Introduction to Spanish Guitar Techniques

1. Course Promo: 123 123 So, as you can see, this is a really nice way of introducing more dynamics into your plane. Let's walk through this piece step by step would instead of just clenching, so this is a far more efficient and economical way of doing bar chords. 2. Course Introduction: welcome to the introduction to Spanish guitar techniques course. This course is equally suited to begin a guitarists and guitarists who have some prior experience of playing. However, just to ensure that you understand my descriptions and you understand my terminology, let's just cover a few basics in terms of the string names. This is the Lowy. This is the A string the D string, the G string, the B string on the high E string. In terms of the frets, this is the first fret that second fret 3rd 4th and fifth so on and so forth, counting upwards up until the 12 Threat. And I just wanted to give a quick note about posture. Is it something which everyone overlooks? And it's incredibly important to your ability to play. It has a big impact on your technique. So as you'll see with me, my back is upright. I have the guitar gently pressed against my body. I have my right leg slightly elevated so that the guitar is a is a good height for me personally. And if you need to do this, just put your foot on a box or an object or by a foot store on, then with my right arm, you can see that my right arm is just gently kind of resting on the top of the body of the guitar, which which gives me freedom of my right hand. So again, just be aware of your posture. I really feel the need to say this because when you see some people play, for example, will have the guitar slightly outwards. They're all kind of, um, leaning towards them and they'll be bent over their guitar like this, which is just not the way to play. You'll end up with a strain or some injury, and also with the right hand. Sometimes I see people they don't rest their arm here. They will have their arm here or, you know, be kind of resting the middle of their forearm on the top of the guitar, which also is not good. So again, just have your bicep can arresting on the top of the body of the guitar. Just to make this course suited for absolute beginners, I will be explaining some of the courts in depth in terms of you know, the finger placements on the fretboard, though if you are more experienced than you already familiar with these cords. I will place time stamps in the video. Soem or experience. Guitarists can skip these descriptions. Also, with this course, I will make a pdf document available for download. This will contain some of the court charts and also some links to different topics that that I will describe as I go through this course. So please download this, PDF and go through it as I go through the lessons with you. I did want to give a quick mention two nails. Now, for this course, you don't need to grow your nails. I would say the things I'm gonna teach you are simple enough so that you don't need to grow your nails long. But even if you do, your nails don't need to be that long. Spanish guitarist guitar players and flamenco players generally just grow their nails just a little bit. If this is something you're you don't want to do, then feel free not to. You'll still be able to do this course just fine. However, if this is something you're interested in, I'll put some details in the downloadable pdf document. So with all the basics covered, I just want to say I really hope you enjoy this course If you need to contact me if you have any questions, please to shoot me. An email. My email is Francis Stock Grant 344 at gmail dot com. Let's move on to Lesson one. 3. Lesson 1: Romance-Style Arpeggios: So Lesson one involves this piece with a romance style our pages sequence. So what I mean by in our pager sequence. If we take any chord, it doesn't matter what one. Obviously, we can strum the court and play the notes all at the same time. We can play them individually, and that is are are paid your sequence. So this particular piece revolves around using arpeggios of the open strings off the B and High E, which is going to use our index and middle finger to pluck these two strings. And then we're gonna be playing a melody with our thumb on the D string to begin with. So the sequence, the right hand pattern will look like this for me. This piece is particularly reminiscent off Francisco Targa, the late 19th century Spanish guitarist. So now let's walk through this piece step by step. So first, let's just start with the baseline melody and then will add the are Pay Joe with the I and the M fingers afterwards. So starting on the D string on the fifth fret, we have we then move to the second fret again on the D string friend. Then we'll do an open D back to the second fret who then will move to the third fret on the A string and open on the A string. Second fret on the D string on again, open on the eighth, a string back to second friends on the D string. So I played that slowly for you. More time quicker. Now, one thing you'll notice is that I'm actually adding a bit of vibrato to this with electric guitarists. Usually what they will do is they'll hold on. No, and they'll kind of move their finger up and down in this direction so they will go. Or at least I think so. That is just from my observation. However, you'll notice when I do have a bra toe, I move my finger along the string in. There isn't this direction. Let me show you. Mm. And this is just used a dynamic to the peace and add more emotion. So now that we have the baseline, let's add the AARP a geo we're gonna go. So that's the entire first part. Let me just play a few slightly quicker enough of third part. There's just a slight variation. Let me show you. So again, we're starting on the fifth, right on the D string will go to the second fret friend back up to the fifth Fret threw away up to the ninth threat and in the end, on the seven threat arpeggio. So after the third part, we have the fourth and final part, which is actually just a repeat of the first part we played. However, we end on this a sauce to cord. So for this I use on my left hand I used my middle and ring fingers on I'm placing my middle finger on the second fret of the dean and then my ring finger on the second fret of the G string. The fourth part will sound like this. So play the whole thing for you. Slowly. Way. Okay, so now I just want to give you some exercises which will hopefully build this skill with your right hand for the arpeggio sequences. So I just usually use the Metrodome to start off slow and then build the speed up gradually for a metro, my actually just use website and I'll put the link in the downloadable PdF which accompanies this course. So let's have a go at this now and I'll just be plucking Theo open strings. And now I just want you to do the same fingers. But in just a slightly different order, let me show you. And then I want you to alternate between these two e o thing. As time goes by, you practice this more and more and speed up the Metrodome, you'll be able to get quicker tempos. Let me show you. This is 100 beats per minute. Now let's experiment with this because I will need to find your own style. Now you'll see that when I played this, I hung onto different notes slightly longer. For example, I didn't go. It was no uniformed, though some notes accentuated, for example, on sometimes hold onto the first. No way not accentuate the open a string. And this woman, you just kind of emphasises different notes and gives different dynamics of the peace. What I want you to do is actually do the same. So just try holding different notes longer, accentuating different notes, use the vibrato technique that we spoke about before, who tried playing in finding something that really suits you and you like to listen to another technique I want to share with you is where you strike the string. So listen to the difference isn't sound here. If I pluck the strings just above the sound hole, it will sound like this, uh, plucking the open strings and no one's gonna move my hand towards the bridge. And now listen to this. That's a much stronger sound. And again, you can shade the notes in different ways. You can go sounds soft or you go sounds a bit more harsh and again could be used to add emphasis to the peace. Finally, while we need to do is just try coming up with your own baseline melodies. So, you know, we have again try playing around with just different notes and really any. If you know some scales, try some scales. If you don't just find something which you like, And I mean you don't have to stay with the D string. You can try different strings. Let's just try anything now. So see if that works with Page Geo. So again, just, you know, experiment, try different things. Try to from melodies. Find something you like to hear. Try different notes anywhere along the fretboard and try mixing them with, you know, these kind of strings picking with your with your index and your middle finger I mentioned for me this style of playing reminds me of Francisco Tarragon. I really hope you go listen to some of his music. One guitarist I cannot recommend enough is an Evita Vic, Croatian classical guitarist. Honestly, she was one of the reasons why I picked up this type of guitar in the first place. Massive inspiration for me. 4. Lesson 2: Rumba Strumming: so moving on to lesson to which is on Remember strumming. This is an absolute classic used extensively throughout Spanish music. In flamenco music. It's a staple of the rumba style of playing. Okay, so let's go through the right hand technique first. First, we're just gonna do a down stroke on the thumb and then an upstroke. Now, the first thing to mention here is that the movement comes from the rotation off the wrist . OK, it does not come from the movement off the elbow just to show you this a bit more explicitly if I just flatten my hand. The motion is that. But of course we're using our thumbs. So we have a hand relaxed. You can see there's no tension in my hand. I'm really just holding it. And I'm just just rotating the wrist. So we'll go down, up with the thumb. Then we'll flick with the index and middle finger and then up again with some. So together it's and then we're gonna slap the guitar for that percussive sound. So when we lift our hands off, we're gonna bring our fingers in, which will cause an upstroke. Let me show you that all together, and then we'll flick again with our fingers upstroke with the thumb. So let's look at that from the percussive slap on the guitar. When you think is in Finnic with the fingers up with the thumb, let's look at that all together very slowly and again. And now let's look at the left hand on the courts. Like I said, all these chords are available in the downloadable pdf document, which comes alongside this course. So please go look at that. If you prefer to learn your chords in that way, if you already familiar with these cords, please just skip the detailed descriptions. But for the beginners, let's go through these in detail now. So we have a minor G major, major seven and then e we owe. Now let's go through the cords in a bit more detail. So with a minor, I have my middle finger on the second fret of the D string, my ring finger on the second fret of the G string on and then my first finger and sorry, my index finger on the first fret off the B string G. I have my middle finger on the third front of the lower East Theun my index finger on the second fret of the A string my ring finger on the third fret off the B string on and then my pinky on the third fret of the high e f major seven. I'm not barring first for actually, I just have my for my index finger. On the first fret of the Lowy, my middle finger on the second friends of the G, my ring finger on the third fret of the A a my pinky on the third fret off the D string, major seven. And then finally e my middle finger on the second fret off the a string my ring finger on the second fret of the D string on my my index finger on the first fret off the G string, Let's look together. So now let's put this together and starting on the a minor, we're gonna do the strumming pattern, which I've just shown you. You repeat that again, so repeating that twice for each chord. Let's go to the G major over to the F major seven chord. Now, in order to really get the hang of this right hand pattern again, I just want to emphasize the need to rotate the wrist when you want to practice it. Just as I was doing. Just hold your left hand or your fretting hand over the fretboard. So you meet your strings and just practice this with the Metrodome. So the Maginot met a really slow time. Go 23 123 As you speed up your notice that I mean, I'm exaggerating motion so you can see with the camera. But really, the emotion becomes a lot smaller. Let me show you up to speed. Finally, when it comes to change in the court shapes, I really just think through your head where your fingers need to go. So if we go to the a minor in my head, I think to myself, OK, I need to put my middle finger up here my index finger there and then put you know, my ring finger, my pinky together and put them here then from this cord. And even to this day, I still think through this because you really need to get this into your head from here. I'm gonna move my index finger there. My middle finger here keeping these two things together moved in there. So think it through specifically, where you need to put your fingers can really just help you to understand. And I'd recommend just practice changing between these chords just going on and keep cycling through those finding with experimentation and finding your own style. I just want you to practice the strumming technique, but maybe leave some space. So I showed you this. But maybe you don't need to play. Although those notes maybe you could just go go so that I'm missing out the upstroke. I'm just going and then also play around with different chords. You know? Think what chords do you already know? What chord progressions do you already know? Try this rumba strumming pattern with does in terms of Listen to music, which uses this technique. It is presently throughout lots of Spanish flamenco music, but two that I particularly wanted to highlight is Ben Woods, the American guitarist I'm a big fan of I love listening to his music and learning. His compositions are put a link to his website, www dot spanish guitar player dot com, and also package Alethea. He did a rumba version of Trudeau, Sago's which is very famous and up a link to that. Please go have a listen. It's absolutely fantastic. And years and years later I still find myself listening to this constantly. 5. Lesson 3: Gipsy Kings-Style Percussive Rumba Strumming: So now let's move on to lesson three, which is this gypsy king style percussive rumba strumming technique. Now, I don't know the exact name for this technique. I just always call it the Gypsy King style strumming technique because the Gypsy kings always use it. And it's the first time I heard it and got really interested in it. But as you can see, it's got this really nice percussive style to it, which I will now teach you. So let me first walk you through the right hand technique. So first, going to start with a down stroke with the thumb combined with a tap which we call the Gallup it So this is done on the right hand with the with the ring finger on which gonna tap here on the plate while strumming down with the thumb. So let me just show you this from a different angle again we using the ring finger on the strumming hand to tap whilst doing the down stroke on the thumb. So after we do the down stroke on the gold pit, we're just going to return with a thumb upstroke down, down. So here we come to the taps again. It's essential that you get the wrist rotation in to do this technique properly on where she's gonna tap just above the strings Just here We're going to go down up tap with their rotation of the wrist top and then another tap but with a flick of the fingers. So let me show you that all together we're gonna go after we've done that We're just gonna do another gulp it with the with the ring finger with no strumming We're just gonna tap So we're gonna go And then after we've done the gulp it I'm just gonna bring my fingers in, which is going to cause an upstroke And then we're going to do another thumb tap combined with a finger flick and then finally bring our fingers back to cause an upstroke. So from the beginning and again. So now let's talk about the cords that were going to be using. I hope you recognize these. I hope he looked at the link that I put before from the previous lesson of Packard Lithia and his rumba. Introduce Aguas and you recognize these cords from them. So we're gonna be doing the A minus seven Bart, moving up to the B minus seven bar. Now, if you're already familiar with these, please feel free to skip the detailed description using the timestamp listed below. So with the A minus seven, we're going to bar the fifth fret and then I'm going to use my ring finger on the seventh. Fret off the a string. Did you meet? Cool. Now, one thing I just want to tell you quickly is if you do find this difficult to bar chords, let me give you a quick tip. So don't just use your hands like, really clench and squeeze. I mean, you do need some hand strength, but the force doesn't actually come from Just from your hand in your forearm actually comes from you pulling backwards on what I mean by that is I am. I have my wrist flat here is you can see and I'm actually pulling my hand back. The reason this is useful is because when you're doing this, you're using the shoulder muscles in the back muscles to pull the strings against the fretboard instead of just clenching. So this is a far more efficient and economical way of doing bar chords. So again, I'm not clenching. I don't actually even need to press my thumb down. I can just leave my thumb out. Three a minus seven and then for the B minus seven were literally just gonna take the shape and shifted up to France one, too. So we are barring the seventh fret, and then we have a ring finger on the a string of the ninth fret. Well, you know, there's another way you can do these cords if you want to do the more open with the A minus seven open, I'm just gonna place my index finger on the first fret off the B string and then with my middle finger, I'm gonna place that on the second fret of the D string and the bond version that was here . And then for the B minus seven. I'm just going to use my index finger to bar all the strings apart from the heart apartment low E. Sorry. Just made the Lowy. I think I'm gonna place my middle finger on the third fret off the B string on, then. Finally, my ring finger on the fourth threat off the D string that way, which is the same way. Now let's go for the version with bar chords going slowly so again here it just exercises so you can nail this technique. So first, I just want you to practice having a loose wrist and rotating that wrist. So for here, I just literally want you to mute the strings with your fretting hand and striking the strings with your thumb. I just want you to rotate the wrist on, get used to this motion because that motion is essential for this. And as always, please go through the technique slowly with the Metrodome, slowly building up the speed until you feel more comfortable. Now you've probably guessed the music I want you to listen to for this particular lesson is the Gypsy Kings. Check out the link in the downloadable pdf document and listen to some of their fantastic music 6. Lesson 4: Legato Scale Run: so now on to lesson for with this leg are to scale run piece. This is really nice for either starting songs, off ending songs or putting between different pieces within a song. And it's nice just to create space or grab some attention is quite dynamic and quite flashy . So really nice just to grab the attention off your audience when you're performing. And as we'll see, I'm using the low garter technique to connect the notes together. I'm not striking each of the notes distinctly. I'm connecting them together to make this smooth sound. So starting on the 12th fret, we're gonna be striking this without right hand. And then what we'll do is we'll actually pull off with the ring finger. We're just gonna pull off to the 10th fret you'll notice when I lift off my ring finger from the 12. Fret. I'm actually pulling this off to continue the sound, and then I'm gonna pull off my index finger on my left hand to the open high e. So let me show you that again. And this is the pattern we're going to be using throughout most of this kind of scale Run. I'll be striking the first note and then I'll be pulling off and then peeling off to the open. So let's repeat that pattern. We've done the 12 12 threat, the 10 threat to the Open. Now we're going to do the 10th fret to the A threat to the Open. Then we'll do the a threat to the seventh front to open. And then we'll do. Seventh fret to the fifth fret toe open. So let's go through that slowly speed. And then we come along to another scale run, which is the E fridge in scale. Now, don't worry about the naming so far. I'll just show you the notes that we're gonna play for this scale. So as before will be striking the first note on pulling golf. So we're going to strike on the third fret of the high e, peeling off to the first fret pulling off to the open, then will repeat this for the B string. Third fret first ripped open. Then when we moved to the G string, we're gonna strike the second fret and pull off to open. Now you'll notice in or other circumstances. I've been playing three notes, however, on the B String, which is playing two notes so slowly from the beginning of the fridge, is go, go, go Then, on the D string war strength, the third friends pulling off to the second, peeling off to open. That's the same for the A string. And then on the Lowy, we're gonna be doing striking the third fret pulling off to the first frets, pulling off to open. Uh, let's go through all of that slowly on, then to end this are just in gold and then doing an upstroke on the EQ, which have introduced to you before. As always, I recommend starting slow. Just start off slow with these pull offs. Eso you ensure that you get the technique really nailed from here? Build up the speed gradually. So again you consent Metrodome on a slow tempo. Become accustomed to that and then gradually increase the speed of the Metrodome. If you're a bit more experience, you don't have to use the pull off technique. You can use picado, which is when we just used the I and the M fingers on the strumming hand to alternate between the notes. So, in other words, instead of going the you can go so with the full of technique way And if you know any other scales, try this leg arto technique with those scales, see how they sound and try and integrate them into songs you already know in different ways . Now by now have taught you a number of different pieces. What I want you to do is try this leg out of scale run technique in different places. So, for example, start with it and then go into the rumba strum. Or maybe you want to do the arpeggio piece from lesson one and then end with this leg a two piece just experiment with different things and try and put this in different songs that you may already know and just see how it sounds so you can find your own style and preferences in terms of listening to different pieces which integrate this style of playing . I'm just gonna do some shameless self promotion here and put a link to one of my videos on YouTube. So with this video, actually do something very, very similar and I place it kind of in the middle of the piece, and this is just to create some space between the different parts of the song and again, just grab some of the attention of the audience and put something flashy out there. But as a ways techniques such as this year's President Lee throughout Spanish and flamenco music, when you are listening to music, try and listen out for this and see where they put it in and try and spot different places where it may be effective in a song. 7. Lesson 5: Right-Hand Embellishments: lesson five right hand embellishments. So as you can see, this is a really nice way of introducing more dynamics into your playing on also playing with a bit more of your own style. There were two techniques used Teoh. One is called the ABA Nico has got, and also there was just the standard way of approaching the Rose Garden. Now walk you through both of these techniques, step by step with the Albany Carraz gado. It's essential again. To have a loose wrist is this is essentially where the motion comes from. So again, just make sure you're utilizing the rotation off the wrist. So there's two ways of starting this, unless just started first with the down stroke. So first we're just going to flick without fingers and then using our thumb were actually just going to rotate our wrists. So we get another down stroke with the thumb and then we're gonna rotate. I wrist back up so we get an up stroke with the thumb, and that's really all it is. It's just these three notes. 123 123 123 So a couple of things you'll notice is that when I'm coming back on the upstroke. I bring my things back in so I've gone down down with the thumb back up. This just means we're ready to start again. So I'll just do this slowly for you And then the other way, I said is we can actually start on the upstroke. So here we start with the thumb upstroke. We flick our fingers and then we do the thumb down stroke. So it's exactly the same pattern. We're just starting in a different place. The 1st 1 starting with the down stroke again is and then the 2nd 1 starting with the upstroke, is this. I just run through the upstroke starting version for you. A couple of slow times. Always. I'm kind of accentuating my right hand movements just so you can clearly see exactly what I'm doing. However, as you speed up, you'll see that the motion becomes much smaller. This is me going slow. This is me. Go quick in terms of whether you start on a down stroke or start on an upstroke. It's religious personal preference, and it depends on where you're putting the Asgard or in in the in the in the rhythm Rather . So now let's move to the your eyes Gather where it's more for flick So again Here we have three notes on 23 but I'm doing it a slightly different way and I'm kind of doing it with this flick. So I'm just gonna walk you through this quickly. So as you can see, I have my index finger on my middle finger chambered up against my thumb, and I'm literally just flicking out my middle finger and then my index finger consecutively . I'm going one to 12 on the three bringing the index finger back. So you create this tension here just by pressing your middle and index finger against your thumb. However, this is where people tend to go wrong. Don't do this really strong, like you're not really flicking out strong. It's literally you're just releasing your fingers. Let me show you on the guitar. I just do this with equal and as I can hope you can see I'm actually arresting my thumb on the Lowy string to do this. So again, this this pattern here I'm just starting from this low e. However, sometimes depending on the court, your sleep, see people rest on the A. So maybe I'm doing a minor chord on. Prefer to rest on the A strings opposed to the east Rio. It just depends on what notes you want to strike, right? You'll notice if I do an a minor chord and I start with my thumb resting on the A string. You hear more of the high notes, whereas if I am resting on the low, you hear the more low notes, of course. So a couple of tips I want to give you, which will really help you out again. The motion for the Albany Carraz, Guardo It all comes from the rotation of the wrist. That is the motion. Don't let the motion come from the elbow. The motion doesn't have to be really wide. With the right hand, you can keep it relatively small and still get exactly the same sound. So don't you know, do these wild kind of hand motions? It doesn't need to be like that. Keep it nice and small and you'll have good timing and you'll get it quicker. Try and keep the striking of the notes consistent. So again put the Metrodome a low speed and make sure we're striking the notes consistently and then gradually increase the speed of the Metrodome in terms of experimentation on finding your own style, try and introduce these techniques into some of the pieces that have already taught you to say. For example, you want to do the rumba strum, which sounds like this you could do the Albany Carrusca, although in this piece Ugo way do the other thing through. This technique is used presently throughout Spanish flamenco music over one example. I just wanna listen. The pdf document is that from recent amigo at the end of his soul er he uses that as gathers extensively is blew me away when I first watched it and I had to learn this technique as soon as I watched that video So go check it out and I hope you enjoy it 8. Lesson 6: Putting it Together: So now let's put this together. I've given you an overview off some of the fundamental techniques used in the style of music. What I want you to do is take some of these pieces on, try and put them together in different ways. Given that I've now taught you a repertoire of different pieces, just try and fit them together in the style which you enjoy listening to or playing and see how it sounds an experiment a bit. So I give an example. Now what I'm gonna do is start with the Liga to scale Run. I'll do the our Pedro piece and then I'll do some strumming with the cords that I taught you. 9. Course Wrap Up: I really hope you've enjoyed this, and you've learned plenty of techniques or pieces to integrate into your own playing person . For me, this style of playing is just brought so much joy and happiness into my life on DA Honestly , I just really hope it brings some of the same for you in terms of staying in contact again . My email is Francis dot ground 344 at gmail dot com. You can also find me at my blawg www dot talent hacker blogger dot com. I'm also on Instagram and I have a YouTube page where actually put some of my own guitar playing. Please go check those out. If you have enjoyed the course, please leave a review on this website. This really helps me out and also check out some of the other courses I've made available. Finally, I've also written a book on skull development is called The Talent Hacker's Guide, and it's available to buy on Amazon. Overall, guys, I hope you enjoy playing. Play lots of music, play with your friends, show with people and enjoy yourself