Allegro One for Classical Guitar

Series Summary

The classical guitar is a primary member of the guitar family. Also known to some as the Spanish guitar, classical guitars enjoy a long-held reputation for being well-built, handcrafted pieces involving countless hours of work by master luthiers. The basic body style of the classical guitar is similar to that of a normal acoustic guitar, but does have two subtle differences. The classical guitar generally has a wider fret board and utilizes nylon strings rather than steel; this tends to produces a softer, warmer tone with a clearer, richer sound palette. A notable variation between the classical guitar and its relatives is in its playing style: notes are usually plucked with the fingers instead of strummed with a pick. Like many other classical compositions, songs for classical guitar are passed on from teacher to student through the channels of formal music education.

In this free music instruction video series, practice important classical guitar techniques. Our expert will teach you seven different songs, each of which will test your abilities on the classical guitar, exposing weaknesses and showcasing strengths. Use these videos to gauge how well you followed the beginner and intermediate lessons; and go back and repeat certain exercises as needed until you can play each song flawlessly.

Video Transcript

" Hi! My name is John Armstrong with expertvillage.com. I’m a professional guitar instructor, and today I’ll be discussing some advanced classical guitar pieces. We left off last talking about natural harmonic and melodic forms in minor scales. Today, let’s start off with some pieces of music that utilize these scales. The first I picked out is a piece entitled Alegro by Mauro Giuliani. Typical of most Giuliani pieces, it incorporates a lot of right hand or arpeggio technique. As I stated earlier, this song is in the key of A minor in 4/4 time. First, I’d like to discuss the first to measures; kind of introduce to basically the idea behind the piece. Starting with an A minor chord, doing a kind of an arpeggio based out that chord. The second measure contains a little pedal tone. We pedal tone back to that A note right there. Spiting the two measures together, we have this. See the right hand arpeggio here. Planting PIM and A fingers; applying downward pressure into the arpeggio as we’re doing it. "