The Classical Guitar Blog

There are general guidelines to moving your hands correctly when playing the guitar. It’s always a challenge for a teacher to relate these unfamiliar movements to students. But there’s an easy way to do it: relate the movements to something we do every day.

I’m going to explain a few things I use to relate movements to students later, but first, let’s talk about why we should teach (and learn) this way.

It’s All About a Relationships

Choice Research has a lot of applicability to practicing. What you’ve read here before was about analogues: relating relatively similar things to each other.

We can think smaller than than practice events for our analogues.

When we relate movements used in guitar to movements we use every day they’re much easier to understand and master. It makes sense to take this “shortcut”, spend more time practicing, and less time worrying about whether or not we’re moving correctly.

So, with that in mind, here are some analogous movements I relate to my students.

Open the Door

Sometimes we need to use different left hand positions to accommodate passages. We change left hand positions primarily with a little wrist rotation.

If you haven’t ever tried to get a young student to rotate their wrist by saying, “rotate your wrist,” you should try it out. It’s very amusing. Most students will swing their elbow around like crazy.

Instead, relate it opening a door handle (or, for others, using a screwdriver). It accomplishes the wrist rotation without the arm movement.

Pick Something Up

Common wisdom on right hand technique is to, “move all the knuckles on the right hand in the same direction.” There’s the even better, more verbose methods of explaining it as well that involve tons of anatomy terms.

How about this: imagine you’re picking something up or wrapping your fingers around something or closing your hand into a fist. In all of these instances the knuckles of the hand move in the same direction and we avoid the dense wordage.

As an aside, I use the “one hand clap” to demonstrate the fingers moving into the palm.

Any other movements relationships you use? Post them in the comments!

“If imagination resides in the mind, empathy is the imagination of the heart.”
-Zachary Shore, in Blunder

Today we feature Marco Tamayo playing Fernando Sor’s Grand Solo, Op. 14. I think he does a great job with the piece, but there are times when I want a bit more shape to the phrases. Still though, I think he’s on the right track. Many recordings of this piece lack the refinement Tamayo displays.

This video isn’t from Tamayo’s own Youtube, but if you want to check out more of his videos click here.

A while back I did a review of the Guitar Victoria method by Bradford Werner. General gist: I liked the book a lot, it’s a solid, modern guitar method.

Well, Bradford has just prepped and released the second volume if you’re looking for a more advanced book.

Click Here to get Guitar Victoria Vol. 2

We’re going to step outside the normal CG realm today to talk a bit about modes and improvisation. When I first started guitar (electric), people threw around mode names and I had no clue about them. Then I looked them up and got more confused.

“There are hundreds of scales out there and I have to memorize them all?” is what I thought to myself

Turns out you don’t have memorize them all. My first real jazz guitar teacher taught me that. So here’s what I learned.

Start with Major Scales

Step one is to learn the four main boxes of Major Scales (PDF)

In addition to practicing the scales as the linked PDF indicates, you can also do scales in thirds, triads, and seventh chords. The first scale pattern is shown below in thirds (click for a larger image).

The Modes and their Tonalities

Certain modes work with certain types of chords. Here’s a general list of the standard seven modes of the major scale. The method outlined in this article can also be use with modes of the melodic and harmonic minor or any other collection of modes. If you’re unfamiliar with modes, check out this article.

1. Ionian: use over major triads and seventh chords
2. Dorian: use over minor triads and seventh chords
3. Phrygian: use over minor triads and seventh chords
4. Lydian: use over major triads and seventh chords
5. Mixolydian: use over dominant seventh chords
6. Aeolian: use over minor triads and seventh chords
7. Locrian: use over diminished triads and half diminished seventh chords

Covering the Changes

So say we have a major chord. C major 7, for instance.

A few modes work over major7 chords: Ionian (the standard major scale) and lydian.

If we want to play ionian mode over this Cmaj7 chord, we just play a C major scale. End of story.

If we want to play the lydian mode, we don’t need to learn a new scale pattern. We relate it to another major scale. In other words, we treat C as the fourth scale degree of another key. In this case, we can play a G major scale over the Cmaj7 chord to get that lydian sound (from the F# in G major) while still keeping all the chord tones from the C major (C E G B).

Instead of learning a new scale, we related the root of the chord to a new major scale. We treated C as the fourth scale degree of another key rather than the root of its own.

Take a Look at a Minor Chord

Say we have a C minor 7 chord. We could play an aeolian mode (natural minor) over it by treating C as the sixth scale degree of another key. Meaning we play a Eb major scale to get an aeolian sound over the C minor chord:

Eb F G Ab Bb C D Eb

We could also treat C as the second scale degree of Bb major. If we play a Bb major, we’ll get a dorian mode sounding over the C minor chord.

Bb C D Eb F G A

Or you could even do Ab major scale to capture a phrygian sound.

Ab Bb C Db Eb F G

In all these case all we’re doing is relating the root of the chord to another major scale. We’re using the major scale, which we know really well, to solo in various modes. The thing to notice in each of these scales is that the chord tones for Cmin7 (C Eb G Bb) are still there.

How to Practice

Obviously if you’re just starting this stuff it’s not goign to be easy. Grab a Real Book and pick a standard like Autumn Leaves. Write in the major scale you plan to use over each chord. And don’t feel like you have to change scales on each chord! Find or record a backing track and play the scales in eighth notes over the changes.

After you feel more secure with just the scales in eighth notes, you can try improvising over the backing track. If you’ve practicing the scales in thirds, triads, and seventh chords as I mentioned above, you should find that some of those finger patterns come out in your improvising. This makes less of a “up and down the scale” improviser.

Why Use this Method for Modal Soloing?

• Because it requires less memorizing, giving you more time to really work on improvising
• Because it makes you less root oriented when soloing
• Because it’s easy to understand and easy to put into place

One of the very first posts on the CG Blog was about The Six Day Week: taking one day off from practicing each week for rest and recuperation.

What we do when practicing and performing is intense. It’s easy to get burnt out. So here’s three things you can do on your days off to keep them musical.

1. Listen

Part of being a good musician is listening. We have to be aware of all genres and periods of art music, so it makes sense that we should listen to as much as we can.

But let me make a more specific suggestion: don’t listen to guitar music.

Check out some opera or art song. Listen to a symphony or a string quartet. Maybe even tune into a sonata for trumpet and piano. Step outside the box. Listen critically and read the liner notes.

Want more music for listening, but don’t have the budget? Check out the local library.

2. Read

Read about a music subject that interests you. If you’re into music theory, read about it! Or cruise Wikipedia for some articles about guitar composers. I personally read a lot about business and, right now, choice. I find it relates very well to music. More importantly, it makes me think. And the thinking often leads to posts on here.

If you want an overview of music history, check out a book about Great Composers.

3. Play

Just because you’re taking a day off from practicing doesn’t mean you can’t play guitar.

You can just play on your day off. Read through new works, or play old favorites. Improvise or compose something of your own. Play for the pure enjoyment of playing guitar; forget all those little trouble spots and let loose.

Just don’t fall into practicing on accident!