Right hand
- Control alternating pairs of right-hand fingers, using apoyando (rest) and and/or tirando (free) strokes
- Move the thumb independently of the rest of the hand and damp open-string bass notes
- Form stable right-hand shapes and positions, keeping a relaxed hand shape
- Control sequential right-hand thumb and finger movements in simple patterns
- Play with a full, clear sound at two or more dynamic levels
Show learners how to practise alternating by walking the fingers on one string without playing. Games walking around the body of the guitar are also useful.
Accompany learners to provide musical context as they play single-note, open-string rhythm patterns using im and ma, tirando and apoyando, ensuring a regular pulse.
Ask learners to play mini-scales with alternating fingers, using the notes they know.
Encourage learners to:
- approach the string from above rather than in front
- start the stroke from the string (think: ‘place and push’, not pull)
- when playing apoyando, feel a transference of weight when changing finger
Play single-note, open-string rhythm patterns and ask learners to copy them.
Resting the thumb on a lower string can help provide stability, particularly when playing tirando. Incorporate rests made by the finger due to play next.
Teach exercises and accompanied melodies that use more than one string, starting with repeated notes on the top three open strings.
Choose material in which the fingers can cross strings the ‘right way round’, i.e. i to m when changing from second to first string.
Accompany learners as they play single-note, open-string rhythm patterns with the thumb (fingers planted on the top three strings), ensuring a regular pulse.
Play single-note, open-string rhythm patterns and ask learners to copy them.
Ask learners to play ‘mini-scales’ with the thumb, using the notes they know.
Show learners how to play two adjacent bass strings with the thumb, one after the other (soh-doh). As soon as the second one has sounded, ask learners to quickly touch the first again to stop it ringing on.
As an extension activity, play two open-string bass notes with and without damping. Ask learners how many notes they can hear after the second note has been played.
Check that the thumb moves from the wrist joint, with its middle joint held away from the hand. This can take longer to develop in learners with particularly flexible or double-jointed fingers. Be aware of learners’ individual physical characteristics and make adaptations as appropriate.
Show learners how to prepare the basic right-hand stance by forming a fist with the fingers flat against the palm, placing it over the sound hole, then opening the hand until the tips of the fingers and thumb (pima) stand on each of the top four strings. Encourage learners to develop their own pictorial image to support this process, e.g. seeing the thumb and fingers as forming an ‘X’.
Demonstrate ‘parachute landing’, i.e. how to lift the ready-formed hand shape on and off the top four strings of the guitar from the elbow. Ask learners to imitate.
Squeezing a soft, suitably sized ball between the fingers and palm can also help establish a good hand shape.
Check that the hand and forearm are aligned. (It is much more difficult to make a fist if they are not aligned.) The wrist should be relaxed, with the back of the hand parallel to the face of the guitar and the line from knuckle to fingertip more or less perpendicular to it.
Explain and demonstrate how feeling the weight of the fingers pushing down and across (with pima planted) is a valuable preparation for arpeggio playing.
Ask learners to play simple open-string arpeggio patterns with a regular pulse, ensuring the fingers push through from the knuckle in the direction of the elbow.
Ask learners to explore how ‘hooking’ the strings up makes a twangy, less satisfying sound, and pushing them down and across makes a richer, more attractive sound.
Relaxing the fingertip joints can help prevent hooking and enhance the downward direction of the stroke, but take into account the flexibility of individual learners’ finger joints.
Demonstrate a good quality sound and ask learners to compare it to their own sound.
With learners, develop a vocabulary to describe the sound being produced, e.g. thin, round, big, small.
Discuss reasons for unsatisfying sounds, including those caused by left-hand inaccuracies.
Explain that the amount of sound produced by a guitar is determined solely by the amount of lateral displacement the string is subjected to prior to its release.
Ask learners to comment on each other’s tone quality and dynamics.
Play short, simple phrases using different dynamics and ask learners to copy them.
Ask learners to choose ways of playing simple phrases with different dynamics.
Singing the various alternatives can help the process of evaluation.
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