This style of columbianas has always fascinated me, the rhythm is so basic, so simplistic it really feels like the true nature of music. Also people usually like this style because it conveys happiness and that is easy to understand.

Paco has really outdone himself on this one. It is a statement of regret and deep sadness, just like a rondena is supposed to be. But the real twist comes near the end, the rhythm he found is unique. Whenever I play this song I feel like I want to repeat it 50 times and then again.

The interesting part is the usual formation of a rondena. In my experience a good rondena will look like it doesn’t make any sense for about 80%, then the last portion is played in a certain rhythm that needs some unique characteristics.

I only played this part of the song because most people like to get to the point fast, but I may include the rest of the song in a future release.

You don’t really learn any music when you memorise that C major has 0 1 3 on E strings etc, but you do become familiar with some basic shapes on the guitar that help you easily improvise your solos.

If you can back up your scale learning with a bit of music theory then I strongly suggest you do this. The basic reasons is that it’s harder to think that D major chord has a F# etc then it is to remember the shape with your left hand.

One of the skills great guitarists have is the fact that they know every note on the guitar. There are little secrets regarding remembering them on the guitar, for instance 7 on a string means the note of the string before it (7 on E string means B note etc) with one exception on the B string, where the G note is found on the 8^th fret.

These are things that you will notice for yourself when you gather enough experience. You just need to learn the notes on each string and then the shapes and forms will create themselves in your mind.

These are the reasons I strongly suggest learning all notes on all the strings before you start learning scales. Once you know every note on every string it will be very easy to learn any kind of scale you like to.

All the styles included in Flamenco Cantinas are festive genres. They are indispensable at any flamenco get-togethers, very loud and happy with short lyrics, very suitable for dancing.

The basic meter of the Cantinas is resembles the bulerias, which means it is a 12-beat meter:

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12

As far as the guitar playing goes they are generally following the same pattern as the bulerias and solea, but are structured around major keys. The alegrias in A major, the mirabras in E major and so on. The variations are directly dependant on the tonalities, which is the basic key of the song. Rhythmically they are often played as the alegrias style.

Technically I would say that these are some of the toughest styles, particularly the alegrias. You would use every flamenco technique frequently,  such as alzapua and picados and this requires a good degree of concentration, whereas in the heat of a party the loudness of the background noise can quickly throw you off balance.

Because it is such challenging to play these styles correctly I always find the satisfaction of a good performance very enjoyable, especially if it’s accompanied by a few drinks afterwards, and I often think about these kinds of parties.

Often accompanied by a cajon or palmas, guitar-only pieces proved to be some of the most difficult flamenco pieces technique-wise. The famous “La Barrosa” by the great Paco De Lucia is known to be the toughest piece ever recorded. Paco also gives us a flawless example performance in Germany in the year1996, one of Paco’s best years.

The flamenco Alegrias is often played at parties, being an integral part of any flamenco get-together. It is because of the happy and festive atmosphere it creates, and because it is fitting to dancers, that it is so popular among parties.

The rhythm is a 12-beat meter, the guitar bringing the livelier character to it:

123 456 78 910 11  12

The guitar plays in a major key, as is the case for every cantinas. In the case of the alegrias, there is a scale change, during the introduction. The basic keys used are: in the middle: A – E 7^th; and at the top: E – B. This doesn’t sound like it’s a big deal, however the fast rhythm and complex falsetas make this style a challenge for every guitarist.

Flamenco is formed out of 3 major divisions. Singing, dancing and playing the guitar. Few flamenco styles exclude any of the major divisions and the rumba makes no exception. It is widely popular at parties because of it’s suitability to dancing and free improvisation. Even though the style lacks in depth and authenticity it is well known mainly because of it’s base simplicity.

While rumba encompasses all 3 main forms of flamenco, I will only talk about the guitar playing. The basic meter is formed out of 4 beats:

1 2 3 4/ 1 2 3 4/ 1 2 3 4

In flamenco rumba the guitarist usually follows a straight-forward accompany strumming pattern with semi-percussive strumming. This is indispensable and much of the richness of the rhythm comes from this type of strumming. Other important elements that ensure variation include percussion, in the form of cajon, and hand-clapping.

In the past the guitar was only used as an accompany instrument for the singers and dancers, but with the appearance of great performers, like the legendary Sabicas and the contemporary Paco de Lucia, it has evolved much beyond this and now it is even seen as a solo instrument.

One particularly well known rumba piece is Entre Dos Aguas, which belongs to the great Paco de Lucia, and it is probably his most famous piece. Numerous amateur guitarists have attempted to copy and play this song in gigs or at home, which shows the popularity and leverage this style has with the general population.

Generally classical guitar music has a dark touch to it, which means the tempo is kind of slow and calculated. The main thing is calm in classical music, whereas in jazz the primary trait is improvisation. Both these qualities can be found in most music genres, but what makes flamenco unique is the expression of Spanish culture.

Flamenco guitar music is made to express the guitarists feelings, and whether they are genuine or not is very much apparent in the music he creates. A joyfull person will find difficulty in playing a sad style, unless it completely changes his mood. This is imperative to flamenco, as this music is all about expressing your current feelings.

For happiness there is alegrias, and a number of other genres, for parties we have bulerias and a few others. The same pattern holds for all the flamenco styles. Each of them is supposed to express defined feelings like anger, despair or happiness. Flamenco guitar music is beautiful because of this peculiar feeling it has.

The best one can do is flourish the rhythm up to the sky, and the only part that allows for freedom of play is generally the falseta portion. Falsetas are variations specific to the genre that the guitarist plays in between the singing and dancing as a flamenco guitar solo. These are different for every style, but you could play a bulerias falseta in a solea, or the other way around because these 2 styles are much the same. Sometimes the key in which solea is played is used to play a bulerias, this combination will be called bulerias por solea, using solea chords to play bulerias.

This key changing thing is very interesting for flamenco guitar solo, as different keys have different peculiarities, so a good guitarist can use them for many different effects, enchancing the quality of the music he plays.

However, even these falsetas are pretty much mapped-out. Though a guitarist can try and compose his own, this is much more difficult than playing what is standard; so you hear a lot of the same variations every day. I encourage you to stop playing what you know and start to create your own music. Forget about what you know and every time you play create a new and different flamenco guitar solo, whatever you can think of. This will make your guitar playing much more interesting.

As they stand they are at the complete opposite of one another, the picado is alternate index and middle finger picking for fast variations, while alzapua is a thumb technique a lot different from every other existing technique.

In this free online guitar lesson we’ll start with the picado, since it is a little easier to comprehend and explain. Now, for the basic technique, it is really just alternate picking with the index and middle fingers. However, an important thing about picado is that there are actually 2 types of picado, divided in rest strokes and free strokes. The deal about these is that free strokes don’t touch any other string after the actual picking of a string, while rest strokes are called that because the finger rests on the next string from the one that was played.

Alzapua is a totally different thing. The basic technique is a combination of strokes with the thumb. First comes a normal rest stroke (explained above) on a string, then a quick one-move motion on the next 2 strings, then a backward with the back of the thumbnail quick one-move motion up 3 strings to the initial position, then you repeat. Doing this fast will create a much more powerful sound than any other technique. Sometimes the ring finger is used to hit the guitar case (golpe) when doing alzapua for an added twist.

I believe this free online guitar lesson should help you understand and develop your technique neatly. If you practice both they will help each other more than you can think of. When you see no more progress practicing picado, try some alzapua exercises and you’ll see results soon enough. Likewise the other way around works too.

However it is easy to establish what is important. The division is usually between left hand technique and right hand technique. “There isn’t a shortcut to improve your left and right hand technique other than just practice” is what you usually get, because there are so many details it would be useless to enlist them all. First off all you will never remember all of them when you are struggling with your technique. Second of all you will not be able to hold your hand in the correct way because your muscles are not strong enough.

What you aim for is what’s important; if you’re ambitious and want to play faster than any guitar player then you should aim for perfect technique, with as little variation as possible. This way your brain will get used to the pattern and you will stop thinking about it, that’s when your hands take over. A tip for these free acoustic guitar lessons: you can’t be fast unless you know what you’re going to play very clearly. Eventually your moves will become sharp and you will easily play flurry of notes on the guitar.

The problem with trying to be fast is that singing the same thing over and over is really boring. Sometimes I wonder how I lasted so long doing this. Anyway, apart from learning all these scales and chords as they tell you in free acoustic guitar lessons, which are indeed very good, you should try and improvise off of the basic stuff. The greatest songs started from simple things. I’m not saying to totally neglect study, but instead of doing that all the time (boring) try and work on your imagination a little bit too.

How does that happen ? let’s suppose you are trying to learn the picado technique, the best thing to do is perhaps take a few videos of Paco De Lucia and study the movement closely, then practice it on the guitar. Problem is that you will most likely miss a few important details, and you won’t be able to move your hand quite like him. So this leads to a faulty technique, which in turn leads to mistakes while playing, which is the kind of thing we should want to avoid.

So how should you learn guitar picking techniques ? Get the general idea, picado – index and middle fingers alternatively, cool – and record it. Record yourself doing the technique, then compare the video with the way Paco De Lucia is doing it. This way it is easy to see the differences and you will easily understand where you are wrong and what you should try to do. This is the technical approach to learning techniques, comparing positions and movements.

Another way is to try and make the guitar sound the same as the song, but this is very unreliable as in the case of picado it is highly unlikely that you will be able to move as fast as Paco De Lucia even if you’re using 4 fingers for a tremolo instead of 2. Still I recommend trying this as well as the other method.

Using both methods should lead to you developing your own style and guitar picking techniques, and that is the point of playing guitar.

Thanks to his rigorous training of 4-10 hours a day since the age of 7, Paco De Lucia has taken most techniques at another level, especially the picados. Many ask how Paco De Lucia plays picado so fast, the only answer is practice, huge amounts of practice. This makes one wonder if there will be any other flamenco guitarist to match his level.

This is not to say that Paco De Lucia flamenco is the one and only, there are many other great flamenco guitar players like Paco Pena, Vicente Amigo and Gerardo Nunez, each of them has created a different style of flamenco, thus ensuring diversity in this art.

In his early years Paco De Lucia met the great master Sabicas, who told him that no one should try to copy another guitar players style, but instead he should create his own. This encouraged young Paco to search for a new and different style.

The result is 50 years of constant touring around the world, a fusion between Paco De Lucia flamenco and all the other big genres of music, namely the jazz fusion with John Mclaughlin and Al Di Meola. The trio is well known around the world as they have toured together in many countries, sharing their beautiful technical accomplishments and melodic phrases.

Today Paco De Lucia is still touring and is intent on releasing a new album. It will be interesting to see the contents of his new album. I am looking forward to it’s release as paco de lucia flamenco is both interesting and challenging for the ear.

Technique-wise classical guitar will prove difficult only for the left hand. Complex chords will prove to be a beast for your left hand, hence they are very good exercise. For this classical guitar lesson I would advise you to learn Bach or Beethoven first as their songs are a little easier to begin with.

Nicolo Paganini has perhaps the most complicated songs techique-wise so if you’re looking for a challenge, this is the thing. They’re also full of melody, perhaps more than other classical greats. This is where you can learn another very important part of music, rhythm.

So getting back to this classical guitar lesson, first comes figuring out the key you’re in, and then learning it if not by heart, but so you know some of the primary chords you’ll see. This will help you cathegorize things much easier when you see them. This is easy, just look at the end of the song, the final note or chord represents the key you’re in. This goes for every song, as otherwise they wouldn’t have a feeling of completion.

After you got some things in mind, like the major and minor chords in the key proceed to learn the song, note by note, chord by chord. If it’s really complex I recommend first learning the bass lines(they’re easier) and then the rest. If you have the song or a program that can play the tabs it becomes much easier to learn a song you like. This is it for today’s classical guitar lesson.

The truth is that this is the kind of mindset that will never get you anywhere. Partly because you don’t really want to learn flamenco guitar, you just want to brag about it to your friends, and partly because you are lazy and want everything without moving a muscle.

It is sad to see so many people drop wonderful things like violin or dance or acting. These are all activities that move us, make us sensitive, activities through which we learn what is important, they put some meaning in our lives. So why not hang on to the things that define us?

This is an enigma for me, for yet I have not figured out what is will, what really drives people to do things. But going back to flamenco guitar. The first thing to do when trying to learn flamenco guitar is to get some kind of grip of the rhythm as this is the most important part of flamenco.

Contrary to what people believe it is not important what you play on the guitar, for that can be easily changed, notes can be learned, chord progressions can also be learned, what is important is that you feel the melody so you can meld with the other players. In time notes will come naturally and then on you will really enjoy to learn flamenco guitar.

The rasguedos are the most important technique in my opinion, partly because it develops all your fingers and because of the main role it plays in any flamenco party. There are 2 main types of rasguedos, but dozens of variations in the technique that various flamenco guitarists employ as a form of personalization of their music.

I’m not sure how to characterize the 2 types of rasguedo, but as with all my flamenco guitar lessons I will try to detail each technique as clearly as possible. The first type of rasguedo involves using your fingers, except the thumb, in rapid succession like this: pinky-ring-middle-index. You start with the thumb resting on a string, the other fingers are held tightly like a punch of sorts. Then release your fingers one after the other on the strings then repeat. If it sounds something like dram-dram-dram you are not doing it fast enough, just keep trying. It should sound something like a constant r, rrrr; when you get that kind of sound you are doing it correctly.

The other type is a more traditional type, most often done using the thumb and middle, though thumb and index are sometimes used for even faster rasguedos. This techniques key points to keep in mind are: the motions are thumb up the strings, middle down, thumb down then repeat, though you can start with any of them. The same rule applies for the sound. This is more difficult to explain in words and your best bet to understand is to try and visualise it, or try to copy flamenco guitar players.

The first type is usually used in bulerias and fandangos, because it is fast and powerful. The second type is common in rondenas and alegrias, but combinations are always employed. More flamenco guitar lessons delve into the other techniques and genres.

There are several styles of guitar finger picking, ranging from classical to flamenco. Intermediate styles like jazz involve using both a pick and your fingers alternatively in order to produce different effects and sounds.

Classical finger picking doesn’t rely so much on anything other than arpeggios and a primitive form of picados. Though some classical songs involve different techniques, they are generally focused on the sound quality rather than being challenging. Jazz and acoustic styles also use arpeggios as the main technique and again are not very challenging since not much speed is required. The focus of all these styles is comfort and relaxation.

In contrast, flamenco is a very complex genre, and it involves several right hand techniques that are unique to this style. The best flamenco guitarist in that he has mastered every technique in existence is Paco De Lucia. His trademark technique is the picado. The picado is the technique in which you use your index and middle fingers alternatively for rapid picking of the strings. Done right it sounds like a flurry of notes with the feeling of a galloping horse. Coupled with the fast nature of flamenco and an excellent control over the left hand patterns the result is remarkable in both speed and power.

Any exercise is good to practice your picado, that is everything helps, both exercises for thumb or arpeggios are very good. These will help you improve your guitar finger picking a lot.

These beginner guitar lessons will emphasize the boring part of music: training, but it will also include the reasons behind exercises and specific chord progression. When it comes to guitar training, there are a few basic exercises which you should master.

The most famous is the 1-2-3-4 exercise of which I am certain you have heard before. But just to be sure I will illustrate the basics of this exercise. The notes you play are the first 4 frets of a string of your choosing, in the progression 1->2->3->4. The left hand fingers you use are all four fingers, one for each fret, index for 1, middle for 2 etc. You should do this exercise about 5-10 minutes a day without break. After you get the idea you can start to improvise and change it.

For beginner guitar lessons the basic chords are enough, there are 7 major chords and 7 minor chords, all within the first 4 frets. Once you know them you can start to understand them, if you move the chord 1 fret up then from say..E major it becomes F major. The trick is that you have to consider the free strings too, so you have to keep the index finger to illustrate the free strings. Once you have that down you begin to realize the similarities between chords and which chord is which.

Try different techniques and see what you can figure out. A small tip to end these beginner guitar lessons, when you are playing the guitar, try and never have the same session twice, at some point change a chord, an exercise or whatever; it will make you enjoy it a lot more.

Though his favorite genre is the bulerias, Paco de Lucia has written songs in many different styles like rondenas, rumbas, alegrias and tangos. His alegrias in particular are some of the hardest pieces to play technique-wise.

He usually uses a capo on the third fret, and his best known bulerias are the songs “Almoraima” and “El Chorruelo”, both of them are very complex and blisteringly fast. Paco de Lucia bulerias require a level of technique unmatched by any other, so this makes his songs unique.

The biggest asset of Paco de Lucia is his feeling and natural touch on the guitar, and his instrument is always top notch; Hermanos Conde and Domingo Esteso are his most prized guitars which he uses in concerts. He is said to have practiced the guitar about 8-10 hours a day for the first few years, giving him complete control over most of the techniques.

Paco de Lucia bulerias are characterized by the fast paced falsetas which he alone can muster, and his balance of volume and power make what Paco de Lucia is best known for. Sometimes he plays bulerias in different keys, which technique-wise pose an even tougher challenge, which shows he is the king of bulerias; as he is known.

There are many differences between spanish music and flamenco. While flamenco was born inside of Spain, it is only native to the region of Andalusia. The techniques are somewhat alike, but flamenco includes many genres and Spanish guitar lessons often include subtle aspects of flamenco and other styles.

These are the most well-known but the truth is there are many regional folk styles just like Andalusian music(flamenco), each with their own flavors and characters. The region of Aragon is characterized by a dense percussive element and the main instruments are castanets, guitar, tambourines and bandurria.

The regions of Asturias, Galicia and Cantabria have a distinct tradition which bears a powerful Celtic stamp. The signature instrument is the gaita, an instrument similar to the classic bagpipe of Scotland. Castille, Madrid and Leon is a large region that has been marked by numerous sources: Portuguese, Roman, Gypsy, Moor and others.

In other words spanish guitar lessons often refer to a very general style, while spanish music is much more complex and branched than it is believed.