AndrГ©s Segovia, Photo: Wikmedia Spanish and South American StrainsДЇlamenco guitar developed in Spain in the mid-1800s, primarily as a percussive accompaniment for dancers, and the word flamenco refers to the dance. In a career that spanned more than 80 years, Segovia set the stage for newer generations of virtuoso classical guitarists, including Ida Presti, Julian Bream, John Williams, Christopher Parkening, Sharon Isbin, and many others who would help further expand the scope and repertoire of Example 2 is a snippet from GiulianiвЂ™s 120 Right Hand Studies, a collection that offers great ways to develop fingerstyle technique for classical and other players.Д¬lassical-guitar technique evolved to have fairly rigorous rules for the right-hand, involving picking with flesh and a bit of nails, and having two main strokes: apoyando (rest stroke), in which the finger comes to rest against an adjacent string after a note is picked, and tirando (free stroke), which does not involve any resting.ДЇew players have been as influential in the development of classical technique and repertoire as AndrГ©s Segovia, perhaps the most celebrated proponent of the instrument. Mauro Giuliani and Fernando Sor were well-known performers and composers who wrote complex pieces for the instrument, and their works remain core parts of classical guitar studies. Instruments that looked very much like modern classical guitars began to appear in the 1700s. Bach also composed for the lute his вЂњBourГ©e in E Minor,вЂќ an excerpt of which is shown in Example 1, is a staple among guitarists and an excellent example of independent musical lines that require fingerstyle technique to perform on a single guitar. John Dowland was one of the best-known lutenists in England and his compositions remain popular with guitarists to this day. But with the development of the lute, by the early 1500s players began using their thumb and fingers to produce polyphonic music. Early ancestors of the guitar were often plucked with a quill-the predecessor of the pick. The history of fingerstyle guitar mirrors the history of the guitar itself in many ways. The Classical Tradition of Fingerstyle Guitar It will also present a variety of examples to get you started with this versatile and essential approach to guitar. Here we will explore these styles, along with a bit of the history of fingerstyle guitar, and some of the more influential players who have applied the technique to different genres. But taking a wider view, fingerstyle encompasses a huge range of musical styles-classical, flamenco, jazz, folk, world music, and beyond-all bound together by a fundamentally similar technique. Just as the term flatpicking often implies a certain musical style and not just the technique of using a pick, fingerstyle sometimes brings to mind a specific genre of instrumental guitar. The ability to leverage individual fingers allows guitarists to play multiple parts at once, with separate bass lines, melodies, and accompaniment, often leading those who first hear a fingerstyle recording to think they are hearing more than one guitar. Johnson was of course conjuring up the sound of simultaneous rhythm and lead guitars by playing fingerstyle.ДЇingerstyle guitar is a technique that uses the thumb and fingers to sound individual strings instead of relying on a pick.

Keith Richards has said that when he first heard the solo recordings of famed bluesman Robert Johnson, his first question was вЂњWhoвЂ™s that?вЂќ and his second was, вЂњWhoвЂ™s that other guy playing with him?вЂќ But there was no other player. From the November/December 2021В issueВ of Acoustic GuitarВ | By Doug Young