November 15th, 2008 by admin

Can you see yourself playing a classical guitar? Your dreams can come true if you are willing to study, learn and practice playing the guitar. Understanding and learning how to play notes on the fretboard is one of the basic fundamentals to playing the classical guitar.

Getting Started

Now that you are ready to learn how to play the classical guitar, let’s look at how this guitar is different from the others. The classical guitar is commonly known as an acoustic guitar and is one of the more popular guitars to learn to play. There is a large variety of tones, sounds, and styles that can be found among the many guitarist as each person can add their uniqueness to the music.

The classical guitar is characterized by its wider neck shape, nylon or silk strings, instrumental technique, and historic repertoire. Originally, the classical guitar was thought to be suited for bars and pubs and now it is referred to as the “little symphony” because brings depth of passion and expression to classical music.

Learning the Strings

The next step when learning to play the classical guitar is to learn the strings. The strings are actually placed further apart to help produce the clean playing of solo notes by using a plucking action. Here are a few tips that may help you when practicing the frets. When there is a number other than zero, you are to use your fingers to press down in the space before the fret of that string and then play that string. If there is a zero, you do not hold any frets down because the zero defines an open string. This may sound confusing but look at the fretboard and place your fingers before strumming to hear the notes.

Keeping beat and tuning is very important when you are playing the classical guitar. In classical guitar styles, the choice to use different tunings largely resides with composers or the arrangers of musical transcriptions. Since the classical guitar has been around over 500 years, many of the classical guitarist performing musical transcriptions are assumed to be using defined tuning like the Renaissance lute tuning: E-A-d-f#-b-e’ or G tuning: D-G-d-g-b-e’.

Remember that most tabs do not show rhythm, therefore you may need to listen and hear how it is played before joining in. If you notice a few numbers almost on top of each other, this is the sign of a chord. The idea is to fret the numbers all at once then strum the strings that is part of the chord.

If this is your first time playing the guitar, you may be challenged with learning to read the charts and placing your fingers at the same time. The more you practice the larger the return on your investment …. Once you have learned a skill, it is yours forever.