Guitar Level II Intermediate

26 Pages·1904·0.38 MB·English

by  Raymond Lohengrin

Guitar Level II Intermediate
This material is a continuation of The Guitar Beginners Course. At this
level the guitar student should feel comfortable with reading basic rhythms
and guitar chords. As in the fist lessons, all the material included here has
been chosen to teach the student very important technical and musical
aspects of the guitar technique. For a smooth transition to the material in
these lessons, the student is expected also to be very familiar with all the
lessons studied in Level I. Here is a list:
Guitar Level I Course
Guitar Notation Symbols for the Right and Left Hand, frets and strings.
Right and Left hand position.
Symbols and techniques used for free and rest strokes.
Notes on the music staff and all the notes on the guitar first position
Diatonic Scale and C Major Scale.
Major, minor and Dominant chord forms with root on the 6th, 5th and 4th
strings.
Ascending and descending arpeggios.
Lesson I
The following exercise is from the Guitar Method by Maestro Julio S.
Sagreras (Argentina) It is common for the young student to find a piece like
this to be a simple three notes arpeggio.,but as we will soon see there is
much to learn from this and the following etudes.
In these lessons, the student should pay attention to detail. Every symbol
should be noticed and taken in consideration. Remember, your teacher has
taken care to provide all fingerings for the right and left hands for a every
piece because this will help you learn well and faster. There are important
study notes, and also here for the first time chord symbols are provided as
well as harmonic analysis for each piece!
Ex I (Etude #40 Sagreras)
This piece is much more that a simple ascending three notes arpeggio. Is a
polyphonic composition of two voices, a bass line ( notes with down stems)
and a treble accompaniment. (stems pointing up) It is also very important to
be able to identify which voice carries the melody. The guitar is considered
by most a little orchestra, and as in any good orchestra balance between the
voices or instruments is very important. Here we have a bass melody with
and arpeggio accompaniment. Care should be taken to bring out the bass
melody. This can be archived this by playing the bass (p finger) a little
louder but instead we will try bringing the im arpeggio to a second plane so
that the melody can be clearly heard. Bringing out a particular voice or
melody in a piece of music makes the music much more interesting.
We will use this etude to practice the planting of the pim R.H. fingers.
Make sure to check that the pim fingers are planted or resting on the 5.4.3
strings before playing the C with the p finger. You should do this planting
each time like a loop. Please note that later we should also practice this
etude without planting, but planting helps teaching your fingers to be very
close to the strings and ready to play. It also helps the right hand to be steady
and avoid the usual jumpiness of the right hand. Planting is the key to
playing accurately and fast.
The Roman numerals show the chord relationship to the key, the C: indicates
that the piece is in the key of C Major. Also notice the different chord
inversions that result from having notes of a chord to be on the bass line.
(Read more about Chords and Chord Inversions in the Music Fundamentals
Course)
As you learn this etude pay attention to the following points:
Play as Legato as possible. All chords should be as connected as possible
avoiding any gaps specially in the melody. In order to play smoothly, fingers
left hand fingers (as well as the right- hand fingers) should move as close to
the strings as possible. Take time to study and correct finger movements
of both hands every time you practice , and study one hand at a time
for a few minutes.
When playing open strings, the left -hand fingers should anticipate the
chords or notes that follow.
Chose a speed or tempo that is comfortable for you. If you find yourself
stooping often, or going slower or faster at some point then the tempo is too
fast for you! It is much better and more musical to play at a slow tempo that
you can keep. Use a metronome to practice and to keep track of gradual
increments to develop speed. Remember rhythm is the glue that keeps a
piece together.
How to Practice
When studying a new piece, I generally ask the student to concentrate on
one hand at a time. First you should study the left hand finger movements or
chord position. Try practicing each measures three two five times and take a
mental picture of the chord forms and movements. Then, practice the right
hand formula (which in the case of etude #40 is an ascending arpeggio pim )
carefully very slowly until it becomes very natural and familiar to you. After
that, practice each measure also three to five times right and left hand. Make
sure that each repeat has a purpose. Play slowly and analyze the results so
you can make adjustments and your playing becomes consistently good!
Remember quality and not quantity is what counts.
Make note of any measures that need special attention, mark these and work
on them first thing every day.
Ex 2 (Sagreras Etude #41)
This etude follows the same chord progression as in Ex 1. Apply the same
practice technique and practice the right hand formula for this etude.
Ex 3 (Sagreras Etude #45)
It is important to remember the right hand planting in this etude for two
reasons, one technical and the other musical. Planting the ima helps your
fingers to be ready to play and also serves the musical purpose of muting the
1st, 2nd, and 3rd strings as required by the quarter note rest on the first beat of
every measure. Since each chord is played several times, you may want to
make it more interesting by changing dynamics. Try playing each repeated
chord softer creating an echo effect. You may try doing the same with the
repeated notes of the bass melody.
Ex 4 (Sagreras Etude #47)
I have reversed the order in which I present two you etudes 46 and 47 for a
reason. Etude 47 (chords) is the exactly the same chord progression of etude
46 (arpeggios) It is a lot easier to learn an arpeggio piece after we are
familiar with the chord progressions in the piece. This approach has made it
possible for my students to learn quite well a much complex etude
(example Leo Brouwer Simple Etude #6 ) in a week or less period. While
the same piece took other students months of practice and the results where
still very poor. We will study Sagreras #47 first and them we will practice
the right hand formula of Etude #46.
Ex 5 (Sagreras Etude #46)
Lesson 2
By now, should be quite natural and comfortable for the student to play
ascending three notes and four notes arpeggios with and without preparation.
Lets now apply what we learned in Lesson I to learn this beautiful piece by
Eduardo Martin (CUBA)
Ex 6 (E. Martin Piece I)
This piece is in the key of D minor, and it has a 4/4 time signature Notice
that bass notes have two stems one pointing down and one pointing up. This
indicates that this notes belong to both voices the bass and the
accompaniment. It is easier to figure out the rhythm by using the upper voice
as a guide, and as you see you will be playing two eight notes per beat. It is
important to remember that when having a longer value note on a voice and
smaller values on another this tells you that a voice is sustaining while
another is in motion. The longer value note will be played in time where it
belongs and sustain while the other notes of the moving voice play where
they are supposed to according to their value. For students it is a common
mistake to change the rhythm by holding or pausing on a longer note value
and not realizing that the longer value just indicates to sustain the note
against another voice (as in this piece).
Study Notes for Ex 6 (E. Martin Piece I)
Read the piece once two get a general idea of it.
Use the one measure at a time approach as in Lesson 1. Divide the piece into
two sections. The repeat sign makes it clear that the first part is just four
measures or one system.
Study one hand at a time, the left hand movements first.
Once the chord sequence is learned well add the right hand arpeggio.
From the beginning try to establish a nice balance between the melody on
the bass and the arpeggio.
Do not over play the base. You should aim for a melodious clean melody.
Study carefully the transition from the 1st part to the 2nd. The LH finger 2
should travel towards the G on 6th string III fret as the last note of the
arpeggio is played. The last note of the arpeggio is an open E or open 1st
string. It is a very important guitar playing technique to use open strings to
facilitate shifting to other chords and positions, use it!
Ex 7(Sagreras Etude #59)
This is also an arpeggio etude but this time we will practice a four notes
descending arpeggio pami formula combined with a chord. You should try
playing it very slow first. This piece should be used to develop speed as it
sounds quite good at very fast tempos. With practice it is possible to play it
extremely fast in a very short time. Try planting the a finger as you play the
bass. Never let the p finger to conflict (by moving to close to tstarting the
stroke to close to ima or traveling to the inside of the hand towards the palm
of the hand!)with the movements of the ima fingers.
Study Notes for Ex 7(Sagreras Etude #59)
This lesson will teach you about priority notes. It is always important to be
aware of the order of importance of notes within a piece. Of course, all notes
and rest are important but in order to maintain the flow of a piece certain
notes will need to be prepared in a particular order, this is what I call priority
notes. Let’s study measure #5 carefully. So far, we have been playing the E
on the 4th string with the 2nd finger but in this piece we will need to use the
1st finger in order to play with the 2nd finger the C sharp on the 2nd string II
fret. There is a tendency among students to place first any notes or groups of
notes as a chord regardless of the order in which they will be played. They
often are not aware of the relationship between a right hand playing pattern
or formula with the placement of the left hand fingers. This approach most