Guitar

Title

bringing music home

Lesson Material

Lesson Material

Learning how to play the guitar starts with a practice plan. A regular practice schedule will help you develop muscle memory, finger strength and coordination.  Choose at least three days a week to commit to your guitar playing  by creating a regular practice routine.  

 

          Lesson One - Posture, Free Stroke, Memory

Leyenda is the perfect song to introduce players to finger style technique.  In order to appreciate the 'Free Stroke' movement of the right hand fingers it is important to understand how posture, sitting with the guitar, influences our successful progress.   The traditional classical posture of resting the guitar on the left leg while resting the foot on an adjustable foot rest, is easy to learn and will allow the body to remain pain free while the fingers and hands are involved in a, mostly unconscious, repetitive movement.

Leyenda - Asturias 
-Isaac Albeniz

The first piece students will learn at Leyenda Guitar is of course Leyenda.  This is a famous classical spanish guitar piece that will teach students valuable left hand and right hand technique.  Posture for the beginning player is important and this piece will allow students to become familiar sitting with the guitar.  As we will see, left and right hand position will depend on how the guitar is held.  Important techniques will give students a overview of finger style with the introduction of free-stroke as well as positional fingering strategy for the fretting hand. Leyenda is the perfect piece to introduce you to the beautiful sounds the guitar can make.  It is easy to learn as the main theme repeats many times throughout.  download pdf here

A note on Posture!

Try to maintain a comfortable and efficient right hand position by dropping the shoulder and balancing your right arm over the lower bout of the guitar.  Avoid placing the arm on the face of the guitar, which is the preferred posture for  right hand techniques such as palm-muting. As you practice Leyenda and feel more confident about remembering it by heart you will enjoy playing it more. It is a piece that will grow with your own development as a guitarist and musician.Through repetition over time it is possible to build a sense and awareness of your natural posture and the ability to make adjustments to support proper technique.
To help establish a sense of musical involvement, creative expression while playing exercises and pieces, count aloud, tap your foot, use a metronome and most importantly sing.
It should flow and feel good. This includes how your body feels so notice your posture. Make it a habit.
Making music is natural!  download pdf here
 

Lesson Two - Rest Stroke, Chords, Rasquedo,Tuning

Developing a daily practice routine will be easy with inspiring music to play.  This is why I recommend students new to the guitar to start right in with the beautiful Spanish guitar repertiore.  These songs are filled with valuable technique to be discovered and practiced regularly.  

Malaguena - traditional

"Malaguena is a fun and memorable piece  in the Spanish guitar repertoire.  It offers many beautiful and exciting sounds for the guitarist to practice. Two important right hand techniques give beginners and introduction to the joy of music making on the guitar." 

Tuning

Learning how to tune the guitar is no easy task for the beginner, but the automatic guitar tuner will provide some assistance. As the ear develops the ability to recognize whether a string is in tune, various tuning techniques can be adopted.  The most common tuning practice without a tuner is to use the guitar to tune itself.
 

The following music notes and tabbed lessons are in printable and downloadable pdf format and are intended for Leyenda Guitar students private use only.