IV. Fingering // MAR 10th
Alright my friends, here we go with Session 4 
In this thread, we will be talking about the fourth lesson of our music reading course. Please use this thread if you have any questions concerning the workbook or general questions concerning guitar fingering!
Click here to access Session 4: Fingering // Mar 10th (11am PST, 2pm EST, 8pm CET)
Find the other sessions here: Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 5
Download the fourth workbook here
Find the assignments on pages 17-18 of the workbook!
Feel free to only practice a selection of those, in accordance with the time you have available and the level of technical proficiency you already possess.
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I have a little proble with Dyens "Tango en Skai". Here is my fingering. As I remember Mircea proposed something slightly different. Here my 3rd and 4th finger are Guide fingers... Right hand fingering is maybe not good
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Marek Tabisz Marek, this is a perfectly fine fingering! Great job!
the only thing that I would personally do differently is play the first E (fourth note) with the 2nd finger rather than with the 1st. This is because 1) it will allow me to prepare the 2 in advance; 2) I won't have to "close" my hand following the very open position required for the first three notes. But in general, this fingering should work! -
Mircea Thank you for your advice, you are absolutely right. I just realized that I play it like you do, but I wrote it differently
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Marek Tabisz Oh cool! Great - in that case, I think this fingering works very well!
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sorry 3rd and 2nd :-)
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Hi Micea, just a quick word to say thank you for last nights live session. Really enjoyed it, I've never done anything like this before, so I will have a go at the various exercises. The session opened up my mind. Thanks again.
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JOHN ANDERSON Thank you so much, John!!! Very happy to hear you enjoyed it! And looking forward to seeing some of your exercises, perhaps!
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Hi Mircea,
Thank you so much for the class! I am learning a LOT! The guitar is very new to me, so I am really slow; but I am enjoying it anyway. I had to make myself a guitar chart, because I get really confused about higher and lower. Seeing it on paper helps me process it.
For assignment 4b, would you let me know if my fingering is okay or if there is better fingering? (I put the fingering above the score.)
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Desi Husband the chart is a great idea! My dad made something like this for me when he was learning guitar with me by sitting in on my lessons when I had just started to learn from a private teacher!
When it comes to the fingering, great question! This one is valid, however, there is an alternative that I'll explain below.
First of all, if you do play everything on the sixth string, as you showed in this fingering, I would change the fingers on the second half of measure 1 (D, E, F) - remember incomplete measures are not generally counted, so the measure that starts with a C is your measure 1. I would use 1 (index finger) for D and 3 (ring finger) for E.
I would also change some of the fingerings in the next measure, namely to what I've attached here. This might make it easier to play.
Secondly, try using both the sixth and fifth string to play this passage, rather than just the sixth! My prompt "try to play without open strings" does not mean that everything should necessarily be on the same string, although that's not wrong either. It's certainly easier on the fingers if you combine them, so give it a go and see what it feels like!
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Mircea Good for your dad!
Thanks so much for the fingering suggestions and which strings to play! That should make things much smoother!
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Hi Mircea,
Thank you for your time on this subject. I've attached a link to week 4 exercises attempt. Apologies that it's not great, but I've had no time for practice this week & the recording was all a bit of a rush. I hope you'll forgive the bum notes etc.
I also enjoyed your session on Musescore the other day - very helpful to me as a total novice player/student.
Colin
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Colin O'Regan great job on all of these!!! Thank you for sending them in and sharing with us. There is very little for me to say this on account of how good everything sounds and looks! Congratulations and keep it up
4a: Perfect!!!
Nothing for me to say here at all. Wonderful job! 4b: Great job! Well done on following the prompt and playing everything in such a fluid tempo and with such good voice leading! One little detail: the first note in measure 3 was supposed to be a C. You played it as a D. Possibly just a slip of the moment though! Great job on everything overall.
4e: Perfect once again!!
Great job on everything - this was great!
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More apologies Mircea - I've only just seen that 2 of the exercises were dropped from the video edit somehow - Note to self - don't do this stuff in a rush.!!
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Colin O'Regan No problem, Colin - these things happen!
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Hi Mircea- I'm enjoying your classes. 1 have a couple questions: In the 2nd to 3rd measure of the Villa lobos prelude #1 there is slur line below— what does that indicate?
Second what app are you using to annotate the score?
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Takato Umeda Hi Takato! That's a very good question! That's a phrase marking, also known as a legatto marking, under certain circumstances. It means that the notes it encompasses are supposed to all form part of the same musical "phrase" - basically that they shouldn't be split anywhere in the middle. Hope this helps!
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Hallo Mircea,
unfortunately I was only able to download the 1st workbook. For all others, the download was not permitted: unsafe site. Alternatively, how do I get workbooks 2-5?
