If you want to learn to play Flamenco guitar you will find that the basic left hand techniques are the same as the ones you would use in other guitar styles. The right hand techniques for Flamenco playing are more challenging, especially if you have not done any finger style playing before.

Your right hand technique need not be particularly advanced to allow you to add the Flamenco sound to your playing but you should always aim for a clean sound. You will find many amateur, and some professional Flamenco guitar players that you might find on YouTube or on Flamenco records from the nineteen sixties do not pay a hell of a lot of attention to clean notes. There is a school of thought that rough technique is okay if the passion is in the playing. This might apply to guys who have been playing Flamenco all their lives, but if you are fluffing notes it means you haven’t practiced enough.

Let’s think for a minute about where you are going to find Flamenco guitar lessons. The answer is YouTube or similar video sites. The Flamenco guitar videos available on the internet will vary in quality of playing but most of the lessons that focus on specific techniques are generally quite useful to beginner Flamenco guitar players.

The techniques you will be learning are Picardo which is the picking style Flamenco players use to play scale passages, Tremolo which allows the guitar player to play solos made up of long notes while playing bass accompaniment at the same time and Rasqueado which covers the aggressive and expressive strumming techniques which help give Flamenco Guitar Playing its unique sound.

Some of the professional guitarists you should be listening to are Paco De Lucia, Vicente Amigo, Sabicas, Diego Del Gastor, Serranito and Paco Pena. The lessons available are often given by guitarists whose names don’t sound very Spanish but if you can get a technique that you like from some guy named Hung Li O’reilly what’s the harm? One Flamenco guitar teacher you will find giving good advice and material in the form of video Flamenco guitar lessons is Sal Bonavita.

Back in the nineteen sixties and seventies there were a few guitarists giving “Flamenco” concerts all over the world to big audiences. Their publicity announced that their greatness but they were regarded as nowhere near the class of the guitarists I mentioned above, and have nothing to offer the Flamenco student. So if you come across videos featuring Carlos Montoya, Manitas De Plata and Juan Serrano, don’t waste too much time on them. I don’t want to badmouth artists who have given many people pleasure through their concerts and records but sometimes newbies waste time trying to learn material that will not benefit them in any way.

If you are looking for instruction books on Flamenco guitar, you should look for Toques Flamencos by Paco Pena. In spite of what I wrote above, if you find one of the guitar tutors by Juan Serrano they will at least give you a good grounding in the basics.

Ricky Sharples
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