Wow, so that happened - Classical Guitar. Apparently trying to balance work, classical guitar lessons, electric guitar lessons, band practice and general family/friend hang out time is nearly impossible. As you can tell, writing suffered quite a bit and this blog has been silent. I didn't really go anywhere, I've just been extremely busy and a little stressed out.
So Classical Guitar - I think that was something like 20 or 25 weeks of lessons and it was tough! Take all the years that I've been playing guitar and throw it out the window. My overall impression is this: skilled classical guitarists are very talented musicians; however, to be a master of that instrument, that means one thing - classical guitar has to be your only focus (none of this hybrid classical/electric guitar).
It was odd, I remember having trouble playing electric guitar after a few weeks of classical guitar. I had to set down the electric guitar to focus on just the classical material, doing so, caused my fingers/hand to remap the string locations (a classical guitar neck is much wider than a standard, electric guitar neck). After a few weeks went by, I had a lot of trouble playing electric guitar; my precision failed.
Lessons were stressful and my teacher expected a lot, but I'm glad I took the lessons. It's been just over a week since my lessons ended and I've already adopted a new daily, practice schedule that includes classical guitar. I really enjoyed working out of the book that I mentioned in an early post, Noad's book. There is a lot of good material that is found within the pages of that book, it's challenging and fun, but it definitely is focused on guitar duets for the most part. If you try to play the exercises by yourself, they will lack a lot of the charm (and musicality) that is brought out through two guitars.
It's good to be back to what I know, but I'm definitely not the same guitarist I was at the beginning of the year. Classical guitar has allowed me to re-focus on learning, it challenged the knowledge I have and has forced me to try harder at understanding music theory and even the basics of guitar. Classical guitar is worth studying.
