By Mike Roberts
Before we begin playing some music, let’s look at the broader world of fingerstyle/classical guitar music, players, and instruments. A few basic questions to answer:
• What is fingerstyle guitar?
• What is classical guitar?
• How do fingerstyle and classical guitar differ?
• What instruments are typically used, and what are some of their characteristics?
• Who are some of the great players and composers in these styles?
Fingerstyle Guitar
On the most general level, fingerstyle guitar simply means that you pluck the strings of the instrument with the fingers of your right hand, on any type of guitar, acoustic or electric. The common alternative is to play pickstyle, which means you pluck with a little plastic thingy called a pick, or plectrum. Many players use a pick as well as the middle and sometimes the ring finger. This is called hybrid technique.
More specifically, however, fingerstyle guitar usually refers to music played on an acoustic guitar, which will be our focus in this column. More specifically still, it refers to music played on a steel-string acoustic guitar, sometimes called folk guitar. This is the instrument that has given voice (or at least accompaniment to the voice) to American popular and folk music for many decades.
Some design elements which are common to the vast majority of steel-string guitars include:
• Steel strings (duh), which can actually be made of bronze, nickel, or other metals
• A solid headstock (some guitars have slotted headstocks, as on a classical guitar)
• Fret markers on the fingerboard, most often mother-of-pearl dots
• A bridge which holds the ends of the strings with bridge pins (the strings also have little metals balls on the ends to hold them in place)
• A soundhole with a simple rosette (the decoration around the edge of the soundhole)
• And often, a pickguard (not that we’ll be needing that, of course).
There are many variations of this basic steel-string acoustic design, but a few are far and away the most popular. At the top of the list is the dreadnought, a big-bodied, powerful instrument and by far the most common design these days. The only larger body design is the jumbo, played by the likes of Pete Townshend and Emmy Lou Harris. Smaller designs include the orchestra model, often seen in the hands of Eric Clapton, and the parlor guitar, a throwback to the much smaller bodies of early (19th and early 20th century) steel-string acoustics. These smaller designs are often popular with fingerstylists because they’re comfortable to play and responsive to the more subtle dynamic shadings of fingerstyle technique. However, their volume and projection usually can’t compete with that of dreadnoughts and jumbos.
See the Appendix to this column for examples of some great fingerstyle players in different genres. A trip to iTunes or your local record store will be richly rewarded with some serious inspiration.
Classical Guitar
“Classical guitar” can refer either to a style of music or a type of instrument.
The instrument
The modern classical guitar has changed little since Spanish luthier Antonio de Torres produced his definitive design in the mid-19th century. In comparison with a steel-string guitar, a classical guitar has:
• Nylon strings (which generally have a silkier feel, more mellow tone, and less tension than steel strings), tied onto the bridge instead of being held in place by ball ends and bridge pins
• A smaller body, a flatter, wider neck; a slotted headstock
• No fretboard position markers (some instruments have one or two on the side of the fretboard)
• A soundhole with an often fairly elaborate and beautiful rosette.
It’s important to note that not all nylon-string guitars are classical guitars. Many nylon-string guitars these days are designed to feel and look more like steel-string acoustics, or even electric guitars. A true classical instrument will have all the above design characteristics, and will feel quite a bit different in your hands than a steel-string.
The music
Technically speaking, “Classical guitar music” is music written for the guitar in the Classical era (approx. mid-18th through early 19th centuries), the time of Mozart, Haydn, and Beethoven. (See Appendix for some Classical guitar composers) The most popular classical guitar music, however, isn’t really Classical at all.
The definition of “classical guitar” music has broadened to include basically any music that’s played on a classical guitar, and it’s here we find the music that for well over a hundred years has been making people weep, cheer, and run to the music store to buy their own instrument. The music now most associated with the classical guitar is the Spanish Romantic repertoire, inspired by traditional flamenco (Spanish folk music) and made famous by the great Andres Segovia (1893-1987, Spanish), the man many give virtually sole credit for establishing the classical guitar as a legitimate concert instrument in the 20th century.
If you’re unfamiliar with classical guitar repertoire, see the list of repertoire and composers at the end of this column for some highly recommended listening.
A note on flamenco
As noted above, flamenco is the Spanish folk music which has inspired a great deal of music on the classical guitar. Flamenco guitar is like nothing else in the world—passionate, virtuosic, rhythmically dazzling. However, despite the fact that flamenco instruments and technique bear a distinct resemblance to their classical counterparts, there are some key differences which place it outside the scope of this column. If you’re interested in learning flamenco guitar, this column will set you on the right path with some technique fundamentals, but at a certain point you’ll want to find a teacher to teach you some of the more specialized techniques. (Good luck—they’re tough!)
That’s it for our thumbnail sketch of the broader world of fingerstyle and classical guitar. For further reading on the history of classical guitar, I highly recommend The Classical Guitar Book: A Complete History, published by Backbeat Books. It’s comprehensive but not too long, and has lots of great color pictures of some of the great classical instruments.
From here on out, we’ll spend our time doing what we came here to do: play!
Next time: Posture, and How Good Technique Will Set You Free
See you then,
Mike
www.hotmike.com
Fingerstylin' is published on a bi-weekly basis.
Appendix: Fingerstyle Players, Classical Repertoire and Composers
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