Stop 5 of 8
Classical, folk and open tunings
Classical arpeggios, folk, DADGAD and open tunings.
Loading…
Stop 5 of 8
Classical arpeggios, folk, DADGAD and open tunings.
The last style stop on the tour, and perhaps the most intimate: one guitar, no band, played with the fingers. Classical guitar and folk come from different worlds (concert halls on one side; kitchens, porches and pubs on the other), but they share one ideal: a single instrument playing bass, harmony and melody at once. Here you'll refine your picking hand, play arpeggio studies and folk fingerpicking, and discover how a different tuning can completely change the guitar's character.
The six single-string guitar settled into its form around 1800, and in the early decades of the nineteenth century it enjoyed a golden age in Europe with guitarist-composers such as Fernando Sor, Mauro Giuliani and Dionisio Aguado, who wrote methods, studies and concert works. Later, the Almería luthier Antonio de Torres set the proportions of the modern classical guitar, Francisco Tárrega renewed its technique and repertoire, and Andrés Segovia took it to the great concert halls of the twentieth century.
Folk, by contrast, has no single origin: it is the orally transmitted music of many peoples. On guitar it is mostly associated with the steel-string instrument, open chords, the and open tunings, and with the folk revivals of the fifties and sixties in the United States and the British Isles.
Classical posture aims for a free left hand and a right hand that falls onto the strings effortlessly. The guitar rests on the left leg, raised with a footstool or support, the neck rises diagonally and the right wrist hangs loose over the soundhole. Folk is more flexible (many players use the right leg and a thumb pick), but the idea of a relaxed arm applies to both.
The picking-hand fingers have two basic ways of plucking:
Listen to the difference in function: a melody that must stand out and an arpeggio that must ring.
An arpeggio study repeats a finger formula over a simple progression, so the picking hand automates it while the fretting hand just changes chords. General rule: p for strings 6, 5 and 4; i for 3; m for 2; a for 1.
The index returns to string 3 between every treble note: an excellent formula for finger independence.
Folk and country fingerpicking rests on the alternating bass: the thumb marks the pulse by alternating between two bass strings, like a bass and kick drum, and the fingers play treble notes in between or at the same time (a "pinch"). Merle Travis popularised it in the country music of the 1940s, hence the name Travis picking.
The thumb plays the quarter notes (strings 5 and 4 on C; 6 and 4 on G) and the fingers fill the off-beat eighths. Once it's automatic, change the treble notes so they form a melody: that's the basis of the fingerstyle of artists such as Elizabeth Cotten, Chet Atkins and the singer-songwriters of the folk revival.
An makes the six open strings form a major chord. The full chord rings without fretting anything, a one-finger barre gives any other major chord, and the open strings keep resonating underneath. They are widely used in slide blues, folk and rock.
The strings form a G. A barre at fret 5 gives C, and at fret 7, D. This original example plays with the suspended fourth (one finger on string 2), a typical move in this tuning:
The strings form a D. The sixth and fourth strings give a deep, low root, ideal for fingerpicking and slide:
(D–A–D–G–A–D) forms neither a major nor a minor chord: it is a Dsus4. With no third, it serves major, minor and modal melodies alike, and its open strings act as , notes that keep sounding under the melody as on a bagpipe.
Listen to the D drone and play this original melody in 6/8 on top, with the open sixth string sounding in each bar:
Another characteristic device is : playing consecutive scale notes on different strings so they overlap and ring like bells. In DADGAD it is especially easy, because some open strings sit very close together (G and A, A and D).
Over a D drone, the same melody changes colour depending on the notes you choose: with F♯ and C it sounds Mixolydian; with F and B, Dorian; with F and B♭, Aeolian. Many Irish and Scottish traditional melodies use exactly the Mixolydian and Dorian modes. Since DADGAD has no third, your melody decides the mode.
Classical guitar tone depends a great deal on the picking hand's nails: classical players keep them slightly long, rounded and well filed, so the string glides off them without catching. With the flesh alone the sound is warmer and softer; with the nail, brighter and more powerful. In steel-string folk, many use a thumb pick so the alternating bass sounds firm, and the flesh or nails for the fingers.
To listen to: Andrés Segovia, Julian Bream and John Williams in the classical repertoire; works by Sor, Giuliani, Tárrega, Villa-Lobos and Agustín Barrios; and in folk, Elizabeth Cotten, Bert Jansch, John Renbourn, Nick Drake and Joni Mitchell, each with their own way of using open strings. Pick a short piece and notice how the melody, bass and filler parts are kept apart.
Goal: Play both studies at 70 BPM with each chord's notes ringing together and without the picking hand shifting.
Goal: Keep the alternating bass going for a full minute at 80 BPM without the thumb stopping, switching between C and G.
Tune to DADGAD (lower strings 6, 2 and 1 a whole step). Play the air over the drone, then improvise on strings 1 to 3, choosing a mode: Mixolydian (C) or Dorian (F and C).
Goal: Play the air in DADGAD letting the drones ring, then improvise eight bars of your own in 6/8.
Practice blocks ticked: 0 · Self-assessments taken: 0