Spanish Guitar Free Download
Tarja Rabito
I have a 4 months old hawaiian guitar. I do not like playing the Hawaiian guitar, and I want to change instruments. I have a standard bengali Hawaiian guitar with all its accessories and I want to play spanish acoustic guitar. How do I convert it into spanish guitar?
It looks like your guitar has ball end steel strings. By the look of the photo, all you need to do is buy a set of nylon strings and secure them to the wooden bridge using the traditional loop knot. The metal trapeze tailpiece can be removed. If this is difficult, just place a little bit of padding between it and the guitar top. Your photo doesn't show the headstock, but it's likely you have smaller diameter steel capstans on the tuning machines, rather than the larger diameter plastic ones fitted to classical/spanish guitars. They will work fine; just attach the strings to the capstans as normal. BTW, I love the cross culturality suggested by, 'standard bengali Hawaiian guitar'.
Are you just going to Barcelona? A more authentic Flamenco experience is in the south of Spain in the region of Andalusia. Catalonia the region where Barcelona is located is not known for Flamenco, though since it is popular tourist destination you will find it. I would go to the performance you sent the link to since it is a tribute to one of the greatest Flamenco guitarists Paco de Lucia who is from the town of Algeciras located in Andalusia.
We saw a guitar and dance program at the Palau de la Musica in 2016. Not only was it excellent, but the building is a marvel. Although Barcelona is in Catalonia, it doesn't matter. They are presenting an excellent program. I chose it for the guitar trio and was delighted when the dancing began, too. Enjoy.
I am on the same plane as Bets! We enjoyed a "Flamenco y Opera" performance at the Palace of Catalan Music in 2017. The building is amazing! It turns out that I am way more a fan of Montaner than Gaudi.
La Caveau is not my style. I think Rick Steves recommended it so lot more tourists
I recommend Sunset or Duc Des Lombards or New Morning Cafe. Those are where the top New York talent level musicians play when touring Europe.
Gran Gala Flamenco is at The Palau de la Musica on the 18th. We just saw that show last week and it was outstanding. I'm sure the Guitar Trio & Dance is good, too. I recommend sitting as closer on the side, rather than in the back in the middle at the same price point.
I saw the flamenco and guitar show at Palau Musica last month and it was fabulous. I use to dance Flamenco as a kid so I really enjoyed the artistry. As others have mentioned, it is a beautiful building and setting. We went early to grab a cocktail and tour the building. We stayed at the H10 Urquinaona Plaza hotel which is just a 5-7minute walk from the Palau Musica and found the hotel very comfortable and easy for getting around Barcelona. (Join the H10 Club and you get free breakfast). After the show we were starving and grabbed a great burger at La Central Hamburguesera Laietana which was one of the few restaurants near the place that was still open. It was my first time in Barcelona and I loved it.
John, I saw the Gran Gala Flamenco performance at the Palau de la Musica a few years ago, and it was excellent. The main concert hall is magnificent. I got my ticket online, WAY in advance, and chose the front row center seat of the mezzanine, just perfect. Of course, a stage performance in a large concert hall is very different than traditional and intimate Flamenco which you might better be able to find in neighborhoods or small towns in Andalusia, than in Barcelona. (The Tablao de Carmen might be more similar, maybe someone who went there can comment about that.) On a different day, I also took the excellent English language tour of the Palau building, during which you see much more of the building, learn about its history, etc.
Enjoy wonderful Barcelona, with so much to see and experience!
However, back in the 80s, I was in Torremolinos in Andalusia and saw a really fantastic flamenco show that was even better. In that show, the dancers used castanets to make the clicking sound that is apart of the dance.
The soundboard of a guitar has to withstand a formidable amount of string tension while also being able to vibrate freely. Most guitars made before the mid- to late eighteenth century had no bracing on the soundboard below the bridge, and at this time some makers attempted to produce louder instruments by making the top of the guitar thinner and adding braces on the inside. This period also saw the addition of a sixth course, and instruments became wider, making internal bracing all the more necessary. The earliest guitar with fan bracing is thought to have been made in Seville by Francesco Sanguino in 1759. The guitar makers of Cdiz also made regular use of fan bracing. An early example of this is an instrument by Joseph Benedid of Cdiz (1992.1.2), made in 1787. The luthiers in Cdiz at this time demonstrated a clear understanding of the importance of fan bracing on the soundboard of these larger, six-course instruments.
To an even greater extent than Fernando Sor in the nineteenth century, Andrs Segovia was actively involved in guitar design and development, meeting with guitar makers of the highest quality, including Ramrez and Hernndez. In the 1920s, he encountered the German guitar maker Hermann Hauser, about whom he observed:
I examined [his instruments] and immediately foresaw the potential of this superb artisan if only his mastery might be applied to the construction of the guitar in the Spanish pattern as immutably fixed by Torres and Ramrez as the violin had been fixed by Stradivarius and Guarnerius. (Romanillos 1987, p. 56)
Hauser later approached Segovia and presented him with a guitar (1986.353.1). Through his own ingenuity and ability to recognize the genius of the Spanish traditions in the work of Torres and Ramrez, Hauser is now recognized among them as one of the great makers of the Spanish guitar.
Playing Spanish guitar improvisation is something that many guitar players list as one of their musical goals to learn to play one day. However, many guitarists just avoid learning this amazing style of guitar altogether because they feel that it's just too complicated for them to learn.
I myself have seen a lot of guitar tutorials teaching this technique, and they are really intricate and theoretical, unnecessarily. So, I decided to make a really simple Spanish guitar improvisation lesson for all of you, so that anyone can pick it up easily!
When playing this scale, keep in mind the fingering is the same as the fret #. Don't worry if you don't get this scale right away, it does take some practice, but the best approach is to just practice it at your own pace!
A great way to practice this scale and to also get the hang of improvising, is to play the scale along with a Spanish guitar backing track. Here's a link to a free backing track that you can use to practice and play along with:
First using the D minor, move your hand all the way up so it is on the 8th fret, 1st string, and then make the chord form. Then make the D chord form going to the 7th fret 1st finger. Then go 2 frets down to the 5th fret, and then one more down to the 4th fret.
When you play these chord forms on those frets, what you are actually playing is an A minor chord, a G chord, an F chord, and lastly an E chord. You can pick them any way you want; I'm going to finger-pick the chords. Here is a link for you to listen to how this lick sounds:
An additional way to work on your Spanish guitar improvisation chops is to learn this other really cool guitar lick. Don't get frightened off by how complicated this lick sounds, its actually quite easy to play!
To get started on this new lick, you're going to use the same frets that you just played on for the 'baby chords' lick. Start off by using your first finger on the 8th, 7th, 5th, and 4th frets. But now you're going to pull-off of all of the notes with your first finger.
Keep in mind as you do this, that you're not pulling straight up, but rather just pulling off to the side- kind of picking the note with your left hand. You will want to do it fairly quickly, so it doesn't mute the note.
Remember when you are trying these Spanish guitar improvisation methods, to not get too stuck on doing it the exact same way I do it. Play whatever sounds good as an improvisation to you and have fun with it! Click on the link below to hear this new lick:
Bjorn . . . absolutely beautiful piece, just what I needed. You've certainly captured the alternating strum and plucking of a nylon guitar, and your orchestral arrangement really soars in the middle part. Enjoyed to the max !
Nice job Bjorn - those strums would benefit from being more 'flamenco' in style (i.e. more staccato with a stronger attack) but incredibly difficult - if not impossible - to achieve with a guitar VST I would have thought. I wouldn't really know as I don't really use guitar VSTs.
In this video Jason Vieaux identifies some common trouble spots when learning how to play the famous Spanish guitar song "Leyenda". Many people often get confused by the distinction between classical guitar and Spanish guitar. Since Jason is an expert, we had him explain the difference:
What I really do is play music by "Classical" composers from Spain and Latin America, with the requisite classical technique and musical study that is required to play it. I also play Bach, modern, pop and jazz arrangements, 19th century, lots of concertos with orchestra and chamber music, but that's not the point.
20 years ago, I always told people I played "Classical Guitar", but now that half of Led Zeppelin's catalog is approaching over 40 years old, "I'm a classical guitarist" often is followed by, "Oh yeah? Cool. What classic rock do you play?" Thing is, the average bloke in an airport in 2012 doesn't know who Isaac Albeniz is.
Albeniz, Granados, De Falla, etc., made stylized impressions of Spanish dances and dance rhythms, shaped into refined pieces suitable for listening in a concert hall, or eventually, on recordings. Astor Piazzolla, the controversial, beloved, and sometimes hated, king of Argentinean "tango nuevo" said that his tangos were not for dancing, but for listening. The Spanish Albeniz and the Argentinean Piazzolla would have wanted to be ultimately remembered as "Classical" music composers.
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