vision is still very good.

Guitar practice still every morning.   Very much feeling like I'm stalled learning.   But I have hope in a few weeks when my glasses are ready.

Solo Guitar Playing 1 by Noad, exercise 26 is so beautiful, but harder to play well than it looks.

Here's what it will sound like when I get the hang of it



And Here's what it would sound like if I had a teacher to play the other part.

I am deliberately taking my time on lesson 4 of Solo Guitar Playing 1 by Noad (looking up thread, I started this chapter on march 18th).  I know one is supposed to master the skills in about a week.  But I suspect if I skimp on these chapters, I'm going to have issues later on.

Also, the exercises are getting really pretty.  I want to keep on hearing them, so I play them until I they sound nice.  Then end up humming them during the day.

It's nifty how the flavour of the exercises changes with the speed and stroke types.  Today I took one of the exercises and tried to play it as chipper as possible and then the same song as slow and mournful as possible.   It's like a completely different tune.

Wow.
Glasses might be the solution.
The notes look very different now

Finally dipping my big toe into lesson 5 of Solo Guitar Playing 1 by Noad.  I am feeling somewhat comfortable with the exercises from lesson four, but still transpose a lot of the notes when confronted with the pressure of the metronome.  

Weird overthinking question for you.

Say I'm playing something with a metronome.   I'm going fairly slow (80 or 60) because I am having trouble with the passage.

When I get to 8th notes, that's two notes between each click, right?  One-and, or ap-ple, or whatever the magic word is.  Does the one-and have to fit between the note, or does the one of one-and fall on the metronome click, or the and?

How to explain?

Quarter note, eighth, eighth, quarter.
Theee clicks of the metronome.

Or to try another way, how to make 8th notes sound less squished?

Quarter note, eighth, eighth, quarter.
Three clicks of the metronome.

Yes—the “one” of “one-and” falls on the metronome click, and the “and” falls halfway between that and the next click. Does that make sense?

I’ve heard however that in some traditions, the “and” is actually later and more like two-thirds in, called “swing notes”. This is especially the case in jazz. Just to confuse things further.

Sitting sorting small seeds from chaff and listening to music on the computer to keep me company.

This came on and I thought of r ransom and all the effort you're making to learn classical guitar.

Can you get any more classical than Beethoven's 5th?



You don't have to be any where near this skill level to have fun and enjoy the sounds you are making!

Wow, that's incredible!  I need to practice more than 20 min a day to get that good,  but maybe one day...?

This is the first key signature I have seen in Noad's book.  But he hasn't told is what it means yet.

We play the top row.

Am I right that it means all F are sharp, but there are no F?

-

So... are there any on the top row which is the one we play for the exercise?

Bottom row is what a teacher would play if I had one.

None on the top row.

It tells you the key, even when there are no Fs.

This might not be relevant for modern classical music, but in other genres and periods, there might be improvised sections where a note is present, which would be made sharp.

So even in a song in C minor pentatonic, for instance, where there are no As, you would still have a key signature with three flats: Eb, Ab and Bb. These three are present in whatever line is in the key of C minor even when one of the notes is not present.

For another example, take A harmonic minor, where there is a G sharp, but it isn’t written in the signature, only as accidentals. I believe the intent is to make it so you know the key just by glancing at how many sharps or flats there are without worrying about where they are. I might do it differently if I were to invent music notation, but…

From a purely pragmatic point of view, having a key-signature on the staff tells me a lot about how to play the music. I often play guitar in what I think of as I, IV, V chords... Not so much as named chords, but as a relationship between them. I can play the same music at different pitches, just by choosing which "key" I play in. But the I, IV, V relationship stays stable and consistent regardless of the particular name the notation carries.

On the following chart. Take any note on the outer circle, call it I. The note immediately counter-clockwise is IV. The next note clockwise is V.

And what it looks like on a sheet of music.

Learning cords is about two months away, maybe three as I'm going slow to compensate for Learning disabilities.

Classical guitar lessons I'm following focus on individual notes in first position and fluent reading of music music first.  It looks like we will be focusing on note lenth again next, then moving up the fretboard.  I think cords come in with multiple voices.

It feels more like piano than 20th/21st century guitar playing. Like the music above.  Think 1880s.


I have a poor voice so strum and sing isn't very nice for the people and chickens around me.

Although I think circle thing is going to come in handy when I get further along.  

For now, I just want to know how to tell easily if I'm supposed to play sharps or not.  I still have three strings to learn first position on for reading music.  Too much theory to early is going to slow this down.  But it will be great later.

I see lots of more erudite suggestions than mine, but will put it out there anyway in case music theory is not your forte!

Consider starting a daily practice of 'taking it for a walk'. Tune up. Sit with good posture with the guitar resting on your leg positioned with the goal of not looking at the strings on the neck. With your right hand, pluck the lowest string 'open' (no fingers holding the string on the neck), then with your left hand on the neck use your index on the first fret, middle finger on the second fret, ring finger on the third fret, pinkie on the fourth fret - five notes in succession. Repeat going backward. Move up to the next string and pluck ten times: open, 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 4th, 3rd, 2nd, 1st, open. Progress up the strings and give your fingers some time to toughen up a little while learning to hear your guitar note by note with increasing dexterity. Think of this as being analogous to touch typing. Not looking at your hands is part of the skill.

When this feels easy, noodle around based on what you've learned to hear or find the note by note music to something lovely like the opening to the Beatles' 'Blackbird' (which is played closer on the neck to the body but uses this skill of making individual clear notes, holding firmly so they ring true). A tutorial will also include learning to slide across notes on the same string. Sometimes it's deliberate and gorgeous, but it's also one of the skills that help experienced players mask a fumble. Oops, wrong note, slide to right note.

This is an alternative start to learning a dozen easy chords and playing the zillion folks songs that use them (which is also perfectly reasonable, especially if what you like best is singing along). If you go that route be sure to include a little practice with finger picking with the right hand. Chord playing gets significantly more interesting when you can strike a corresponding string in the top three while playing third, second, first, second, third on the lowest strings. Most people need quite a bit of practice before doing this with automaticity and it's good for days when the fingers on your left are sore. Watch tutorials for songs like Kansas' Dust in the Wind, Tracy Chapman's 'Fast Car' or the Beatles 'Here Comes the Sun' if this is the sound you like.

Expect good progress if you can get in the habit of sitting down for X minutes daily (ideally stopping before you're in pain and while still having fun) alternating left hand training with right hand training (like a weightlifter having arm days and leg days, haha.) And be sure to have a few songs you love as targets.

Cheering you on from the cheap seats,
Eileen

When first learning guitar, I followed a similar path as suggested by Elleen. No lessons, no chords, no notes. Just making noise.

I really liked tuning the guitar to "Open G". Then I could press a finger, all the way across any particular fret, and play a chord where every note sounded perfect. Then, to play the music shown above, I played all strings open (I), or I pressed on the 4th fret or the 5th for the IV or V chords. Super simple way to get started immediately.

My [Universal Tuner] app has an "Open G" setting for tuning—D4, B3, G3, D3, G2, D2

Glasses and being able to see the individual lines of the staff for the win!

Starting to lift off the plateau and showing signs of improvement again.  

Whereas before, I was just guessing which note was where and making up pretty sounds.  Now I feel like I'm actually reading music.  The downside is, I need to go back and relearn some lessons.  

r ransom wrote: ... Now I feel like I'm actually reading music.  The downside is, I need to go back and relearn some lessons.  

Sometimes when I've been learning in a multi-step situation, I have found that going right back to the first lesson and going through every step helps me spot things which I didn't really fully understand the first time. Hopefully you can approach your situation from a similar point of view. This isn't a race and I'm not aware of you having any tight deadlines.

Enjoy the ride! I'm so glad you can see to read the music now!

That sounds like what I'm doing here.

Wth past learning situations, I take a long time to get the basics and often have to return to the start several times.  But if I can learn the foundations, I get it.  Rush through the beginning (like how they teach spelling in school - one week is not enough to understand vowels),  then it's a slog to try and learn what's missing.

Learning in my own way in my own time is lovely.   Although, later, I can see getting a lesson or two.  Mostly to see what I've missed and make a new study plan.  I'm probably ages away from that.

I just had one of those magical moments where I proved to myself I am learning and not just practicing endlessly to no avail.

I'm very fond of Schubert's hurdy gurdy man song, so I bougnt the score some time ago and promptly put it away because there are too many notes.



I am feeling confident, that if I wear my glasses, i can do the whole notes of the first four frets of he first four strings.  Which is most of the notes that fit on the treble cleft staff.  But maybe I just memorized the exercises.

Time to test myself

I played this passage on the first attempt.  I even found the sharp note (we haven't learned sharps yet in the book).  



Better still, my attempt sounded like the part of the soung I thought it would sound like.

Very very happy moment.

No guitar practice today...or for a few days.

A string broke overnight.

What do I need to know for new strings for a classical guitar?  I filed strings under "care about later" and my brain refuses access any of the information I thought i had on the topic.

It's really nifty.  It's string 4, D string.  It broke at the tuning peg, but only the center broke.  It's like a fine fibre string inside with the metal wire wrapped around.  The wire is much thinner than i expected and the core much thicker.  

Ah, i remember more.  These words go with this guitar.
Nylon strings
Classical guitar
Medium tension

I'm feeling chuffed with my knot tying skills at the bridge of the guitar.   They look just like the old knots, even if my tails aren't all the same length.  I'm sure that comes with practice.

I am slowly bringing the new strings up to tune.  Partly because I want my knots to get used to being under tension and partly because I have a strong fear of breaking the guitar.  I know from weaving that a lot of string at medium tension puts one heck of a lot of stress on a loom.  6 strings at this kind of tension...that's got to be even worse.  So much more tension.  Such a small neck.

I know, i know, guitars are built for this.  I also know, I got the correct string type as the guitar shop guy and owner of the guitar both said medium/normal tension nylon strings are correct.

So I'm tightening the strings until they are within the same octive of where they will end up.  Going roughly by ear.  Let them sit a few min while they stretch.  Tighten again... by tonight, I can tune them all the way, and trust they will be out of tune by morning because nylon strings are a pain like that.

I really appreciate the old strings and how it would be days between going out od tune.

Observation. The new strings are already incredibly loud compared to the old ones.  Nearly twice the volume, especially on the lower/wound strings.  Why?

The new strings are starting to settle in, but I still have to tune them every 15 min of practice.  That's better than the first day where the first string would go out of tune before the rest were ready.  I am told this is completely normal for nylon strings.

Although thw Aquila nylegut ukulele strings would be settled in all the way by now.  Is it the type of nylon, or that a guitar has longer strings?

What surprises me the most is that the entire flavour of the sound has changed with the new strings.  I wish I had the words.  The sound is still triangle like a guitar should be, but somehow the corners seem rounded.   Like different elements in the wood are vibrating now.   No, I don't have adequate words.  But I had expected new strings to be more pointy sounding, and it's kind of the opposite.

I notice new steel strings to be very sharp sounding and prefer the sound after a week or so of settling in—interesting how the nylon differs.

It's so neat.  I'm kind of obsessing over it and now need to know the science.  

I also see why there are so many kinds of strings in the world.  I thought guitar obsessed people were just being snobbish, but it seems to be a bit like different kinds of yarn... fibre and method of spinning matters.  Match the material to the sound, i guess.  

r ransom wrote:...  I thought guitar obsessed people were just being snobbish, but it seems to be a bit like different kinds of yarn... fibre and method of spinning matters.  Match the material to the sound, i guess.  

Just like people's vision and taste preferances can be quite different, I suspect hearing is equally different. So I totally am willing to accept that people have preferences related to the mellowness, brightness, twangyness etc that are available from different strings.

I do hope that by the time the new strings settle down, you can live with the sound they give and don't feel like you wasted your money and have to try again with a different brand or type.  Maybe make a list of the qualities you think would would love in the guitar, so you can ask more precise questions the next time.

I like the new sound.  I like the old sound too.

Maybe that's how we can tell the quality of a guitar?  It sounds good no matter what?