Improvisation and Performance Techniques for Classical and Acoustic Guitar

From the Introduction: The intention of this book is to provide you with musical instruction and material to assist you in learning improvisation, along with fundamental tone production and performance techniques. It is my hope that the content is accessible to a wide range of player skills, including those with minimal experience on the classical or acoustic guitar. To invite and include the near beginner, I've begun with the standard symbols for the fingers on both hands but refrained from a first position scale chart and rhythm value chart, so some basic music reading skills will be necessary.

The music exercises and studies will proceed in stages, each one successively revealing different aspects to be achieved in your playing awareness. The chord forms will be presented at the outset with very little harmonic analysis. Many of the techniques here stress a minimum of left-hand movement with a maximum of right-hand plucking variations. However, as you progress through the book, you will be using and accumulating chord voicings that 1 find appealing and versatile in both their vertical and melodic utility.

Since improvisers take on the added responsibility of the compositional content of the music to varying degrees, often the dynamics, articulation, and tone production (the strong domain of the classical player) can suffer some neglect. In this book, I have attempted to present these techniques of performance as an integral part of the total musical experience. It is my firm belief that from the beginning, musical training can include all the expressive elements of performance technique, along with the playing of correct pitches.