Issue 2 - July 1st, 2012

I would like to invite you to be part of this Weekly Magazine by raising questions and giving me suggestions so this magazine can become a good material for all flamenco lovers and research musicians.

1.- Comments, Questions and Answers: "Can I use other fingerings besides the Paco de Lucia ones?"

2.- Videos of the Week: "Buleria por Arriba - Interactive Lessons" - intermediate Level 1

3.- Video Recommendation of the Week: John McLaughlin and Paco de Lucía Concert in 1987.

Question: Can I use other fingerings besides the Paco de Lucia ones?

Answer: This is a very good question.

Yes you can learn other ways or fingering shapes if you like.

Nonetheless in guitar there are so many aspects that if you just focus in one of them like the diverse fingerings plausible you may be distracted by hundreds of possibilities and finally not master any of them.

Every great player (like for example: John Mc Laughlin, Al Di Meola, Joe Pass, Django Reinhardt, Allan Holdsworth, Pat Metheny or Paco) has his own fingerings (completely diverse from each other) and it is not possible for us to learn and master them all.

Your phrasing will be molded according and/or through the particular  fingerings you choose to use.

Fingerings are just vehicles for you to articulate in phrasing, and therefore every great master differs from others in that facet.

Therefore unless your goal is to do a research about different fingerings, I suggest that you rather decide which ones you want to follow and practice only that, for example: Our goal of using Paco de Lucia’s fingerings in CFG study program is to be able to create melodies at easy on the spot, and create music with them, I learned from Paco to be extremely practical regarding fingerings, and his fingerings are the most convenient in my experience.

I also know many other fingerings like the Andres Segovia ones, I have seen tons of interesting books about this same topic (different fingerings) but I never use them.

Really speaking we could expend some ten years researching different fingerings and not be able to play with any of them fluently.

The problem with guitar is that it is so vast, and due to the limited time we have, it is necessary to decide one line or style and master that first, otherwise we could be mislead by so many options…

This I partially explained here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6GUs0du1IIg

This lesson is based on Chick Corea's great piece, a bulería, called "La Fiesta" and it's positionally played "por arriba", whihc means "upper position" namely F, E.