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I met Oscar Ghiglia in Wellington New Zealand back in the early '70's.
I was doing a classical guitar major at University and was in my first year.
Oscar was doing a tour of New Zealand and a fellow student and I went to a rehearsal session
he was having with the NZ Symphony Orchestra.
Of course, he was playing the Aranjuez Concerto....but my friend and I had not heard the work played live up to that time.
So we got seats in the circle and clutching our scores we sat in rapt attention.....He made it all seem so easy.
Come the end of the rehearsal we rushed down to the green room to meet the man.
He was very patient with our questions about certain passages....[anyone who's attempted the work know the ones]
He was putting his guitar away and suggested that he felt like a coffee and would be happy to continue the conversation
if we could suggest a nice cafe.....Well, he must have spent about an hour of his time showing how he [and most pros]
were dealing with some of the many thorny bits that are peppered through the work.
The kicker for me was how in the 3rd movement he simply inverted the arpeggiated chord section so as to keep the same
melody notes on to, so much easier...just common scale tone voicings. I was amazed....wow....you can do that! LOL
What a generous soul ....an unforgettable experience to hang with one of the greats!
Like your teacher I'd thrown in the gig scene ....rock/blues a little jazz snuck in here and there and playing to drunks or heads
and coming home at all hours stinking of cigarette smoke.
Hence my dedicated albeit late start in classical guitar study....at age 22.
Still love it....but the improv thing keeps tugging at my sleeve.
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04-15-2018 12:08 AM
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Originally Posted by NSJ
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Originally Posted by NSJ
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I studied jazz guitar in college.
It has served me well.
I have never formally studied classical guitar, although I have played around with solo pieces and use classical technique for finger picking.
My suggestion is to study both and get what you want/need out of each. Your own style will emerge. You may find you like one better than the other and decide to pursue that one, full time.
Good luck to you.
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Originally Posted by funnyval
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Precision in jazz is not uncommon: Pat Martino, Johnny Smith, etc. Freedom in classical is also not so uncommon, especially among the Latin American players. Do you think Charlie Byrd, with his W. Virginia blues background as well as classes with Segovia, sounded stiff? The major players of jazz on the classical guitar generally sound quite fluid when improvising: Bertoncini and Almeida come to mind. Classical technique actually frees you up to have more creativity, in fact.
The precision of Pat Martino and Johnny Smith shows in different aspects in music than the precision of technique required in classical perfomance...
Jazz style is kitchy essentially, it has to be sloppy and overexaggerated in expression even when it sounds sophisticated... this makes players control different things.
And I do not think that the classical technique does free you... at least the modern one... it just teaches you to play every thing... the whole method is built around developing skills to play any note in any needed way in any context. Which is only seemingly good... because the real music is about bad and good notes... the real music is connected with the real instrument... 19th century technique on guitar used weak and strong points to make music.
The problem of modern academic classicism is too much abstracy from the instrument.
Besides I always felt there is something unnatural even in fingerstyle (not necessarily classcal) jazz guitar (whatever respect I have for specific players)... it's like it is a bit too much to play jazz with)))
It very often turns into demostration of skills...
But I do not like modern classical guitar school in general - so I am prejudiced.
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Originally Posted by Jonah
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Originally Posted by ronjazz
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The Classical guitar school of teaching is very rigid, at least in Russia. Everything that is not Classical is looked down upon, jazz, pop, rock, folk, whatever.
And my Classical piano teacher made a point that anything remotely swing and that kind of articulation is very wrong. She knew I was a jazz gtr student, so she didnt really enforce much. But I could see how its taught. Same in Classical giitar.
But I practiced Carcassi exercises for right hand a lot, on my own, just because it designed to help with technique.
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Originally Posted by Hep To The Jive
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Another thing, I noticed a few Classical and flamenco players here who seriously studied that music for a long time and achieved a virtuosity level, and decided to play jazz. While as a solo performers they sound quite impressive, in a band situation they... to put mildly not that good. Their timing and sense of form suck. Locking up with a rhythm section is not happening. But they think they are hot sh$t because, well, they are virtuosos with amazing technique. That's my experience, I dont know how common it is.
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Originally Posted by Hep To The Jive
Last edited by mrblues; 06-19-2019 at 04:26 AM.
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Originally Posted by mrblues
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This kid got it right!
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I went down to the cross roads, fell down on my knees
I went down to the cross roads, fell down on my knees
Brought my class-e-kaall gee-tar, Se-go-vee-aaah don't bother meeeeee
I never saw that movie... really gotta find it.
I learned a couple of tings from the classical guitar world
1. Segovia fingerings (classical guitarists don't even use 'em anymore)--I found them very useful for learning how to shift musically across the fretboard. All of my scale studies incorporate different shifting principles. I don't like positional playing all the time--but that's just me. Oh, check out Abel Carlevaro, if you really want to practice your shifts.
2. Carcassi studies, yes they are great for technique.
3. Bach Violin Partitas and Sonatas--gotta go back to them--fun fact, Howard Alden told me this is one way that he worked up his technique.
4. Tone production and connecting every note UNLESS you want to play staccato--the guitar is a very staccato instrument, but it doesn't have to be chained to that as a dictum. I'm talking about playing legato with a plectrum, not legato playing ala Holdsworth (though his playing is pretty wild and beautiful). This is the one take-away I got from studying with James Chirillo. We didn't directly study rhythm guitar, but he was ALL about connecting the notes--even with the Van Eps studies we did--thank you James, but why couldn't you teach me a little Freddie Green--just a little?
5. Dynamic control--listen to Bream, Segovia, and yes, John Williams (let's stop hating on John--classical guitar world)
6. Thematic development--listen to Beethoven and Moe-zarht. I grew up listening to Mozart, Beethoven, Bach, Dylan, Beatles, and John Coltrane with my dad--odd mix, huh? He would always walk around the apartment humming Beethoven or Mozart--so I think I got some of it in my ear.
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Only the amateur, wannabe classical guitar world hates on John Williams. the REAL players have the utmost respect for him.
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Originally Posted by ronjazz
DB
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It's funny how some people think it's OK to play out of time in jazz.
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Originally Posted by Hep To The Jive
I wanted to play like that, so I bought a classical guitar and a telecaster and started taking classical guitar lessons to develop good technique, especially right hand technique. I ended up falling in love with classical guitar, too.
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Originally Posted by christianm77
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Been on a classical guitar kick as I have to teach it atm. Mostly reading through the grades so I can be prepared to teach them. I always enjoy going through these phases. It’s very satisfying.
I do find myself marvelling at a lot of the bad teaching of classical grades though from some of my students who have been with other teachers previously... I would hardly hold myself up as an exemplar of CG, wouldn’t give a recital, but I know how it works.
and you get poor technique uncorrected, fingerings ignored or simplified, no attention paid to dynamics or interpretation.... it’s pretty bad. the people doing the teaching are jazz guitarists tbh.
I’ve had a few classical lessons (probably more than jazz tbh) and I do think it makes you a better musician, maybe even more than a player. Paying close attention to sound and interpretation.... stuff that would also make you a better jazz player.
There’s an argument that ever player should do a bit of classical. I’m more sympathetic to that atm. I think it did me a lot of good.
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I started out with classical at age 12 with lessons from a good classical guitarist and teacher, I think it helped me enormously. My son did the same (he started at age 9 though, got a head start on me!).
I do think a good classical teacher is necessary. Mine covered all aspects, e.g. tone production, posture, technique, interpretation, possible fingerings, it’s all stayed with me ever since, whatever style I subsequently got into.
If I recall correctly, my son’s teacher also taught Laura Snowden (she lived near us at the time), and who is now quite a successful classical guitarist.
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Originally Posted by grahambop
He was later taught by Laura’s teacher, so at least I got that bit right!
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About the OP's original post:
Jazz is something you ultimately teach yourself. At least more than classical. All you need to learn jazz is inspiration to pick up the instrument! If you had to pick between the two to study at university, I'd always pick classical.
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