Furthering our chord and harmony vocab is one of the most important ways to take our songwriting and musicianship skills to higher levels. In this guitar lesson, I will go over a variety of ideas (many seemingly unrelated) that all aim to make you (and I) better players and songwriters.

Flamenco is a musical style rooted deeply in tradition. Though meant to be played finger style on a Flamenco guitar (similar to classical guitar but with a pronounced midrange), we can adopt practices from the beautiful realm of Flamenco and apply them on whatever guitar we happen to have on hand. Flamenco purists would certainly frown on that idea, but if you have gone over enough of my lessons, you probably know my stance on purists...

I continuously seek to blend Flamenco ideas into my steel string acoustic playing. To that end, I bought a book several years ago titled Flamenco Guitar Method Volume 1.

Some aspects of Flamenco style don't translate well to acoustic guitar, but we can certainly borrow basic chord strumming ideas.

Flamenco chord strumming typically relies on a technique called Rasgueo. This technique has you balling up your strumming hand into a fist and explosively releasing various combinations of fingers to create the firey, percussive character associated with Flamenco guitar. One way to mimic this idea (albeit, doesn't sound as compelling as it does when played true Flamenco style) is to simply make rapid strums. Consider the chord progression below:

This chord progression/strumming pattern is known as a Solea. The key here is to execute the 16th note strums rapidly which gives the progression excellent rhythmic energy and passion.

Enjoy!

-Brian

In a previous guitar lesson we went over a strumming pattern found in Flamenco and showed how it translates to acoustic style. In this guitar lesson, we take a look at another Flamenco pattern. This time we look at a slightly more advanced concept that involves strumming as well as phrasing.

Note: Do not expect to get a true Flamenco sound from an acoustic. An essential component of Flamenco guitar is the percussive sound generated by the fingernails striking the strings. But borrowing concepts from musical genres is certainly a great way to expand one's musical vocabulary and influence one's own songwriting skills.

Flamenco Guitar Method Volume 1

Above is tab found on page 29 of Flamenco Guitar Method Volume 1.

As you can see this exercise involves strumming chords while executing legato phrases (very common in Flamenco). It is tough to get definition of the notes on acoustic. In my recording, I pick a few of the notes in the legato phrases, since otherwise there would not be enough clarity of the notes. The best way to approach this and other Flamenco exercises is to listen to a Flamenco player and try your best to emulate on your acoustic. Flamenco Guitar Method Volume 1comes with a CD and so you can gain a lot of insight by listening and absorbing.

Later,

Brian

The 12 bar blues progression is one of the first chord progressions that any guitar player learns. There is a nearly endless number of variations of the 12 bar blues progression. Some of these variations are so jazzy to the point of losing any connection to the blues. This variation is not on that extreme end of the spectrum. While using some common jazz chords, this 12 bar blues progressionj still maintains a very bluesy feel.

Above is the tab for the blues progression. Play each chord as quarter notes. Really not much to this one, but it is a great progression. Record it and improvise some blues over it.

Later,

Brian