Carlevaro - Technique
This discussion thread is dedicated to Carlevaro's technical aspect of his work.
How to Get Started
Maestro Carlevaro introduced his technical ideas to his students by using the technical Cuadernos accompanied by the School of Guitar book.
- School of Guitar: Exposition of Instrumental Theory
- Didactic Serie for Guitar, Cuaderno #1 - Diatonic Scales
- Didactic Serie for Guitar, Cuaderno #2 - Right Hand Technique
- Didactic Serie for Guitar, Cuaderno #3 - Left Hand Technique
- Didactic Serie for Guitar, Cuaderno #4 - Left Hand Technique (Conclusion)
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Turning my attention to the LH, here is my favorite exercise from Cuaderno No 3, exercise 86. This exercise/study focuses on "traslados por salto" or shifts by jumps.
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Dale Needles Great idea, Dale! I will provide this! Thanks!
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Dale Needles Blaise Laflamme Moyses Lopes Hey Dale, The exercises you indicated play bass notes with i-m. This is destroying my RH nails. Is it okay to use thumb for the bass notes, since these are intended mainly as a LH exercises?
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Barney Hi Barney, if the i-m on the bass notes are destroying your RH nails, then by all means use the thumb on the bass notes.
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Dale Needles Okay, thanks Dale!
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Barney This is indeed the goal to destroy RH nails!
For sure using the thumb has no impact on LH technique, on my side I usually change the RH finger angle to be parallel to the string to prevent such thing, the sound is then thinner but the exercise do not requires a thick sound 
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Blaise Laflamme Thanks Blaise for sharing your angle for RH nails. I think for now I'll use the thumb, and perhaps experiment with the alternative.
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Blaise Laflamme I use the same trick. It's not a great sound, but it's useful to avoid wearing out the nails.
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Hi guys, I got a question on the barre and the right arm, so now I’ve trying to use gravity and applying the analogy by Alfredo of a pianist hitting the key without the thumb, but i find that sometimes when I do that, the guitar will often be pulled in too much with my left hand and I needed to clamp the guitar body with my right arm.
There are certain barres, full or half that I find myself needing to apply a bit of thumb or clamp the guitar with my right arm. Is this normal? Thanks!
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don Hey Don, great to see your interest in Carlevaro's SoG! The first question is do you apply Carlevaro's guitar position concepts or something similar? Without a proper position, using a more or less pronounced guitar angle, the behaviour of your arms/hands/fingers will not be suitable for using gravity and arm weight according to SoG approach. For sure nothing is dogmatic and sometimes the use, or combination, of the LH thumb and / or the RA could be required but not as a base behaviour. I'm sharing with you my personal «variant» of Carlevaro's position, you can do the same then we can figure out what's going on.
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Blaise Laflamme Hey Blaise, Would it be convenient for you to share 3 more photos of you with (1) a front view showing full legs and guitar support, (2) same as your top photo but showing full legs and support, and (3) same as your bottom photo but showing full legs and support. It would be great to also see in the photos the position of your feet on the floor, if possible. Thanks!
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Barney Ok Barney I'll try to do that later when I'm back. For legs, since I'm using a guitar support and have both foot on the floor, for me the stability (and for my back) is then better reach when feet are next to each other. When I was using a footstool my feet were similar to figure 2 though.
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Blaise Laflamme Great, thanks Blaise!
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Blaise Laflamme Thank you! Yes I am actually using this method of doing barre. I’m trying to instill some of the things I learn from the book and the livestream into my playing starting with the new piece that I’m currently learning.
Right now, I’m mindfully playing very very slowly, deliberately and as relax as I can with my left hand. Tilting the guitar and using gravity and arm weight for each notes.
I realized for some passages when I needed to do a quasi bar (using 1 finger covering 2 strings in the middle) or when I playing closer to the higher fret where the action is higher, it is not possible to do the piano playing fingers that Alfredo mentioned in his live steam. You either need the left hand thumb to stablelize or the right hand to clamp down the body of guitar.
But when I see Alfredo or Calevaro playing, they seemed so relax. So I’m not sure if I’m doing anything wrong. Thank you!
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don Hard to tell without seeing and hearing you in action, but as I mentioned there are situations where you have to compensate because of multiple factors: quality of the instrument, technical difficulty of the passage, accumulated fatigue, ... And it can also take time to «fully» integrate in your «current» playing, a new piece is not a pledge of doing everything «the new way» because a lot more is involved overall, that's why the exercises coupled to a daily routine will ensure a long term integration.
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don I agree with Blaise, it is very hard to say anything without seeing this action you are describing. Anyway, Blaise's advice that exercises coupled with a daily routine will ensure that long term integration is gold. Don't be too hard on yourself, take your time and your studies will result. Regards!
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Barney Sorry for the delay, don't forget this is a static position for a photo and is used a base (starting point) but my body moves as I play... as you can see in my videos
... hope this helps!
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Blaise Laflamme This is great and extremely helpful. Thanks very much Blaise!!!
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Moyses Lopes Hey Moyses, Is your GuitarLift support putting your guitar in a position like Blaise? Thanks!
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Barney Yes! Seems to work the same! Maybe I can try to do some pictures, but for sure I'm not photogenic like Blaise.
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Moyses Lopes Pictures would be great. (we know Blaise is more handsome than most of us, haha). With the GuitarLift, does the back of the guitar touch your chest at some point?
Thanks!
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Blaise Laflamme In some of your videos, your Sageworks Atlas rosewood looks highly polished (beautiful). Their website shows the finish as flat satin Did you modify it?
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Barney Moyses Lopes Haha... good joke! About the Sagework no it's not polished, probably an effect of the light, I have both the wood and plastic one.
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Blaise Laflamme Okay, got it. Thanks!
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Moyses Lopes Blaise Laflamme
Thanks! Maybe this will help for context, I tried the barre when I tilted the guitar, adjust my barre finger to the left and let gravity pull it down. but this requires my right arm clamping down the guitar. I was exaggerating a bit in the video but when it is not possible to do that if I move my right arm.
I was thinking of putting some of ideas I learn of this method and putting it into new pieces that I'm learning. What I was doing was slow practice but with the tilt and angle, (I was exaggerating with the thumb) with minimum thumb pressure but I realize while my left hand becomes more relax my right arm ends up being stuck in a position.
So not sure if I got it right. Thanks again!
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don The right arm contact point is important for stability but it doesn't need any applied strength, just use the same gravity and weight concepts but for the right arm and drop it at the contact point. As I said in some context you'll have to adapt your position, gravity and weight distribution while you play but for short period of time and in relation to specific things. By experimenting everyday, while being aware of what you're doing (in a controlled state of mind, body with specific exercises), you'll find the right amount required to make it work, in ways similar to finding the pressure needed (and not more) to press the fingers on the strings. Make sense?
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