Guitar Lessons Basingstoke

I have a rare gap in my day this afternoon, anyone want a lesson?

Strangely "classical guitar" and "playing classical music on the guitar" mean two very different things to us guitarists.

Classical guitar is a tradition - grown out of Spain actually - figures like Francisco Terrega (you may recognise from the Nokia ringtone) was particularly influential in the early days of "classical guitar". And like all traditions, it lives by the upholding of its conventions, which are generally as follows: playing a specific model of guitar with a wide neck, no truss rod, nylon strings, and a different type of bridge; picking with the fingers only; growing one's picking hand fingernails; positioning the foot opposite the picking hand on a footstool while playing and resting the guitar on that raised leg; a much higher than average insistence on the technique known as "rest stroke" from the outset; and its educational institutions are generally more focused on music reading and less on improvisation than other music educational models. Obvious examples of adherents to the "classical guitar" tradition are people like Julian Bream and John Williams, who are brilliant by the way.

However, you can play classical music of all varieties without buying into any of those idiosyncrasies, listen to Paul Gilbert or Tony McManus play Bach, Mattias Eklundh play Beethoven, Clive Carroll play O'Carolan, Yngwie Malmsteen play Paganini and Uli Jon Roth play Vivaldi for example to see that, as much as anything else, nylon has no monopoly on classical music for the guitar.