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Warm Up With Me!

Published on by Leo GarciaLeave a comment

I’m in the process of creating a new series of guided warm ups for my students. Here is part 1 for Six String Journal readers. In these guided warm ups, I’ll go through some of the most important drills to help you establish a good routine for warming up before practicing your repertoire.

So go grab your guitar and get comfortable. In this first video I’ve set the metronome for quarter = 60. We’ll string cross with single and pairs of fingers and go through a great slur routine with all the pairs of left hand fingers. For the right hand, I simply use p for strings 6, 5, and 4, and then use i, m, and a for strings 3, 2, and 1. Follow along, stay aware of good form, stay relaxed, and stick with it until you can start to increase tempo with a good foundation.

Six Tips to Master Tremolo

Published on by Leo GarciaLeave a comment

Over the years, I’ve posted several times about tremolo technique and even wrote the book Mastering Tremolo. Check it out if you haven’t yet! Nevertheless, there are times when I decide to spend a lot of time working on certain techniques to brush up, improve, try new approaches, revisit, and revise. I did this with tremolo this week and though I may have mentioned them in my book, some stood out to me. Here are a few entries I wrote in my practice notes:

  1. The movement from p to a is key – This is a feel thing. Think of snapping with p and a. As p articulates the bass note, a lands with some energy. It is almost like they are landing at the same time but not quite, allowing the melodic note on the higher string to vibrate justy a bit more.
  2. Nails – Each nail has to offer identical resistance to the string so that the quality of evenness is built in. If you are negotiating different stroke strength from finger to finger, it is too much effort.
  3. Proximity – Watch fingers closely and observe their distance from the string before the contact point and subsequent stroke. If there is too much discrepancy between the lineup, it can lead to galloping.
  4. Evenness – When practicing slowly, evenness is very important for both the attack and the silence or momentarily planting between notes.
  5. Left Hand Softness – Make sure the choreography of the left hand is worked out well. Abrupt motions in the left hand to make shifts can manifest in the right hand as accents. Keep the left hand as relaxed as possible.
  6. Right Hand Fingers – Sometimes increasing the perception of space between the right hand fingers seems to help me even out the notes. Try it.

Two Pieces by Agustín Barrios Mangoré

Published on by Leo Garcia2 Comments

I recently recorded several of my favorite pieces by Paraguayan composer, Agustín Barrios Mangoré. Here are two of them, well-loved and well-known to most of you. Julia Florida was the first Barrios piece I learned decades ago and I still love playing it. And, of all of Barrios’s waltzes, his Vals Op.8, Nº3 is probably my favorite. Thank you to Stefan Nitschke for such a beautiful sounding guitar.

Thanks for listening!

Capriccio Diabolico

Published on by Leo GarciaLeave a comment

Here are several wonderful renditions of one of Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco’s greatest guitar works, Capriccio Diabolico (Omaggio a Paganini), Op.85. Written over the course of five days in 1935, Capriccio Diabolico was commissioned by Andrés Segovia and, after much back and forth with Castelnuovo-Tedesco, was finally published following Segovia’s version in 1939. However, there are letters indicating that Castelnuovo-Tedesco was unhappy with the changes and had hoped for other guitarists to see the score before publication. There are now published versions of both. Segovia’s seems to be the most widely played simply because it has been around for longer and is what most guitarists have grown up listening to but there are guitarists choosing to follow the original manuscript published by Ricordi and edited by Angelo Gilardino and Luigi Biscaldi. Below are some of the finest concert guitarists playing both versions.

Six String Journal’s Complete Technique Course on Sale

Published on by Leo GarciaLeave a comment

Have some time to work on your technique over the holidays? Through December, my course Complete Technique for Classical Guitar will be on sale through Six String Journal’s Podia page. Use this COUPONCODE for a 20% discount.

Six String Journal’s Complete Technique for Classical Guitar Course was developed for the advancing beginner with some experience, the advancing intermediate guitarist, and will even benefit those with lots of playing experience. Though music theory isn’t necessary, a rudimentary understanding of rhythm is helpful.

The course consists of primary movement videos where I will teach the foundational movements that you’ll need in order to master classical guitar. These videos cover topics such as free-stroke, rest-stroke, arpeggios, alternation, scales, hand coordination, slurs, and shifts. These are followed by several series of secondary videos where I’ll apply the techniques and movements in various ways to help you engrain them into your own practice. Stringing the secondary videos into a sequence will teach you how to form an effective practice routine that will maximize your results and get you closer to your musical goals.

Course Includes

  • Hours of focused technique lessons with an award-winning classical guitarist, the founder of Six String Journal, and sought-after educator. 
  • Over 50 extensively detailed but digestible videos demonstrating essential foundational movements, technique tips, exercises, routines, and how to implement them into your practice, carefully edited in small bite size videos for easy assimilation and viewing.
  • Printable PDF summarizing the entire course with a condensed visual of the material presented. 
  • Loads of bonus content from Six String Journal’s Mastering Diatonic Scales.

The King of Guitar, Marco Tamayo

Published on by Leo Garcia2 Comments

Cuban-born virtuoso Marco Tamayo gave a spectacular concert in Palo Alto last Saturday as part of the Peninsula Guitar Series to begin his short US tour. He dazzled the audience with works by Couperin, Bach, Sor, Grieg, Tchaikovsky, and Barrios. His playing was about as virtuosic as I can imagine but with a refinement of age and seemingly unlimited amount of nuance and stylistic brilliance. Here are some recent videos that I’ve come across recently that say it all but if you have a chance to go to a live concert, I guarantee it is a whole different experience.

From a short concert in Brussells playing Narváez, Giuliani, Moreno-Torroba,

You can learn from Marco on Tonebase. Use the coupon code SSJ-30 to receive 30% any memebership!

The Keys to Right Hand Control

Published on by Leo GarciaLeave a comment

In the videos below, I go through a progression of movements in the right hand that lead to better control of both rest stroke and free stroke. Grab your guitar and follow along. Hope this helps!

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Mini Spanish Guitar Concert, Part 2

Published on by Leo GarciaLeave a comment

I’ve been dying to capture the voice of the wonderful guitar Stefan Nitschke built for me this year. It is his interpretation of the guitar built by Hermann Hauser that Segovia played for many decades and now resides in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Though I’ve only had it for a little over a month it is coming into its own quickly with a little encouragement of Segovia’s repertoire. : )

In this second half, I’m playing two of the most celebrated Spanish guitar pieces in the repertoire despite the fact that they are originally piano works.

Mini Spanish Guitar Concert, Part 1

Published on by Leo GarciaLeave a comment

I’ve been dying to capture the voice of the wonderful guitar Stefan Nitschke built for me this year. It is his interpretation of the guitar built by Hermann Hauser that Segovia played for many decades and now resides in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Though I’ve only had it for a little over a month it is coming into its own quickly with a little encouragement of Segovia’s repertoire. : )

Four Essential Ways to Work on Tremolo

Published on by Leo GarciaLeave a comment

In the video below, I demonstrate four great ways to help your tremolo improve. Two of them I’ve outlined in my book Mastering Tremolo, which if you haven’t picked up, you should : ). But the last two I came across in Abel Carlevaro’s hand-written notes to himself in one of his editions of Agustín Barrios Mangoré’s Una limosna por el amor de Diós. Below you’ll find links to Mastering Tremolo and a NEW study score of Barrios’s Una limosna. Hope it helps.

Mastering Tremolo on Amazon

Mastering Tremolo on Podia

Una limosna por el amor de Diós (Agustín Barrios Mangoré) study score