Flamenco (Guitar)

It has been a standing joke in the guitar world over the last couple of years that there are more flamenco players in London alone than in the whole of Andalusia. An exaggeration, of course, but the fact remains that we have been fortunate enough to have the opportunity of hearing in person a number of great flamenco guitarists, including Carlos Montoya, Sabicas and the younger but no less distinguished Paco Pena. In the hands of these virtuosi flamenco has become almost equal in popularity with the classical method of playing, and promoted by this tremendous upsurge of interest it has become obvious to me that the brief remarks on the subject of flamenco in the Spanish guitar chapter of the original edition of this sites are no longer adequate.

It is the fashion among some classical Spanish guitarists to scoff at the flamenco style, drawing attention to the tonal and technical shortcomings of many of its exponents. Judged by classical standards there may be some justification for this view, but such critics would do well to remember that their own orthodoxy is of a comparatively recent origin, based as it is to a large extent on the work of Segovia over the last 70 years. Formal musicologist raised their hands in horror when the maestro himself first transcribed from the work of Bach and Weiss in order to build the classical repertoire.

However, there is little point in arguing the relative merits of the flamenco and classical styles. The true Flamenco guitar is lighter in build and action than the classical guitar model, two characteristics which facilitates the production of a higher degree of volume at the expense of tone, but essentially the instrument is the same. It seems to me that the basic difference between the two style lies in the fact that whereas a great deal of the classical repertoire consists of adaptations of works originally composed for other instruments, flamenco is a genuinely primitive art from which has itself, and has thus inherited both its limitations and virtues....

Minor Chords And Indroductions..

The chords we have discussed so far have all been in major keys, and based on what are known as major triads. Each major key also has a relative minor key, which has a characteristic sound of its own. To show you this difference in sound, finger and play the following chords. First A chord you have learned already:
A MAJOR CHORD

And now the chord of A minor, which looks like this:
A MINOR CHORD

The only difference between these two chords is, as you will see, the fact that the 2nd string is fingered one fret lower in the minor chord. This makes the note on the 2nd string C natural, instead of C sharp. Although everything else about the chord remains unchanged, this minor third interval between the A on the 3rd string and C on the 2nd gives the chord its characteristic minor sound.
A minor is the relative minor key to C major. As with the major key, the minor key has three principal chords. Those in A minor are A minor, E7 and D minor. The dominant seventh in the key of A major.
D minor looks like this:
D MINOR
Here again you will see that the only difference between D minor and the D major chord, which you have learned already, lies in one note. In this instance the 1st string is fingered one fret lower, putting an F natural at the top of the chord, instead of an F sharp.
In chord symbol writing A minor is usually written Am- or sometimes Amin, and D minor written Dm or sometimes Dmin, and so on through the minor chords.
Although only one note is changed in both of the minor chords we have discussed so far, you will notice that this necessitates a considerable modification of the fingering in each case. Thus we can improvise a useful exercise for your left hand by alternating major and minor chords, as follows:

||4x4 A///|Am///|D///|Dm///||

Play this exercise very slowly at first, gaining speed as your left-hand fingers become more accustomed to the necessary movements.
Now you should be ready to play this simple exercise on the chord of A minor:

||4x1 Am///|Dm///|E7///|Am///||

Guitar Chords In A

A' is a favourite key of many of the classical composers for the guitar. One good reason for this is the fact that the 5th and 6th strings are tuned to the natural bass notes of the key - A and E, thus allowing these strings to be played open as accompaniment to more complicated fingering with the left hand. From our point of view offers a good opportunity to begin to explore the string bass style of playing.
The string bass style means merely that, having formed a chord with your left hand, instead of strumming it straight across, or playing it arpeggio fashion, you hit one of the lower strings on its own for the first beat of the bar, then play the remainder of the chord on the second. You can then play another bass string, followed by the chord, for the third and fourth beats.
You may wonder why I didn't go staek, raving bonkers with the monotony of this um-ching um - ching, but it is possible to make this style very interesting both from the playing and listening points of view. If you can get hold some of the Eddie Land/Joe Venuti recordings you'll hear Lang using this type of Accompaniment to good effect. Another example that falls immediately to mind is Django Reinhardt's duet version of ALABAMY BOUND, made with Stephen Grappelly in 1937- I guarantee that the first time there's only one guitar playing the accompaniment.
Just how interesting you can make the string bass style depends on your ability and imagination. By making care in the choice of your bass notes you can produce a pleasant counter-melody should fill in the gaps, rather than competing or dominating. You'll get to play the melody yourself later on, but at the moment we're concentrating on the job of making a reasonable accompaniment of you, and this is an art in itself. Your chance to become a soloist will come in Section Four.

Now, the principle chords, in the key of A. These are A, E7 and D. As usual, we'll take tonic chord first:

By now your fingers should be becoming hard enough and flexible enough to find the correct position without much difficulty. Try this chord arpeggio fashion,, making sure that the fingered 4th, 3rd and 2nd strings ring as well as the open ones. Now try playing the chord in the string bass style, hitting the open 5th string alone first, followed by the chord.

Chords In D

When Eddie Lang, the first great jazz guitarist, played with the Paul Whiteman Orchestra back in the early 1930s the story that he carried his band parts written on a piece of card about the size of an average business card became something of a legend. If the story is true, it must be am example of the kind of thing that is possible through the use of the chord symbol system, which you are in the process of learning.

My own adaptation of Eddie Lang's business card one which I have found useful over many years involves the use of an ordinary pocket-sized, indexed address book. You can buy one of these from a stationers quite cheaply and start to build your own library of accompaniment today. Write out the chord symbols - and the words of the song too, if you like as I how quickly you can build up a range of songs to suit all occasions. Why not start with the accompaniments you'll find in this Blog?

Our next three chords are in the key of D. They are D, the tonic A7,the dominant, and the G the sub-dominant. Your 'bonus' chord here is G, which is carried over from the previous chapter, so once again you really only have two chords to learn.

The five string chord of D in the first position looks like this:

Chord Window D

You will notice here that the 4th and 5th strings are played open, giving you a ringing, sonorous bass sound. Try the chord, making sure you use the left-hand fingering indicated. Play arpeggio first, to make sure of those first three strings.
The Dominant Seventh in the key is A7, an extremely useful chord shape. This employs for the first time in your experience the Small Barre - that is, the use of the first finger to hold down the 2nd, 3rd and 4th strings simultaneously. At the same time, the third finger is 5th and 6th strings can be sounded open in this chord, giving a good ringing bass once again.

Chord Window A7

The G chord you already know, so let's try a small exercise, using the three chords in D.
||4x1 D ///|G///|A7///|D///:||
Repeat this until you have the feel of changing between these chords... until your fingers are so educated that you don't have to watch they're doing. Foster's OLD FOLKS AT HOME. To find the first three notes of the melody, finger the D chord and hit your first string, then raise your second finger and allow the open 1st string, to sound then the 2nd string, with your third finger on the third fret, as in the D chord. This gives you: Way down u- the notes F sharp, E and D. The song is played in a slow four to the bar. Whatever you do don't play the accompaniment jerkily. This is good time to try a sustained, arpeggio type of accompaniment, letting the strings ring behind the melody.

(Guitar) Chord Window F

Yes, it is a bit of a stinker, isn't it? But don't panic. You'll notice that in this chord the first finger stops both the 1st and 2nd strings, which means that you can't use the tip of the finger as before. Instead, the first finger is flattened down to bring its first joint in line with the fingerboard. Try that first, picking the 1st and 2nd strings only. If the strings don't ring, adjust the position to your finger until they do. Take your time. Then when you're certain you've mastered this part of the chord, place your second finger on the 3rd string at the second fret, still keeping your first finger in position. Now pick the 3rd, 2nd and 1st strings in that order.

When those three are sounding clearly, you can then add the fourth note, which is made by placing your fourth finger on the third fret of the 4th string. Now play all four strings - arpeggio fashion at first to make sure they're all ringing as they should - then five strings, by including your un-fingered 5th - then strum.

When you've mastered the F chord on it's own, try changing between it and the other chords in the key, something like this:
||:F///|G7///|F///|C///:||

I can't emphasise too much how important it is to learn to change quickly from one chord to another. Each chord is a building block, and its shape has to be learned individually, but to play a chord sequence like that given above, without stumbling or hesitating between the bar lines, it is necessary to go on practising until the left-hand fingers move automatically to the correct position on seeing a given symbol.

Strumming And Arpeggios

When the plectrum is drawn quickly across the strings all the notes of a chord sound more or less simultaneously. This is strumming, in which you will not normally be able to distinguish one note from another, but are aware of the chord as a blended whole. If on the other hand, you draw the plectrum across the strings more slowly, so that there is a definite time lag between one note and the next, you will produce what is known as an arpeggio.

The strumming, rhythmic style is the one we shall use for our accompaniments at first. It is therefore important that you should learn to strum with a regular beat, in order to make your accompaniment as rhythmic as possible. Try fingering the G chord with your left hand and strumming, counting an even 1-2-3-4 as you do so.
After the chord symbols- such as the C, D7, G we have learned so far - diagonal lines this / are used to indicate how many times the chord should be repeated. Thus the 1-2-3-4 beats on the chord of G which you have just played are written in symbol notation | G/// | The vertical lines are Bar lines. In the example here you be playing a four to the bar rhythm. You will also find that a lot of pieces are written in three to the bar rhythm, or waltz time. Three to the bar looks like this | G// | and is counted 1-2-3, 1-2-3 and so on.

Now that you are reasonably familiar with the fingering of the three principal chords in G, try the following exercise over a few times to get used to changing from one chord to another.

Play four beats to the bar, strumming:
||: G / / / | C / / / | D7 / / / | G / / / :||

The double lines and dots at the beginning and end of this exercise ||::|| indicate that the section enclosed by them should be repeated. Remember this, as you will encounter them often in the future. In this instance you should repeat the exercise until you are sure that you can hit the chords correctly each time and maintain a constant rhythm. In all exercise it is better to start off quite slowly, at a tempo you can manage easily without fumbling the changes. If the first part of an exercise seems easy, many students have a tendency to begin as fast as they can - only to come a cropper when something more difficult turns up later on. This is bad because it produces chopping and changing of the original tempo which robs the exercise of any musical value whatsoever. Go slowly at first, concentrating on producing a good tone and a full song. Speed doesn't matter at this stage. That will come naturally with practice. Maintaining a steady tempo is much more important.

Now let's try our fist folk song, GOODNIGHT LADIES, which uses the chords of G. The starting note for this song is the open second string (B). In fact, if you like, you can pick out the melody of the first two bars completely, on open string, by playing in this order. 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 3rd. This gives you the notes equivalent to the phrase 'Goodnight Ladies'. Play it over a couple of times to get the idea before going on to the song.

STRUM FOUR TO THE BAR
BEAT FOUR TO THE BAR

This note
is open B.
|4/4 G / / / | G / / / | G / / / | D7 / / / |
Good-night, - la-dies,- Good-night,- la-dies,-

| G / / / | C / / / | G / D7 / | G / / / ||
Good-night,- la-dies,We're goin' to leave you now.-

You may have noticed that the chord of the song is G, the tonic chord. The tonic is sometimes referred to as the 'home' chord, because it is variably the one upon which a piece written in a particular key ends. Thus, a song played in the key of G will end on the chord of G, or one in the key of C, on the chord of C.

Guitar Chord In Window System

The best way for a beginner to learn his chords is through a system of diagram known as 'Windows'. (The origin of this name will soon become obvious.) The window system is based on a pictorial representation of the guitar fingerboard as shown in figure.
The vertical lines represent the strings of the guitar, 6th, 5th, 4th and so on, reading from left to right. I have shown the top horizontal line as a double one, to indicate that it represents the nut, that is the point which divides the vibrating section of the strings from the part which goes on the tuning head. As you will see from the diagram of the guitar fingerboard on the opposite page, the frets are numbered downwards, 1st,2nd,3rd and so on. To show a chord in the window system it is merely necessary to add it's fingering to the basic diagram. Thus the first of our principal chords G is as shown below.

-CHORD WINDOW NO FINGERING

The circle on the 1st string shows the position at which the string should be pressed. The number inside the circle indicates that the third finger of the left hand should be used for this purpose, no other. It is important at this stage that you should use precisely the left-hand fingering indicated. To keep things as simple as possible I have given you only the four-string chord of G. Later on, when you learn the additional left-hand fingering that makes this chord into a six-string one, you may encounter unnecessary difficulty if you get into the habit of using the wrong fingers now.
-Chord Window G

Buying A Guitar

It follows from what has been said below that the most sensible type of guitar for a beginner to buy is a reasonably priced steel string acoustic model similar to that shown in Illustration A. The tone of such an instrument can be surprisingly good and satisfying, especially if you have never had the pleasure of making your own music before.

If you'd like to hear the acoustic guitar at its ultimate, listen to the recordings made by Diango Reinhardt with Hot Club de France in the thirties, many of which are now available on re-recorded LPs. This may sound a rather prehistoric kind of reference, but in my opinion and that of many other guitarists, those performances have never been equaled since.

You should be able to pick up a reasonable second hand acoustic guitar for around $60, which is pretty cheap for the amount of pleasure it can give you.

If you're really stuck on the idea of an Electric Guitar will probably cost you 90$ or 100$, and then there's the amplifier to think about , so you're going to be committed to around $200 before you start. But do read the chapter on Electric Guitar in Section 3rd of this site before buying. A Semi Acoustic would cost you rather more, say $90 or $95 for the instrument, and here again you would probably want to but an amplifier as well.

You should be able to buy a reasonable second hand Spanish Guitar for about the same price as an Acoustic Guitar. Cheap Spanish Guitar used to be known as Valencianas, after the city where so many of them were made, but today they are just as likely to be Japanese and none the worse for that, I hasten to say. Admittedly it is rather above the Valenciana class, but my own Takamine is a delight to play and beautifully made.