Well, the Master’s Program here in Alicante has begun. It has been one month so far and this experience is already more than one could ask for. It has been wonderful to meet other guitarists from around the world as we share our cultures, ideas and music.

Our first week in the program was spent taking lessons with Maestro David Russell. His abilities as a teacher matches his abilities as a performer. I wanted to use this blog as a way to share different technique exercises, but during this week with David the exercises were very basic. He also stressed the importance of creating your own studies, especially when you find something in a piece of music that you are having difficulty with. Creating exercises based on difficult passages will fix your technical deficiency, where as just practicing the passage over and over again will only fix THAT passage.

He also raised an important subject: always warm up. The exercises we practiced as a class were designed specifically just to get the fingers of both hands moving, with the two hands separately and synchronized together. It is easy to forget and think it’s not needed, but not warming up could cause problems in the hand when you get older.

Besides the many suggestions of interpretation for the pieces, one lesson I took away from the week is to never settle for less than perfection in the practice room. Don’t just settle for playing a passage correctly after one time. If say 9 out of 10 times you can play something perfectly, chances are when you get nervous and other environmental issues exist you will still be able to play it correctly. And if by chance you didn’t quite play that passage perfectly, that was the fluke. Basically, in the concert, you can’t change anything, but at home you should fix EVERYTHING.

Here are the basic warm up exercises:

Basic Exercises with David Russell

Before I get started, I would just like to say that I will be leaving for Spain in two weeks to study with some unbelievable players. This trip is what has inspired this blog as I hope to get some time to write about some of the lessons I pick up while there. Having said that, this will be my last blog before the program starts up. If there are any subjects you would like covered feel free to write to me or leave comments. And thanks for reading!

Unlike many other classical instruments, it is common practice for guitarists to memorize their repertoire. When I was first learning classical guitar, I wasn’t very good at sight-reading, and so I tried to memorize music as quickly as possible. As my sight-reading skills have improved, I still like memorizing music because I feel I don’t have to concentrate on reading the notes and can focus most of my attention on making music.

Lots and lots of repetition is obviously key in memorizing music. But here are some other tips that might help.

1. Lots of slow practice. As stated in an earlier blog post, slow practice is great for getting the notes, movements, shifts, etc, into both the left and right hands. Eventually muscle memory kicks in and the hands just know what to do.
2. Memorization is often easier once you are able to read through a piece completely and at tempo. Once you can run the piece from beginning to end and play through it a few times, you will notice when you start work on memorizing it you will find it comes a bit easier. Much of the reason for this is because of Tip 1 above.
3. Look for repetitions, repeated patterns, transpositions, and chord progressions. Phrases and “licks” that are repeated or are the same movements just moved a few frets make memorizing things much easier. A complete chordal analysis might be unnecessary, but knowing what key you are in and what chord you are currently playing (or arpeggiating or inferring) could give you a good idea of where you are going.
4. Related to tip 3, follow melodic lines when applicable. Obviously this will not work with all music, but it can also help you remember where you are going musically if you can follow melodic lines, patterns, etc.
5. Often, I have found that some of these tips are helpful but don’t solve problems when learning baroque music, specifically Bach. He often doesn’t repeat anything. Following chord progressions do help, but in the case of Bach, I work slowly memorizing a phrase and then constantly review from the beginning what I have worked through. For example say the phrases are four measures each. I will memorized measure 1-4 and make sure I have it down. Then I will memorize measure 5-8. Once I feel somewhat confident in those measures, I will start from measure 1 and try make it to measure 8 without looking at the music. Constantly going back will make sure you haven’t forgotten previous measures and will give you lots of repetition as well. It can be quite a painful process, but it is very effective and helpful.

I hope these tips help. If you have any other helpful hints feel free to live them in the comment box!

Thank you for visiting my blog. Recently, I found out that I have been accepted into the Master in Classical Guitar Performance program at the University of Alicante in Spain. The program starts in January 2013 and will allow me to study with some of the best guitarists in the world for about 6 months. It is quite an honor and one that has prompted me to start this blog. Not everyone has the means or gets the opportunity to study with the likes of David Russell, Manuel Barrueco, and others, and so this will be my outlet to share any knowledge, playing tips, life lessons, anything at all that I learn during my experience there that I feel others could benefit from as well. Not to mention this is a great way for me to document feedback and lessons for myself. I won’t wait until January to start posting, so check back every now and then to see updates. Thanks again for visiting the blog, and I hope I am able to take you along my journey as best as I can.

Thank you for visiting my site. Feel free to browse and don’t hesitate to contact me if you have any questions regarding lessons or performing opportunities.