Beginning classical guitarists need to develop facility in scales, arpeggios, and tremolo playing as well as other techniques to be able to play the classical repertoire. Through the centuries, composers such as Fernando Sor, Dionysio Aguado, Ferdinando Carruli, Mauro Giuliani, Heitor Villa-Lobos, Leo Brower, and others penned hundreds of etudes (studies) to help in the development of classical guitar technique. While many of these etudes are possess tremendous beauty and value, some of them require a lot of effort just to understand the music well enough to get the benefit of the technical exercise.

This lesson will present ideas to help you derive maximum benefit from a single etude by altering it to serve your personal technical needs. This approach will help you to start thinking of ways to solve your technique problems without seeking out and learning additional works that you hope will help you overcome technical difficulties.

Once you start doing it, you will find this method can be adapted to many technical studies, especially in the area of riight hand development. For this lesson, I have chosen to explore the hidden treasures to be found in a little “Prelude” by Ferdinando Carruli. One thing that makes this piece a good subject for working right-hand exercises is that each chord lasts for a full bar. This provides the opportunity to apply a variety of techniques to the chord progression. As you work with this or another etude of your choosing, strive to memorize the chord progression to free yourself from the page.

Before we even consider adapting what Carulli wrote(Page 1, Page 2), we should note what techniques the piece can help you with as originally written. It is a nice workout with block chords that will benefit both the left and right hands. I have written a target tempo marking of 160 even though moderato would be slower than that. You may choose to play the musical examples slower than that. From a strictly musical perspective, this Prelude has many unexpected turns, with momentary modulations to b minor (bar 16), G major (bars 22, 26-29), g minor (bar 30) and E-flat (bar 32), a minor (bar 40), d minor (bar 42), C major (bar 44), via a series of colorful diminished chords.

Note that in bars 9-17 and 24-29, the chord voicings in Carulli’s original had only three notes or voices instead of four as found in the rest of the piece. (I will mention later why I have filled out the chords in these measure with the notes that are in parenthesis.) After playing it as written, try exploring different combinations of right-hand fingerings to follow the voices. Start by playing the bass line and then the two middle voices with p, i, and m (thumb, index, and middle fingers [Example 1].

Ignore the top note until you get to bars 9-17 and 24-29 where the original had only three voices. Play those bars without the notes in parenthesis and then drop from the top voice to the second voice when you reach bar 18. Do the same when you reach bar 30. One other helpful exercise for practice in keeping the voices independent is to play only the bass line and top line [Example 2].

Next, let’s change the right-hand pattern to a triplet arpeggio form [see Exercise 3]. Ironically, this is one of the most basic right-hand arpeggio patterns, yet it takes a lot of control to keep all of the notes even and not rushed.

Now let’s go back to the plucked chord approach to start changing things. As mentioned, I filled in the chords in bars 9-17 and 24-29. I dd this so that the whole piece could be played with four-note chord voicings. To play it this way demands that every voice sound at the same volume, none sticking out or overpowering the others. After playing it this way, try it again, but roll every chord this time [Example 4]. No one would perform a piece this way, but doing this is a great exercise for getting your rolled chords even.

We will use the four-note chords for the rest of this lesson to work various right-hand variations. Let’s start by playing through the progression in sixteenth note arpeggios. This is another basic right-hand arpeggio pattern that is difficult to play in a controlled manner. Exercise 5 shows a sample of the chord progression written in this fashion. Continue this pattern as you play through the entire piece. The goal of this exercise is to keep every note even rhythmically and in volume. This variation quickly begins to feel like a an endurance test.

Let’s stay with sixteenth notes but reverse the pattern as shown in exercise 6. This is a bit more difficult to execute. Keep in mind that our primary goal is not speed, but clarity and an even rhythmic flow.

Another common but more challenging arpeggio form employs sextuplets. This figure can also be applied to the chord progression in its four-note per-chord form. Exercise 7 shows how it should be played. You will derive many benefits by playing these sextuplet figures at a range of tempos. Try different ones to discover where your hand feels most in control as well as where it seems to have the least amount of control.

These ideas barely scratch the surface of what might be done with a single etude. While developing your music reading ability is vitally important and should not be neglected, this is a method to helpp you to cut to the chase with a piece you already know when you want work on right-hand technique. Once you master an etude, try making your variations as I did above. It is a way to be creative with the music and will help you develop a custom-made warm-up routine targeting the technical problems you want to overcome.