How to Read Classical

Guitar Music
by Christopher Davis

Like any other instrument, classical guitar

music is written on a staff. There are great
resources all over the web that teach and
train reading on the staff. Notation reading
should be fluent and effortless.

Starting from the bottom line of the staff, a

sentence can be used to figure out each of
the notes on the lines. ―Every Good Boy
Does Fine‖ is the most common sentence.
―Even George Bush Drives Fast‖ is another.
A young student came to me and he had
made up his own sentence, ―Elmo Gave
Barny Dead Fish‖
The spaces spell a word from bottom space
to top: FACE.

Stop Guessing
With these tools a beginning player
SHOULD NEVER GUESS the note which
they are going to play. It’s not about putting
your fingers down and hoping, it’s about
knowing. That means at the beginning stage
of reading music, one should talk through the
sentences or words if need be and know the
notes. Often time students have a
disassociation between the actual note names
and where to put their fingers. Their
intellectual concept of the staff is well
developed but their muscle memory is not.
The key is to train both at once. This can be
accomplished very simply by saying the note
names aloud while playing them. This works
well playing melodies but fails with
polyphonic music. Practice reading
individual melodies, in multiple positions on
the guitar, first.
Numbers, Letters and Strange
Markings…

In addition to all the standard notation stuff,

classical guitar music has some very specific
things that go on in it. To notate left hand
(LH) fingering, we use numbers:

1=LH index
2=LH middle
3=LH ring
4=LH pinky

To those former pianists (recovering

pianists?) this can be a bit confusing as the
thumb is normally considered 1. For the right
hand (RH) we use letters:

p=RH thumb
i=RH index
m=RH middle
a=RH ring
c=RH pinky

Most times the pinky is not used on the right

hand, but sometimes a ―c‖ pops up.

The other strange markings or words are

going to be musical instructions on things
such as tempo, articulation and dynamics.
It’s also possible that some markings or
words are indications of special or extended
techniques, but most pieces of music will
have a legend or key for those markings.
Here is an online dictionary of music terms
for your reference. It can also be helpful to
have a reference around like The Harvard
Dictionary of Music. If you’re still a college
or graduate student check out your school
library website. Most schools will have
online access to the Grove Dictionary of
Music and Musicians which is a tremendous
resource.

The key to getting better at reading is doing

more of it. Which sucks. A lot. But there’s
no way around it. With all the free music
(check out the links page for some websites)
floating around on the web, there should be
no shortage of music to read. A book of jazz
licks can also be a great way to practice
reading: just play the lick in multiple
positions. Good luck! and happy reading!

Goal Oriented
Guitar Practice
by Christopher Davis
See a more updated version of this theory:
Goal Oriented Guitar Practice (revisited)
I’ve mentioned this before, but I’m not a
huge fan of practice schedules. A lot of folks
out there think they need absolute structure
to their practice time:

10 minutes arpeggios
20 minutes scales
30 minutes etudes
5 minutes checking cell phone
20 minutes repertoire

There’s only question to ask yourself: are

you improving? If yes, continue with current
practice routine. If no, why? Lack of
improvement could be any number of things,
but that’s another blog entirely.
I believe that musicians should have a time
only schedule. That is, “practice X
hours/day.” This leaves a lot up in the
air. Some time should certainly allocated to
technique. I like to do that right away in the
morning, for about a half hour–this is more
to prepare my hands for the rest of the day
than anything. After that I have a series of
small goals to accomplish throughout my
practice.

We often have the difficult sections of a given

piece marked, or the parts that give us
trouble blocked off in our minds. So work on
them! Make it a goal for a unit of practice to
perfect a small portion and reinsert it back
into the context of the piece. I tried writing
these goals down in a sort of practice
journal, but I work better with the mental list
instead. However, a practice journal can be
a useful tool.

This allows a lot more flexibility than a strict

schedule, and keeps practice
interesting. And it works!

What’s your practice routine look like?

Practice Perfect
by Christopher Davis

I’m writing about this because I’m terrible at

it. Sometimes it’s really easy to get caught
up in the flow a piece and just keep going
every time it’s practiced. The reality is that if
mistakes are practiced each time, mistakes
will happen in performance. The goal of
practice time should be to play something
perfect each and every time. If that means
that something has to played slow or you
have to use stop and go practicing, do it!

Above it all it’s about simplifying and

breaking down. If you have an arpeggio
passage with a rough chord change, don’t
attempt to work on the chord change with the
RH pattern. Just work the chord change first
until it’s very secure, do the same with the
right hand pattern, then put them together.

Practice perfectly, and make less mistakes in

performance!

Self Teaching for the

Classical Guitar
by Christopher Davis

Sometimes it’s hard to find a teacher and

sometimes it’s not financially possible to
take a lesson every week. Many people
choose the path of self instruction, relying on
the various resources out there to help them
progress. Here’s a few tips that might help.

Talk to Other Classical Guitarists

While lessons are the best bet for developing

a sound technique and sense of musicality,
just informally chatting with other classical
guitarists can help. A lot. There’s many
avenues available to do this. One of them is a
guitar or classical guitar forum. Ask
questions! Listen to and watch other people
of your same level.
Repertoire Choice is King

One of the best things a teacher can do is

give you repertoire that’s at your level of
ability. If you’re self teaching, you have no
guidance in repertoire choices. However,
asking on a forum or asking a friend is a
great way to get some advice on where to
start. The Royal College Music guitar series
books are another great way to have access
to a bunch of carefully graded repertoire.
Working from a method book (see below) is
another great way to have graded repertoire.
Many free sheet music sites (including the
ones on the links page) have some grading
system available. Start with the lowest level!
While it’s tempting to jump in feet first,
learning the guitar requires a lot of brain
power be devoted to how the hands are
moving. If a piece is too hard, chances are all
your time will be spent simply trying to get
the notes.

Slow Down

It’s exciting to play the guitar! but please,

slow down. I tell my students this all the
time. Play it perfectly slow rather than screw
it up all the time.

Honest Self Evaluation

Teaching yourself requires some very honest

self evaluation. Does the piece sound like
you want it to? Why? How can you make it
sound that way. Other than the musical
aspects, there’s the technique. Keeping your
wrist generally straight is the foundation of
guitar technique. Other than that, LH on the
fingertips–fingers 1 and 4 will be slightly on
their outside edges, fingers 2 and 3 are more
straight on–and RH is mostly about just
keeping at the knuckles moving in the same
direction. You can see a bit about RH
technique on my youtube page. The thing
that will take you furthest, however, is not
any set of rules about either hand. It’s the
ability to think critically about what your
hands have to do. What does that LH do
when I move to this chord? Is it working?
Try different things! Choose the thing that
works the best! And be sure to keep that
observation for the next time a similar
situation comes up.

Listen!

With out a teacher guiding you on the

musical aspects of a piece, it become
increasingly important to do more listening.
Specifically, try to listen to piece that you
are playing. Mimic the performers, then
decided if you like what they did. If yes,
keep it. If no, throw it out.

Read

Read a lot of stuff about classical guitar.

Method books are a great place to start.
Pumping Nylon is another good one. It’s also
possible to work out of a method book for
repertoire choices and technique advice.
Below is an amazon store with some of the
available methods. Also, this book has some
great stuff in it.

Methods are strange creatures. Some move

fast and some move slow. The Aaron
Shearer method as been around a long time,
and is full of very precise technical
instructions in part one. The music is in part
two. The Christopher Parkening method
contains some good music, but at a certain
point gets too hard for most beginners. Mel
Bay’s Classical Guitar Method by Stanley
Yates is the method I use with my students.
Generally it moves pretty slow, but in such a
way that is just about right for beginners.
Note reading is not emphasized as much in
the Yates’ method, so some supplementary
materials may be needed. The Frederic Noad
―Solo Guitar Playing‖ method is long and
slow moving. A lot of people like this
method! I have this method but don’t use it
with students; I do think that it’s popular for
a reason: it’s pretty good. Tons of music, and
a lot of supplementary pieces at the end of
the book. There are many more methods out
there, but almost any will work at the
beginning.
Guitar Practice Tips
For some guitar practice is a time to de-stress
and unwind. For others, it’s like a job — part
of their professional music career or a
serious hobby. Whether you’re in either boat
or somewhere in the middle, chances are you
don’t have enough practicing time. That’s
where the Classical Guitar Blog can help.
Most of the articles you’ll find here are about
practicing more efficiently and practicing
better.

Goal Oriented Guitar Practice

Goal Oriented Guitar Practice is about

setting long term performance goals. Then
taking those goals and breaking them up into
actionable steps: what piece should have you
learned by when? Then we get into the daily
goals — what should you practice every day
to accomplish your long term goals?

Daily goals come from your practice log in

which you write down both what you did
during a given practice session and your
ideas about practicing and how to improve a
given passage.

This is the overarching philosophy behind all

guitar practice posts here on the Classical
Guitar Blog.

Dealing with Practice Inconsistency

If you haven’t been playing long, chances

are you notice some inconsistency during
your practice time. Some days things work;
others they don’t. The good news is the
longer you play guitar, and the better you get
a practicing, there will be less bad days and
you will get more consistent.

Remember: focus on the the long term

trends. Practicing is really an act of faith.
You have to believe that what you’re doing
is going to work in the long term. So be
consistent and stick with it.

That said, try to evaluate and cut out stuff

that isn’t working.

Taking Practice Breaks

One of the most underrated aspects of

practicing is the time when you aren’t
practicing at all. That’s why it’s really
important to take one day off from practicing
each week.
Sometimes those days off are the most
important. You can take a break to improve.

That said you can still be productive during

your practice break.

Fixing Mistakes

A mistake in performance is one of two

things: (1) a complete fluke that just
happened or (2) a real error that you built
into your playing by faulty practicing.

Hard things, places where you make

mistakes, are called practice events. They are
places where you should utilize guitar
practice techniques and try to practice
perfect.
Practice Schedules and Finding
Time to Practice

One of the easiest ways to find guitar

practice time is to set aside a certain time
every day. Enlist your family and friends,
and make sure that they know that you have
this sacred practice time. The rule: turn off
your phone and computer, then go practice
during that time 6 out of every 7 days. No
exceptions.

Once you have that time, you can start

thinking about practice schedules and how
much time you spend working on individual
aspects of your playing: technique,
repertoire, etudes, etc.

Part of being an efficient practicer is

knowing when to stop.
If you’re short on time, trying using a task
oriented practice schedule. Also, remember
that you can still be very effective with short
practice sessions.

This is only a small sampling of some of the

best posts. To see all posts about practicing,
check out the practice category.
Books about Practicing
On Practicing by Ricardo Iznaola

On Practicing is Ricardo
Iznaola’s very successful attempt at
producing a quick guide for undergraduate
guitar performance majors. Iznaola covers
what sorts of things should make up your
practice time and how to problem solve. It’s
a really solid collection of information for
not a ton of money. My only critique is that
Iznaola does have a very formal writing
style, which can make some sections a bit
unclear.

The Arts of Practicing by Madeline Bruser

Madeline Bruser is a
pianist, but The Art of Practicing is not piano
specific. The book delves more into the
spiritual and intellectual side of practicing
and connecting with music. That said, there
are some very practice tidbits: thoughts on
posture and sitting and a breathing exercise
to prepare yourself for a practice session are
two examples. This may not be a book that
you want to buy, but it’s worth checking out
from the library.
The Musician’s Way by Gerald Klickstein

The Musician’s Way is

probably one of the most complete books
about being a musician ever published. It
includes all sorts of advice, but practice
advice makes up a significant portion of the
book. If you’d like to learn more, check out
my review of the book.
Sympathetic Motion
by Christopher Davis

This stuff is definitely not my idea. Aaron

Shearer talks about it in Mel Bay Learning
the Classic Guitar: Part 1, and Christopher
Berg also talks about it in Mastering Guitar
Technique: Process & Essence.

Cliff Notes:

 Sympathetic motion is the idea that as

one RH finger moves, it pulls the others
along with.
 The best way to get a sense of what
that’s like is to just roll a chord: it feels
like one big movement
 We use m a together as a compound or
composite stroke
o play m a together.
o Put a little tension on a, play, a
hangs behind a bit and
separates. Two separate
sounds, one motion.
o same thing works if you put a bit
of tension on m
 You can use sympathetic motion on
arpeggios as well
 Arpeggios like p i m i or p i a i use
sympathetic motion followed by a
return by another finger (opposing
motion).
 Sympathetic motion is easy at fast
tempos, harder at moderate tempos,
and doesn’t really work so great at
slower tempos.
 For another explanation, check out this
video from Lutemann
Here are some common arpeggios from the
view of using sympathetic motion. Really
using this is just like sequential planting on
steroids. I did not practice sympathetic
motion specifically to develop it, but found
that it developed on its own from practicing
all arpeggios with sequential planting. The
key is to extend the fingers, i m a as one unit.

p i m: p plays; i and m extend, i plants; i

plays, pulls m onto the string; m plays, p
extends and plants.

p m i: p plays; i and m extend, m plants; m

plays, pulls i onto the string; i plays, p plants.

p i a: p plays, i and a extend, i plants; i

plants, pulls a onto the string; a plays, p
plants.
p a i: p plays, i and ma extend, a plants; a
plays, pulls i onto the string; i plays, p plants.

p m a: p plays, m and a extend, both plant; m

plays, put a little tension in a; a plays, p
plants (this is the compound stroke motion).

p a m: p plays, m and a extend, both plant; a

plays, put a little tension in m; m plays, p
plants (compound stroke).

You can then develop the compound stroke

into sequentially planting by letting the
second finger sit out from the string a bit,
and gets pull in by the motion of the first
finger–just like p i m works!
A Right Hand
Arpeggio Routine
by Christopher Davis

When I wrote Fun with p i m, it was

something I was experimenting with. My
arpeggio technique practice is usually the
arpeggios from the first three groups of
studies in Giuliani 120+ done using
Slow/Fast Alternation. (Yes, I do the things I
write about!)

The past few weeks, however, I’ve been

changing it up; I’ve been starting with
different finger on each arpeggio (still using
slow/fast alternation). This is an effort to
challenge my fingers a bit more and keep
things interesting.

The Schedule

Day 1:
p i m, p m i, p i a, p a i, p m a, p a m
i m p, m p i
m i p, i p m
i a p, a p i
a i p, i p a
m a p, a p m
a m p, m p a

Day 2:
p i m i, p m i m, p i a i, p m a m, p a m a
i m i p, m i p i, i p i m
m i m p, i m p m, m p m i
i a i p, a i p i, i p i a
a i a p, i a p a, a p a i
m a m p, a m p m, m p m a
a m a p, m a p a, a p a m

Day 3:
p i m a, p m a i, p i a m, p a m i, p a i m, p m
ia
i m a p, m a p i, a p i m
m a i p, a i p m, i p m a
i a m p, a m p i, m p i a
a m i p, m i p a, i p a m
a i m p, i m p a, m p a i (cross string trill
patterns)
m i a p, i a p m, a p m i

Day 4: repeat day 1

Day 5: repeat day 2
Day 6: repeat day 3
Day 7: OFF
The function of reordering the fingers is to
shift the accent around. The challenge,
really, is to keep the accent on the first
finger, but still use the Sympathetic Motion
developed by doing arpeggios starting with
the thumb.

A Note About Time

At first it takes a while to do these exercises.
The first week, for me, it took about thirty
minutes for each day. After the patterns are
better assimilated it will take less time. If it
takes you a while to get right hand patterns
down, consider working on just a few of the
patterns at first. Build up to doing the entire
routine.
The other side of time is tempo. I do not use
a metronome in technique practice often.
These exercises can be practice with or with
out a metronome, but I do recommend
slow/fast alternation as soon as the patterns
are assimilated.

A Few Notes

If you’re a beginning guitarist, this routine is

not for you. See Technical Exercises for the
Absolute Beginner, or work with simpler
arpeggio forms like p i m, p i m i, p m i, and
p m i m.

Sympathetic Motion
by Christopher Davis
This stuff is definitely not my idea. Aaron
Shearer talks about it in Mel Bay Learning
the Classic Guitar: Part 1, and Christopher
Berg also talks about it in Mastering Guitar
Technique: Process & Essence.

Cliff Notes:

 Sympathetic motion is the idea that

as one RH finger moves, it pulls the
others along with.
 The best way to get a sense of what
that’s like is to just roll a chord: it
feels like one big movement
 We use m a together as a compound
or composite stroke
o play m a together.
o Put a little tension on a, play,
a hangs behind a bit and
 separates. Two separate
sounds, one motion.
o same thing works if you put a
bit of tension on m
 You can use sympathetic motion on
arpeggios as well
 Arpeggios like p i m i or p i a i use
sympathetic motion followed by a
return by another finger (opposing
motion).
 Sympathetic motion is easy at fast
tempos, harder at moderate tempos,
and doesn’t really work so great at
slower tempos.
 For another explanation, check out
this video from Lutemann

Here are some common arpeggios from the

view of using sympathetic motion. Really
using this is just like sequential planting on
steroids. I did not practice sympathetic
motion specifically to develop it, but found
that it developed on its own from practicing
all arpeggios with sequential planting. The
key is to extend the fingers, i m a as one unit.

p i m: p plays; i and m extend, i plants; i

plays, pulls m onto the string; m plays, p
extends and plants.

p m i: p plays; i and m extend, m plants; m

plays, pulls i onto the string; i plays, p plants.

p i a: p plays, i and a extend, i plants; i

plants, pulls a onto the string; a plays, p
plants.

p a i: p plays, i and ma extend, a plants; a

plays, pulls i onto the string; i plays, p plants.
p m a: p plays, m and a extend, both plant; m
plays, put a little tension in a; a plays, p
plants (this is the compound stroke motion).

p a m: p plays, m and a extend, both plant; a

plays, put a little tension in m; m plays, p
plants (compound stroke).

You can then develop the compound stroke

into sequentially planting by letting the
second finger sit out from the string a bit,
and gets pull in by the motion of the first
finger–just like p i m works!

Cross-String
Ornaments
by Christopher Davis
I suggest you read a few articles on cross
string ornamentation by two people way
smarter than I:

David Russell: Two String Trills

Stanley Yates: Everything You Wanted to
Know about Cross String Ornaments

Russell and Yates give two different

fingerings to use for cross-string ornaments.
Russell’s method is to use aimp:
Yates uses imam, which is a bit harder to get
down. However, he offers practice advice
that works very well in the article linked
above.

There’s also the option of raking a finger

across two strings, which can work really
well, but it’s hard to get in time and
rhythmic.
The advantage of miam and mimm is that the
thumb is free to do it’s thing. This can be a
big advantage in more complex pieces.

Personal Preference

Your personal preference and strengths are

going to determine which fingering pattern
works best. My go-to cross string trill is
aimp. However, I’m working on nailing
miam because it frees up the thumb.
Right Hand
Fingering Guide
by Christopher Davis

Getting a great set of fingerings for a piece is

not easy. The goal of this post is to provide
some things to think about when putting
together your right hand fingerings for a
piece.

“Good” vs. “Bad” string crossings

This can be extremely helpfully in scalar

passages. A ―good‖ string crossing looks like
this:
A ―bad‖ crossing is like this:

Good and bad are in quotation marks

because it doesn’t really matter. Whenever
there’s a string crossing the arm carries a
finger to the next string. It’s very apparent
when doing a ―bad‖ crossing. Most times the
easiest way to is to use a ―good‖ string
crossing. This is especially true for
beginners.

Use a to Prevent Bad Crossings

More advanced guitarists can make very

effective use of a to prevent bad crossings.
Take a look at this scale, for example:

Strict mi alternation produces a ―bad‖

crossing (circled). Using a can avoid this:
Despite all this, bad crossings happen
sometimes. Your practice should include
both good and bad string crossings. But
when preparing a piece for performance
choose the easier and most logical finger.

Arpeggio Textures: Constructive

Cheating

When performing a piece that has an

arpeggio texture, the easiest right hand
pattern should be used. This is especially
important in faster pieces. There’s a couple
ways to ―cheat‖ that step outside the
traditional norm.

1. Move the Thumb around. Sometimes

it’s easier to bring the thumb up to grab
a string than trying to play it with
another finger.
2. Use four fingers where three would do.
A simple pimi arpeggio can be played
very quickly and cleanly using piam.

The Bottom Line

When fingering a piece, make it as easy as

possible. Performing is stressful already, so
don’t make it any more difficult. There are
obvious advantages to playing studies a
harder way, some etudes have specific
purposes and fingering shouldn’t be messed
with to make them easier. However, concert
pieces are often a different story.
Classical Guitar
Technique
Tech • nique – the manner and ability with
which an artist, writer, dancer, athlete, or
the like employs the technical skills of a
particular art or field of endeavor.

Classical guitar technique is how we move to

accomplish our goals. In other words,
technique is what we do to accomplish all of
the musical things we want to accomplish.
Thus, it’s extremely important to isolate your
technical deficiencies and work on them. For
classical guitarists, that means doing (1)
arpeggios, (2) slurs, (3) guitar scales, (4)
other left hand considerations and (5) other
extended techniques such as rasgueado or
things like the snare drum effect.

The Classical Guitar Blog has a ton of

resources on technique, so let me highlight a
few for you below. Following the list of
posts on this site, there some
recommendations for books about classical
guitar technique.

Classical Guitar Arpeggios

The word arpeggio means broken chord.

Take the notes of a chord, and play them in
sequence rather than all together.
Chord vs Arpeggio

In the classical guitar world, playing

arpeggios means using a specific right hand
technique in which there is one finger per
string. Those fingers are then used to play
the notes of a chord in sequence. Sometimes
this is easy (like the example below), and
sometimes it’s very complex (like piece by
Mertz in the audio below).

Classical Guitar Arpeggio

Arpeggios don’t get a lot of love in the

technical practice world. Which is
unfortunate. Classical guitarists spend a lot
of time playing around with arpeggio
textures. Some of the most famous pieces of
the guitar repertoire include extended
sections of repeated arpeggio patterns. It
makes sense then that you should spend
some time with arpeggios in your technical
practice routine. The Giuliani right hand
studies and other similar exercises are some
of the most effective ways to practice
arpeggios.

Tremolo, repeating notes on a single string,

and cross-string trills also fit into the
arpeggios category. They are, after all,
extensions of arpeggio technique.

Resources for practicing classical guitar

arpeggios:

 A Right Hand Arpeggio Routine

 Three Ways to Develop and Arpeggio
 How to Practice Cross-String Trills
 Cross-String Ornaments
Slurs on the Guitar

Slurs (aka Hammer Ons and Pull Offs) are

one of the most demanding left hand
techniques. And, frankly, a lot of
intermediate guitarists have trouble with
them. Even advanced guitarists have
difficulties with trills and other extensions of
left hand slur technique. Beyond the obvious
technical difficulties of them, improper slurs
can often ruin the musical flow of the pieces
or even destroy phrasing.

Here are some resources to help with your

slur practice.

 Slurs with the First Finger

 Descending Slurs
 Ascending Slurs
 Video Lesson: Beginning Slur Exercises
Classical Guitar Scales

Ah, scales, a guitarist’s best friend, right?

Maybe not. Honestly the classical guitar
repertoire doesn’t include a lot of passages
of extended scales. And if you happen to be
playing a piece with a lot of scales, it makes
more sense to practice those scales instead of
abstracted major and minor scales. Still,
scales are an essential part of guitar
technique and should be included in your
routine.

Scale practice should include long, short, and

burst practice. Not just long, 1 or 2 octave
Segovia scales (aff). Try incorporating a few
one octave scales and five-note bursts into
your technical routine.
Here are some resources about scale
practice.

 Guitar Scales: The Right Hand

 Guitar Scales: The Left Hand
 Scale Practice Techniques

Left Hand Technique Considerations

One of the first thing to consider is shifting

up and down the neck of the guitar. Most
likely you’ll getting plenty of shifting
practicing during your normal repertoire
practice. So much of left hand shifting is
piece-specific that it’s hard to practice it
outside of those contexts. Should you want
to add this to your technical routine, I
suggest you extract portions from pieces and
use them.
Also read Sequencing the Left Hand and
Practice Techniques: Stop/Go.

The left hand can either be in an angled or

straight position. Both are useful depending
on the context.

Finally, do classical guitarists really play on

their fingertips? Sometimes. Again, it
depends on the piece.

Think Carefully About Guitar

Technique

The goal of the linked posts on guitar

technique is to make you think. Classical
guitar technique excellence takes careful
consideration of both technical exercises and
how technique functions in the context of
real pieces. So things like an angled vs.
straight hand position can be noticed and
practiced. These posts are some of the most
important to read, but if you want more
please check out the classical guitar
technique category.

The Classical Guitar Blog+

Over the years, I’ve created a bunch of

ebooks of technical exercises and
information. They are now all available on
The Classical Guitar Blog+. For only $19.95
you’ll get access to all of the ebooks and a
year of access to our forum where you can
get your technical questions answered.
Classical Guitar Technique Books
Pumping Nylon by Scott Tennant

Pumping Nylon has

been one of the standard classical guitar
technique texts for nearly ten years. And for
good reason: it’s damn good. Author Scott
Tennant put together what is essentially a
book of some of the most effective technical
exercises for the guitar. It includes exercises
for rasgueado, slurs, arpeggios, and left hand
finger independence and coordination. The
down side to Pumping Nylon is that there is
very little in the way of text and
explanations. Scott Tennant pretty much
throws a bunch of exercises at you to
practice with no real suggestions on how to
incorporate them into a coherent whole of a
technical routine.

Kitharologus by Ricardo Iznaola

Kitharologus, like
pumping nylon, is a bit lean on text. That
said, while Kitharologus lacks text, it’s not
short of detail. This is a book of exclusively
technical exercises laid out in levels of
increasing difficulty. In addition, Iznaola
gives you metronome markings for every
exercise and an entire practice routine for
getting through the entire book. It’s an
impressively coherent, clearly laid out
technical routine that would keep any
guitarist busy for a year or more.
The Art of Classical Guitar Playing by
Charles Duncan

The Art of Classical

Guitar Playing was one of the first books I
read about guitar technique. And it’s
awesome. The advice may be a bit ―old
school‖, but it’s very solid. Pumping Nylon
and Kitharologus are books of technical
exercises; the Art of Classical Guitar Playing
is mostly text and in depth explanations
about the how and why of guitar technique.
If you want some more exercises, it does
have a companion book, Classical Guitar
2000, but I was very underwhelmed by the
exercises in it. The Natural Classical Guitar
by Lee F. Ryan

The Natural Classical

Guitar is another book of explanations and
info about the how and why of guitar
technique. Some key ideas of this book have
become common knowledge in the guitar
world: the play relax technique and ballistic
motion to name a few. Unfortunately, The
Natural Classical Guitar is out of print and
expensive to buy. That said, the local library
may have a copy, or check at a nearby
university library.Learning the Classical
Guitar by Aaron Shearer

Aaron Shearer was one of

the most well known guitar pedagogues of
the 20th century. Learning the Classic Guitar
is the first of three volumes of his guitar
method. That said, this one is all text. It’s
mean to be studied along with part two. As a
method it’s really not very good. As a book
about classical guitar technique, if you can
get past Shearer’s very formal writing style,
it’s very good.