My First Year

I'm past the one year and a half, or close to two, or whatever, but I've struggled with being patient with myself. I like that, on guitar (rather than, say a keyboard), there are always tone production and other parts of the physical mechanism to work on, and to enjoy the timbral variety as I work on different technical problems. It's a good distraction from what seems like a glacial learning progress. Mine is an internal "should", and when I fail my expectations, I consciously do slow practice and work on my listening skills trying to communicate something to myself, even through a short passage (played deliberately but as musically as I can).

One thing that is a persistent problem for me is left-hand tension in the forearm. Taking light practice days between longer ones and being disciplined in not sight-reading (poorly) through pieces for too long helps. When I am not fully prepared for the next hand position, that is when tension builds up as I awkwardly reach at the last second to cover the notes. Have you had any ergonomic issues like this? My right hand stays pretty relaxed on what I am able to play, but I am still learning to internalize the spacing of the strings, especially on skips.

Getting the guitar in the perfect place using various supports has been tricky, too. I have a slightly shorter scale-length guitar which helps in position I since my fingers are shorter and less flexible (hopefully I will gain flexibility). However, the body is also a bit smaller, so I am trying the Ergoplay, the GuitarLift, a footrest, a leg cushion...argh. It's a process! 

I hope there are other newbies that are willing to chat on forums about the struggles that come up. I thank you for sharing. Perhaps that will stimulate more conversation in the beginners' circle here on ToneBase. Maybe Martin can help facilitate a place for new players to bring up common issues (and not common ones, too... maybe experienced players will chime in, too).

Hi, Michelle!

Congrats on your first year!!

both answers by @Eric and @David are good and helpful. Enjoying yourself is VERY important. Not only enjoying but also learning about yourself and your hands and concentration and how you breath and a lot of things that if you develop them while studying will make your life better. 

But also there are some tips that can make your "selfawarness" a little more tolerable, for example: don't rush from one piece to another. Continue to play the "old"things. The studies you did when you first begun. Pieces are as friends, i tell my students. you cannot ask them for a lot if you just met them. You only get the trust and confidence to ask more to the ones you have befriended for a continued period a long time. 

Also, the pieces that you are studying "now" will ALLWAYS be the most difficult pieces you'll always be playing. And therefore will come along with a certain "angst" that's almost unavoidable. If you just study the new pieces. You'll teach your body to be used to the "angst" and it'll never find the ease that you actually need (muscularly) to get a nice sound. There are many things to be said regarding the left and right hand but that would require a video showing what you do and much more time... 

i hope this comment is useful! 

Ariel  

I guess I am a newbie too, not in terms of age, but because it's been 2 years or so since I picked up the guitar again and started making a serious effort. I sometimes say to myself that I was quite naive thinking that I'd learn to play the guitar, because, gosh, it is much more difficult than I thought. I have a collection of pieces compiled by Walter Götze called 'Die stunde der Gitarre' and these are called 'easy' pieces ('leicht' in German). Well, I find it difficult enough to play this pieces really musically and more often than not there is a passage or two that is quite tricky to play well. So it's quite a journey, learning to play the guitar. Still, I do find that I am making progress. This is not so obvious from day to day, but if I go back to pieces that I was playing a couple of months ago I notice my progression. So this is the attitude I take: I know I will be better, say, 6 months from now. In the here and now I focus on improving my technique through exercices and playing repertoire. Tonebase is a great resource and a great help in staying motivated.

Michelle Roper

First of all, thank you for sharing details about your first year, classical guitar journey, including the frustrations. It sounds like you are on a great path and taking it on thoughtfully with great love for our instrument.!

I did not begin classical guitar in earnest until 30 years old.  Prior to beginning classical, I had played rock, some acoustic guitar and learned jazz guitar fundamentals on steel string instruments.

Was extremely fortunate to find a great teacher who required balancing learning of body posture, physical technique, theory/harmony and most of all reading (extremely slow at first) very musical and appropriate exercises and etudes from the very first lesson!

It was very slow and methodical process.  I was working full-time and could only devote at most 8 hours per week to focued practice.  We spent two years in First Lessons for  Guitar by Julio Sagreras --supplemented with  other exercises from Emilio Pujol and harmony studies from Walter Piston. My teacher was an expert in integrating these things through a repetitive set of steps where every exercise and etude was read and learned correctly -- focusing on melodic development, Identify lines/parts in the music, phrases and cadences, etc.

The entire process seemed like a major delay of gratification as I kept asking the question "when are we going to get to actual classical guitar repertoire?". After finishing the first Sagreras book, we transition to Initial repertoire via a few Brouwer simple etudes and Sor Study #5.

After about 3 1/2 years of total study, I Was very fortunate to play for an old friend who is a professional classical violinist with a Masters degree in violin performance.  She had known me a few few years prior as a nascent jazz guitar student and was blown away by how much progress I had made on Classical Guitar -- not so much, WRT "fancy repertoire", but solid technique and musical expression In the simple etudes and pieces that I could play

All that to say that it is good to keep technique and musicality in balance.  It takes many years to decades for most people to develop virtuoso level technique.  The sobering reality is most people who play classical guitar, never attain virtuoso-level technique, yet that's OK because there's so much beauty and fulfillment in being able to play more basic things at the best level one can.  

Since beginning classical guitar studies, 33 years ago, I've gone through years of not playing at all. Now retired and in my mid 60s., I practice many hours per day between jazz and classical.  Although I would probably be considered an "intermediate" level player, WRT repertoire and technique , this journey remains so fulfilling.

Stay on the path, Michelle, you won't regret it!