Staccato in Classical Guitar?

[jazznylon]

When I was starting out in classical guitar my teacher really emphasized the preparatory aspect of placing the right hand fingers onto the strings before following through. Naturally this leads to a more staccato-y feel since one is stopping the strings before playing again. If going for legato I would have to prepare my fingers onto the strings at the last second (millisecond?) and then follow through. I find this gives me confidence and control in my right hand with the added benefit of more dynamics (depending how far one 'pushes' the string when preparing) plus building fast consistent finger speed as a habit.

Later on though I had a different teacher who recommends not stopping the strings before following through to achieve the legato effect. I believe Aaron Shearer also mentions this in his book after one gets used to the prepared stroke. Admittedly I did not have much faith in this idea since I was already doing pretty well just following through the first method. With this way I would have to control my follow through finger speed to get varied dynamics I assume, since there is no 'preparing push' from the first method. Also there is less confidence in the right hand since there is no 'safety net' when preparing.

Those who play(ed) classical guitar what are your thoughts about this? Am I a heathen for sticking with prepared strokes?

[pamosmusic]

When I was starting out in classical guitar my teacher really emphasized the preparatory aspect of placing the right hand fingers onto the strings before following through. Naturally this leads to a more staccato-y feel since one is stopping the strings before playing again. If going for legato I would have to prepare my fingers onto the strings at the last second (millisecond?) and then follow through. I find this gives me confidence and control in my right hand with the added benefit of more dynamics (depending how far one 'pushes' the string when preparing) plus building fast consistent finger speed as a habit.

Later on though I had a different teacher who recommends not stopping the strings before following through to achieve the legato effect. I believe Aaron Shearer also mentions this in his book after one gets used to the prepared stroke. Admittedly I did not have much faith in this idea since I was already doing pretty well just following through the first method. With this way I would have to control my follow through finger speed to get varied dynamics I assume, since there is no 'preparing push' from the first method. Also there is less confidence in the right hand since there is no 'safety net' when preparing.

Those who play(ed) classical guitar what are your thoughts about this? Am I a heathen for sticking with prepared strokes?

I use preparatory strokes as a teaching tool only. Sometimes folks who do it too much I even go back and try and correct it. Generally I would think you would want staccato to be a musical choice and not an artifact of a technical choice interacting with your string changes.

[jazznylon]

I use preparatory strokes as a teaching tool only. Sometimes folks who do it too much I even go back and try and correct it. Generally I would think you would want staccato to be a musical choice and not an artifact of a technical choice interacting with your string changes.

Ideally yes but I'm not so sure. I can only speak from my experience and what seems to make sense at the time since the guitar is a very staccato-y instrument overall. At least from a technical aspect taking advantage of that nature of guitar has provided me with a lot of improvement. Particularly when working through segova study 9 from sor which is staccato galore. There is also study 12 which is supposed to be legato but I practice it mostly staccato anyways. So yeah I don't know

[pamosmusic]

Ideally yes but I'm not so sure. I can only speak from my experience and what seems to make sense at the time since the guitar is a very staccato-y instrument overall. At least from a technical aspect taking advantage of that nature of guitar has provided me with a lot of improvement. Particularly when working through segova study 9 from sor which is staccato galore. There is also study 12 which is supposed to be legato but I practice it mostly staccato anyways. So yeah I don't know

Well what you're describing are instances where a technical idiosyncrasy lines up with the musical result you want. The study #12 would be interesting ... do you want it to sound mostly staccato because that's how you sound anyway, or do you sound staccato because that's the way you want the piece to sound?

I had a jazz guitar teacher my freshman year who assigned me Donna Lee, and I can't remember which part, but I slurred something and he stopped me and was like "why did you slur that?" and I was like .... "um" .... and he said "I know why you did, do you want me to tell you?" and I said "sure" ... and he said "because it was easier ... f***ing guitar players need to remember that you can't just play it whatever way you think is easier, I mean come on, these things sound different."

And yeah ... there are a lot of ways to kill a sound on guitar, and you don't want to pretend to play some other instrument, but you also don't want to allow the musical result to be dictated by a technical limitation. Of course certain techniques produce certain tendencies. The way I slur is going to produce an over all different sound than the sound someone gets from Benson picking or whatever. But I can pick every note of a line the same way a Benson picker could just do slurred turns all day if they wanted to.

There are certain notes on a saxophone that are hard to tune, but they have to tune them. Above the staff, everything on a trumpet gets really close together and can be challenging to play, but that doesn't mean they play stuff above F down the octave or something. They have to negotiate that particular challenge. Piano players can't really slur in the literal way that other instruments can, but they still have to produce that smooth un-articulated sound when it's called for.

If you play, for example, the two octave Segovia scale from C, with a preparatory stroke, you're going to get ...

C - short
D - long
E - short
F - short
G - long
A - short
B - short
C - short
D - long
E - short
F - short
G - long
A - short
B - short
C - short

Unless that is the musical result you want, you should be able to play every single one legato, or every single one staccato, or short-long-long, or long-short-short, etc etc etc.

A dramatic musical choice like that shouldn't be dictated by your technique. The same way you shouldn't play 3nps scales pick-slur-slur on every string regardless of subdivision, just because that's the way your left hand wants to do it.

[James W]

When I was starting out in classical guitar my teacher really emphasized the preparatory aspect of placing the right hand fingers onto the strings before following through. Naturally this leads to a more staccato-y feel since one is stopping the strings before playing again. If going for legato I would have to prepare my fingers onto the strings at the last second (millisecond?) and then follow through. I find this gives me confidence and control in my right hand with the added benefit of more dynamics (depending how far one 'pushes' the string when preparing) plus building fast consistent finger speed as a habit.

Later on though I had a different teacher who recommends not stopping the strings before following through to achieve the legato effect. I believe Aaron Shearer also mentions this in his book after one gets used to the prepared stroke. Admittedly I did not have much faith in this idea since I was already doing pretty well just following through the first method. With this way I would have to control my follow through finger speed to get varied dynamics I assume, since there is no 'preparing push' from the first method. Also there is less confidence in the right hand since there is no 'safety net' when preparing.

Those who play(ed) classical guitar what are your thoughts about this? Am I a heathen for sticking with prepared strokes?

I'd say practice both. Opinions differ on this. For example, I've seen a few guitarists advocate using preparation for tremolo, and yet one very formidable guitarist, Gohar Vardanyan, doesn't (and even warns against practising tremolo only with preparation).

I say 'opinions differ' but I'm sure, actually, that most would say you should be good at both, firstly because as you point out preparation is good for RH control, but also because you want to be able to produce staccato and legato from the RH.

Also depends on what you're playing and how fast. For example, I found planting useful in practising Giuliani's op. 48 no. 5, but found out that at one point in the arpeggio pattern between notes four and five of the sextuplet, that is, from A to M fingers, if I planted M after plucking A the effect was an unwanted, exposed staccato one, since M gets plucked before A as well. But for most of the pattern, sequential planting is useful. Again Gohar doesn't appear to use it for this study (check out her video on it) but I have seen guitarists such as Tariq Harb use planting for it, and Bridget Mermikides suggests using it (though she doesn't mention the aforementioned unwanted effect that I discovered).

[jazznylon]

For study 12 I practice mostly staccato as a means to build up speed even when practicing at a slow tempo. So when I play really fast its almost legato anyways. Obviously should I perform the piece at a more moderate tempo for others I try to do it as legato as I can. My first guitar teacher mentions John Williams as the kind of player who would try to find the easiest way to play something. Whether that comes at the cost of musical choices I'm almost certain thats not the case. Manuel Barreuco supposedly heavily favors the prepared stroke as does William Kanengiser (there was a video floating around where William jokes about about this very subject something something about getting off the soapbox lol).

Anyways I agree with what you said. One should be able to play any musical result they desire. For the scale thing I mostly base it on the prepared stroke as a means to build up technique since at higher tempos the long short short thing becomes less obvious. Though like you said its good to practice in different ways too

[pamosmusic]

For study 12 I practice mostly staccato as a means to build up speed even when practicing at a slow tempo. So when I play really fast its almost legato anyways. Obviously should I perform the piece at a more moderate tempo for others I try to do it as legato as I can. My first guitar teacher mentions John Williams as the kind of player who would try to find the easiest way to play something. Whether that comes at the cost of musical choices I'm almost certain thats not the case. Manuel Barreuco supposedly heavily favors the prepared stroke as does William Kanengiser (there was a video floating around where William jokes about about this very subject something something about getting off the soapbox lol).

Anyways I agree with what you said. One should be able to play any musical result they desire. For the scale thing I mostly base it on the prepared stroke as a means to build up technique since at higher tempos the long short short thing becomes less obvious. Though like you said its good to practice in different ways too

this makes sense.

But also I don’t mean that you should not find the easiest way to play something, just that you should consider the musical result you want before you start looking. Which is something I’m sure John Williams did.

Like finding a convenient left hand fingering is lovely … not if it makes you drop a bass note, say, that is supposed to be held.

Thats been an interesting thing working with younger students is that they get their music online … and even somewhere like Classical Guitar Shed that is honestly pretty good have some oddball fingerings. Then I’ll send them a Segovia edition of an etude or something and they change the fingerings not realizing that they’re dropping held notes or making an inefficiency two measures down the line or whatever.

[RJVB]

You practise with preparation (both left and right), and then you practise to do get rid of any unwanted audible traces. I've got both integrated in my daily warm-up schedule, and will fall back to it for working on parts that don't seem to want to come out right.
The principle aspect to work on is a reflex-like check of whether your fingers actually ended up at the intended spot before you sound the note (and ditto correction if not). You can't really do that when you don't prepare, IMHO.
For me it's also the only way I can get my left hand to put down a finger for a note that I'll be playing somewhere down the line (outside of placing an entire chord shape at once). If I try that while skipping the preparation step it takes a lot longer before my right hand will stop listening to my left and play that note. Same thing applies to patterns where (again) my left hand doesn't seem to want to lift the right finger.

[Soitainly]

I’ve always been intrigued a bit about the whole planting technique and its practical use. I got it from Segovia’s book originally, and most people I talk to started with the plant as a basic stroke. What I have never been sure of, is that is it really used in everyday playing, not just a concept. My impression is it’s a way to feel the contact point of your finger on the string. You should feel the string right in the slot between your nail and flesh. I don’t think of it as a “stop here at this moment in time” when actually playing, although it is effective to do just that as one way to achieve staccato notes.

[RJVB]

most people I talk to started with the plant as a basic stroke. What I have never been sure of, is that is it really used in everyday playing, not just a concept

Aren't you thinking about rest strokes here?

I think that the preparation being discussed here is also a very helpful tool for practising that technique. I remember one of Tariq Harb's tutorials where he explains how theoretically your muscles should relax after every rest stroke (when the finger is resting on the next higher string your muscles should be, too) and the way to achieve that subliminal relaxation: decomposing the movements so also preparing each subsequent stroke.