Method Plan - Volume Two (Rest Stroke)

The first B.A. course for classical guitar in America was started at American University in 1960. When I enrolled in 1961, there was fierce competition between the students of rival instructors Aaron Shearer and Sophocles Pappas, champions of the 'progressive' and 'traditionalist' schools, respectively.

Their contrasting ideologies were epitomised on the recital stage by Julian Bream and Andres Segovia, whose annual recitals in Washington were anticipated with great relish. Both as men and musicians, these two were in complete contrast. Although by then of faded powers, Segovia the legend remained a greater than life figure on stage. Bream, the eccentric young Englishman, was every bit as compelling.

Yet the contrasts between these consummate artists ran far deeper than mere stage presence. In a far larger sense, theirs was a confrontation between two historically differentiated spiritual and technical perceptions of the guitar. Though Bream's transparent approach, based on northern lute traditions, utilised primarily free stroke, the essential ingredient of Segovia's Iberian aesthetic was rest stroke.

Tirando in all its crystalline purity versus the mighty appoyando!

Thirty five years down the road from those heady sixties, no guitarist has built a comparable mystique around rest stroke, nor imposed it across such a wide range of traditional repertoire as did the great Spaniard.

An intruiging question: how did rest stroke emerge as a focus of Iberian, rather than northern tradition? What special influence did this technique exert on Segovia during his formative period, early in the 20th century?

To try to understand this, it is helpful to go back a century earlier and see how guitars, as well as guitarists, differed from their modern counterparts.

Guitars in the opening decades of the 19th century were smaller, with rigidly braced tops and quick-fading gut strings. Up until the 1820s, many guitars were still double strung, like the lute or modern twelve-string guitar.

The Spaniard Antonio Torres consolidated modern guitar construction between 1850 and 1870. His concepts - an enlarged instrument with flexible fan bracing - established norms for subsequent development.

Early nineteenth century guitarists were virtuoso, composer and pedagogue rolled into one. The oeuvre of such masters as Mauro Giuliani and Fernando Sor covered the widest possible range, from basic instruction pieces to extended concert works. Their technique was based on free stroke, with the presumption of bracing the little or 'pinkie' finger of the right hand on the soundboard.

Another Spaniard introduced two major technical innovations. From the time of Francisco Tarrega late in the 19th century, free stroke was played by the right hand in the unsupported, rather than 'pinkie braced' position.

Tarrega's second major innovation was rest stroke. Though it may seem second nature to guitarists today, the downward action of rest stroke is impractical from the pinkie-braced position, or when executed across double strings.

Although rendering it more powerful and expressive, advances in technique and construction also made the guitar harder to play. Because the left hand must stretch further on the larger modern fingerboard, early 19th century repertoire is more difficult for modern players.

The unsupported position proved an even more formidable obstacle, so much so that beginners required a simpler, more accessible alternative.

Modern teachers generally agree that starting rest stroke before free stroke is advantageous in this respect. As a relatively stable substitute for pinkie-bracing, the rest stroke position provides a stepping-stone to the unsupported position.

Unfortunately, this solution highlights another problem. The vast student repertoire for free stroke is the result of contributions by numerous guitarist-composers of the 19th century foundation period.

Unlike them, Tarrega and subsequent guitarists composed relatively little for students. And being impractical for any but guitarists to compose, there remains a dearth of progressive rest stroke materials.

One attempt at a solution has been to apply rest stroke to traditional free stroke repertoire, a la Segovia. While an interesting concert level option, such an approach is highly dubious for progressive training.

Nor does endlessly practising rest stroke scales prove very stimulating for students.

Perhaps the technical consolidation of rest stroke achieved during the 20th century will prove a harbinger to its expressive intergration in the present one. This is largely a matter for future guitarist-composers to determine.

I hope that the present volumes will be a positive step in that direction.

In Volume Two of the Intermediate Method, rest stroke is developed in conjunction with other congenial techniques. There are three books, or parts.

Part One: Basic major, minor and chromatic scales are presented accoding to their associated keys, along with supporting materials. View music samples from this book here.

Part Two: Bars of two - four strings, slurs, sixteenth notes and triplets are explored, as well as more remote flat keys. Interesting and challenging repertoire items directly reflect the topics presented.

Of Special importance in Part Two is the consideration granted to both a mechanical and expressive role for slurs. Traditionally, guitar slurs facilitate right hand fingering and/or enhance the musical texture. Unlike on other mainstream instruments, slur development on guitar is centred on clarity and smoothness, with scant regard for expressive potential.

Historical limitations on guitar sonority are certainly the main culprit here. But on the modern nylon string guitar, particularly in the context of recording and electronically amplified performance, it is practical at last to incorporate slurs into the guitar's expressive rhetoric. Such a context is prepared in the present method through prolonged attention to short group, or strong to weak phrasing, of which slurs are a characteristic guitar prototype.

Part Three: Introduces bars of five and six strings, closed string scales, basic harmonics, scordatura tuning, extension fingerings, auxiliary positions and standard ornaments.

Appendices:Techniques with variable timetable for study such as Arm Force in Rest Stroke, Vibrato, Damping, Coloration and Full Bar Position are included where appropriate as Appendices.

Robert Luse
18th May 1998
Singapore
 

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