Leonardo Garcia plays Mallorca by Isaac Albéniz

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Here is a video I just recorded of Mallorca, one of my favorite pieces by Albéniz. I think it is one of the guitar repertoire’s most beautiful and evocative pieces, despite the fact that it was written for piano. It’s a relatively new piece for me, though I’ve grown up listening to it. When I first learned it, I worked from the editions of many guitarists (Andrés Segovia, Julian Bream, Rafael Andia, David Russell, Abel Carlevaro, and many others) and consulted the piano score. And, once there were too many scribbles on all those editions, I decided to create my own edition to suit my hands and taste. As always, it is a work in progress that I enjoy playing quite a bit.

Thanks for listening!

My edition: https://payhip.com/b/WjY3R

K A Z U H I T O Y A M A S H I T A

Published on by Leo Garcia2 Comments

https://sixstringjournal.com

Since I first heard Kazuhito Yamashita through a cassette recording of his monumental transcription of Modest Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition, I have been in awe of him. The intensity and virtuosity, completely unrivaled to this day, of his playing were enough to make anyone’s jaw drop (or fingers fall off). I then searched for and came across more of his recordings, like his complete Bach cycle of the lute suites, violin partitas and sonatas, and the cello suites; Castelnuovo-Tedesco’s Caprichos de Goya and concertos and quintet; and other mind-boggling transcriptions like Stravinsky’s Firebird Suite and Dvorak’s New World Symphony. Many years later, I was fortunate to hear him play live in San Francisco through the Omni Foundation’s amazing Dynamite Guitar Series.

Tonebase, the wonderful resource for classical guitarists, recently did a video on Kazuhito Yamashita, which I feel compelled to share with Six String Journal readers. And, I discovered through the video, that he released a re-mastered full-length recording of his legendary performance of Pictures at an Exhibition. If you have not heard of Kazuhito Yamashita, brace yourself.

And if you missed the interview of his talented daughter, Kanahi Yamashita, I did for Six String Journal readers, check it out!

Save 30% on a Tonebase subscription by using the Six String Journal coupon code and supporting our site at the same time! Coupon code: SSJ-30 

The Best Guided Warm-Up for Your Left Hand, Part 4

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Here is Part 4 of a new series of guided warm-ups for my students and 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 second video, I’ve set the metronome for quarter = 60. We’ll go through the third part of my go-to slur routine, which involves three and four-note slurs (124, 134, 123, 234, 1234). 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.

If you’re a beginner, take it slowly and don’t wear your hand out. Pause occasionally for rest and let your hand catch up. It might help to just watch the first few minutes to get a sense of how it unfolds for the fingers.

The Best Guided Warm-Up for Your Left Hand, Part 3

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I’m in the process of creating a new series of guided warm-ups for my students. Here is Part 3 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 second video, I’ve set the metronome for quarter = 60. We’ll go through the second part of my go-to slur routine, which involves compound slurs (121, 232, 343, 131, 242, 141). 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.

If you’re a beginner, take it slowly and don’t wear your hand out. Pause occasionally for rest and let your hand catch up. It might help to just watch the first few minutes to get a sense of how it unfolds for the fingers.

The Best Guided Warm-Up for Your Left Hand, Part 2

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 2 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 second video, I’ve set the metronome for quarter = 60. We’ll go through the first part of my go-to slur routine. 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.

If you’re a beginner, take it slowly and don’t wear your hand out. Pause occasionally for rest and let your hand catch up. It might help to just watch the first few minutes to get a sense of how it unfolds for the fingers.

New Publication: The Best of Six String Journal, Vol.1

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Sometimes I just love having a printed copy or a pdf to read from on my iPad of a bunch of technique drills to work on instead of trying to remember everything. To that end, I just created a new publication with the most popular articles on technique in the first volume of The Best of Six String Journal. And to thank SSJ readers, here is a 50% off coupon for the first 25 copies sold: THE BEST OF SIX STRING JOURNAL.

Contents of Vol.1

Miracle Right Hand Warm-Up Sequence
Developing Coordination and stroke control
Want speedy scales?
Coordination and right-hand arpeggios
advanced left-hand training, part 1
left hand warm-ups: slurs, fixed fingers, open strings, and tunnels
pavel’s left-hand technique fun
a way of thinking of tremolo

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

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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

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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.