Re: Chords on Classical

Date: Tue, 20 May 2003 10:06:49 -0800
Newsgroups: rec.music.classical.guitar
Size: 1,647 bytes

In article <email-address-deleted>, t0rn
<email-address-deleted> wrote:
> Would it be fair to say that not all chords that can be played on a
> regular guitar can be played on a classical? The reason for my asking
> is because I've wanted to learn guitar for quite some time and came
> across a classical guitar for a good price and am beginning my journey
> with it. upon attempting some of the chords i noticed that thanks to
> the fact that the strings are farther apart on classical than regular
> i am unable to exact the correct fingering. am i doing something
> wrong? perhaps a newbie mistake? any help would be appreciated
>
> t0rn
Torn --
I don't think it would be fair to say that. I think you could say that
you might have to finger them differently.
(And the classical guitar *is* the regular guitar -- the steel
acoustics and the electrics came later ...)
There are chords on a slim-neck guitar that can be played by wrapping
the thumb around to do the basses, but some of these can be done with
barres. If you have big enough hands, you could probably thumb strings
on a classical. (There's a classical player who plays an eight-string
guitar who sometimes uses his chin ...)
With practice, you can stretch your fingers apart enough to adjust to
neck width, and there are a lot of different ways to make the same
chord -- pick up any chord book and check it out. Something that might
be a stretch in first position might work just fine several frets down.
Good classical players -- of which I am not one -- use the whole length
of the fretboard, and there are plenty of options.
--
Steve