Guitar · Chapter 15 of 23

Two Parts at Once: Classical Guitar

Classical guitar music often has two parts on one staff: a tune with stems up and a bass with stems down. Your fingers play the tune, your thumb plays the bass.

The great guitar teachers of the early 1800s, Fernando Sor, Ferdinando Carulli, Matteo Carcassi and Mauro Giuliani, wrote hundreds of short pieces for beginners. They still make some of the best practice there is, and they are all free to play.

Two kinds of stroke

Free stroke

The finger plucks the string and moves up into the air above the next string. Used for arpeggios and chords, where the other strings must keep ringing.

Rest stroke

The finger plucks through the string and comes to rest on the next string down. It gives a fuller, stronger note: classical players use it to bring out a melody, usually alternating i and m.

Reading two voices

In the notation, the tune has stems going up and the bass has stems going down. A bass note written as a half or whole note means: pluck it once with the thumb and let it ring while the tune moves above it. In the tab, the bass numbers sit on the lower lines with their own rhythm.

Letting notes ring

Keep left-hand fingers down until the next note on that string needs them. A bass note on an open string rings for free; a fretted bass needs its finger to stay pressed. Listen for gaps: if the bass stops early, a finger lifted too soon.

Sor’s Andantino

A calm piece in C. Learn the tune alone first (fingers i and m alternating), then the bass alone (thumb), then put them together, two bars at a time.

Try it. Play the four bars above three ways: tune alone, bass alone, then both. Then learn Carulli’s Waltz in C: thumb on the bass, i and m together on the pairs.

Remember

Tune stems up (fingers), bass stems down (thumb).
Free stroke for arpeggios; rest stroke to bring out a tune.
Let the bass ring for its full length.