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The Best Right-Hand Exercise You are Not Doing

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The Best Right-Hand Exercise You are Not Doing by Leo Garcia

If you’ve worked through both Part 1 and Part 2 to improve your right-hand confidence, you can add this exercise to the bunch. I teach this one to students who are working on developing tremolo. But it’s very useful for mastering the subtlety of string crossing with other right-hand fingerings. Use this exercise to develop your basic right-hand fingerings: im, mi, am, ma, ia, and ai in both rest and free stroke, as well as pi, pm, and pa for free stroke. Then try the basic pattern for tremolo pami or even go nutty with ami and ima. : )

Don’t forget to start slowly, with a metronome, and enjoy discovering which right-hand fingerings are your strongest and which ones need work.

Creeping Tremolo Exercise

Technique Focus – Boost Left Hand Efficiency

Published on by Leo Garcia1 Comment

When working out the choreography to a new interpretation there are a few aspects of left hand technique that can dramatically improve efficiency. One of those aspects involves a similar idea often referred to as ‘planting’ for the right hand. For example, when playing a rapid and repeated pim arpeggio (like in Asturias), it is common practice to place all three fingers down in a group to stabilize the right hand and to create one efficient gesture instead of three separate actions. The basic rule is that as we move away from p and towards a across string we plant fingers down so the right hand fingers are prepared. Essentially, we stabilize the right hand as we move away from the grounding of p and i.

Applying this concept to the left hand is equally important but the ‘planting’ occurs as we move from finger 4 (pinky) towards finger 1. Theoretically, if only finger 4 is down on the fingerboard, the left hand is not as stable as it would be if another supporting finger were to place somewhere nearby. For example, if we had to play a descending group of chromatic notes 4321 on a string, placing all four fingers before playing reduces the motion to a relaxed gesture of releasing fingers away. If we were to place 4321 down in a sequential fashion, it is not necessarily ‘wrong’, but it would augment the motion of the left hand into many placements and releases, rendering it less efficient. A bit of a mess.

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Six String Journal’s Complete Technique Course

Rebeca Oliveira playing more Seixas

Published on by Leo GarciaLeave a comment

Here is a new video of Rebeca Oliveira playing Carlos Seixas’s Sonata Nº14. Rebeca plays it beautifully and clearly. The sound she extracts from her guitar is wonderfully warm and dark. Enjoy!

If you haven’t read Rebeca’s Six String Journal interview, check it out here.

Heitor Villa-Lobos Etude Nº1 – Right Hand Fingerings

Published on by Leo GarciaLeave a comment

After repeated requests for more videos, I’m eager to share this post and upcoming video series on Heitor Villa-Lobos’ Etude Nº1. In this first part I’ll explore the advantages and disadvantages of the standard fingering that Andrés Segovia wrote in the published edition. I’ll then offer some options for practicing the Etude. In Part 2, I’ll go through some options to overcome the disadvantages and finally arrive at my preferred fingering.

For a reduction of this, check out my first post on Villa-Lobos’ Etude Nº1.

 

Yuri Liberzon playing Piazzolla’s Oblivion

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Here is a new and beautifully shot video of guitar wonder Yuri Liberzon playing a great arrangement of Astor Piazzolla’s Oblivion. Yuri’s interpretations are so crisp, clear, and elegant. It is treat to hear more Piazzolla from his guitar.

Yuri recently released a CD of Piazzolla’s music. Check it out here.
And, if you’ve followed Six String Journal, there is a great interview in this and some subsequent posts where Yuri shares some great advice on playing.

 

Technical Workout for Classical Guitar, Level 1 – Base Building, Part 2 (video)

Published on by Leo GarciaLeave a comment

Here is the second of Six String Journal’s series of technique videos to accompany my recent workbook, A Technical Workout for Classical Guitar, Level 1 – Base Building. This video corresponds to Left Hand Movements, Part 2.

This workbook is designed to help late beginners and intermediate guitarists develop a daily routine of movements to strengthen their technical base so that fingers can do their job properly when assimilating new repertoire. Always go slowly with the most control possible. Think of it as writing a program for your brain with no bugs.

Building Scale Speed

Published on by Leo GarciaLeave a comment

I was warming up this morning and thought I’d post one of my favorite ways to work on scales to both warm up and build speed. I like this sequence because you can set the metronome conservatively and build up as you play. It’s much like the the sequence in this post but applied to scales. I’ll go through this with im (mi) and am (ma) both rest and free stroke but sometimes find myself working on other patterns like pi, ami, ai, and whatever else I feel is going to help my fingers get into the zone. Depending on what’s on my agenda, I may do this for 20-30 minutes or a lot longer pushing myself to build comfort at higher tempos. I like knowing I have a bit more than necessary.

The Technical Workout for Classical Guitar, Level 2 – Speed and Flexibility workbook has a section very similar to this.

Here is the sequence:

Step 1

scale-warmup-1

Step 2

scale-warmup-2

Step 3

Scale Warmup 3.jpg

Step 4

Scale Warmup 4.jpg

Step 5

Scale Warmup 5.jpg

Step 6

Scale Warmup 6.jpg

Step 7

Scale Warmup 7.jpg

Step 8

Scale Warmup 8.jpg

Step 9

Scale Warmup 9.jpg

Step 10

Scale Warmup 10.jpg

Step 11

Scale Warmup 11.jpg

Good luck!