It's funny, when you see the absolute masters teach, you think they're going to teach you some secret guitar wizardry, but they always just focus on getting back to the basics...
It's not like that. The thing is Normal teachers teach you the basics. But David is teaching you the basics of the basics. It's the depth of the single stroke and accuracy and perfection of a single fretting finger. In every discipline the very small details add up to great results.
Ahahaha - Yes! 😅 We know that building the basics and referring always to first principles is fundamental physics for ease, accuracy and reliability in performance - across all instruments. And each Master has his/her own way of describing and illustrating this... The more ways out there, the more likelihood that students would take that message on board, start to listen to themselves and apply. I love David's playing. He's a masterful musician. His technique enables the finest subtleties to be layered within the fabric of any passage work with freedom and clarity.
David Russell is one of the greatest guitarists and teachers of our time. This class of students was not very well aware of that 😎 They are all playing while he is talking and explaining things. When David Russell explains something, we ought to listen.
yeah. this is why you don't go to India where people dont hold forks and swim in rivers where they throw their dead bodies. Classical guitar is not meant for third worlders.
2:50: it is more important to be accurate than to be strong. The demonstration on the left hand begins. 5:00: right hand exercises begin. Try to alternate between, for example: i-m and then m-i. There will be a combination that is less comfortable for you. Accent the first note of 4 fast note: i-m-i-m, or m-i-m-i 11:11: start the trill left hand technique. Do a trill of 1-3 nice and gentle and walk from 1st strong up to 6th string. Do again for the trill of 2-4. Can combine two trills of 1-3 then two trills of 2-4 on the same string then walk up.... 12:08: trill of 1-3, 1-3, 2-4, 2-4, don't play loud : nice and gentle. Walk from 1st string up to 6th string 13:30: longer trill of 1-3 on 1st string - fret 5 and 7, fix finger 2 on the 2nd string, 6th fret. Walk finger 2 up the 3rd string, 4th string... 6 string etc. 14:40: longer trill of 1-4 (4 times, for example) on 1st string, 5 and 8 fret. Exchange finger 2 and 3 on 2nd string, 6th and 7th fret, respectively. Walk finger 2 and 3 up to the next string up: 3rd, 4th, 5th string etc. 15:35: study no. 1: fix finger 1 at 6th string, fret 5; do a trill of finger 2 and 4 on the 5th string --> walk down the trill to the 1st string 16:08: study no. 2: fix finger 2 at 6th string, fret 6; do a trill of finger 1 and 3 on the 5th string --> walk down the trill to the 1st string 16:30: fix finger 3 at 6th string, do trill on the other 3 free fingers. Overall message: try to be creative, try to invent excercises that suit your own need using the ideas from the master's examples. It will be much more important for yourself to discover your own exercises, your own etudes using those ideas: trill, fix one finger at a a time, or fix two fingers at a time, etc. Your hands will get more agile. We should look after our hands as we get older if we want to avoid injury and we want to be able to play the guitar until we get really old. Don't jump to difficult pieces without 10-20 minutes of warming up using simple exercises.
I’ve been a fan of David’s playing ever since I was a teenage boy, growing up and learning the guitar. In the subsequent 30 years, I’ve never once seen a video of him, and I can’t tell you what a joy it is to see that he is such a kind and attentive teacher :). What a Mensch.
Seeing him live in 2018 was really nice. He seems to truly appreciate his audience and also the position he is in. He spent time explaining the pieces he was about to play but not too much. When the show was over he came out into the lobby with his guitar case over his shoulder and was open to talking to anyone there. He is confident but not arrogant, he’s willing to teach people what he knows.
He is a wonderful pleasant teacher. He brings the best out of people His message is to analyze very small things and then put them together in a beautiful musical product.
We sometimes forget that using one's body to accomplish a task makes one an athlete and 'warming up' is absolutely integral to the end product as Mr. Russell teaches us here. It doesn't have to be long and drawn out but 'done' it needs to be. I teach all of my students the importance of daily warm ups for just 5-10 mins and what a difference I hear about how less their hands hurt when they get to the bigger passages of the bigger pieces that they are working on. Warming up is integral.
Thank you so much for the advice, it’s very very true about accuracy. It has been my issue and I was not paying attention and wanting to take care of it sooner. Thank you so much again and again, David.
His exercises are very useful and to built a sturdy fundament really is very important. One issue however he should have had to explain: When playing a tirando note, a lot of players make their strike in two parts: First movement often is to end with the contact on the string. The second movement is the actual strike through the string. This results in a short moment of a dampened string which results in an unwanted pause. When striking a string you have to make only one movement. It helps to start with two but the final strike has to be in one movement. You can hear it by listening carefully when you strike one string with an alternate i / m. When there are small moments of silence between the notes, you're still striking the string in two movements. In a lot of lines played you will notice that the one movement strike sounds more lyrical. I hope I've added something to a very good basic lesson. Thanks for that.
That’s exactly, on this photo David blessing all the students for daily routine. But saying “we should practice until perfectly equal efforts by i and m fingers” he didn’t mention how mention years we should practice to achieve this result 100, 200 or even more.
I would love to attend a class by David Russell. He is my favourite guitarist and my teacher’d fsvourite guitarist too. He seems such a nice, down to earth and unforbidding man too.
Beautiful and lovely, of course. And my, how I would have been there... perfecting my barre chords, while others are making obeisances to cows and shi77ing in the streets right outside the door. My, the contrasts in our lives, and the obligations we as artists have to experience them.
I am glad to learn that ..never in history has come such a time that knowledge is available to everyone irrespective of caste , creed or nationality this is Golden age for education.
Thank you so much for sharing this video. An opportunity to study with the Master must have been a musically gratifying and memorable experience. For those who want to study Russell’s technique but do not have an opportunity to do so in person, there is an inexpensive but valuable kindle book written by Antonio de Contreras entitled “The Technique of David Russell.” The book provides class notes, nicely sifted gold nuggets, from David's yearly guitar course in Seville in the 1990's.
You are welcome..indeed it was an incredible and rewarding experience to meet David such a humble human being and a wonderful musician as well ..over years through my experience I have noticed that the tone that comes out of your guitar is a sum up of not just your technical ability but your human nature also which is not taught in any masterclass and that gives you your signature tone...thanks for suggesting the book as well it will be helpful for anybody visiting the link.
@@anandchauhan3416 Hi Anand, nice to hear from you. You make an insightful observation, that tonal quality is a composite end-product of both skill and personality. How fortunate it must have been to learn from the best. Glad to see you play The Bucks of Oranmore, one of my favorites. Thank you for sharing your love of music!
I would add that it's more important to be accurate, than it is to be FAST or strong. I stress the word fast because speed often substitutes for accuracy, defeating it in the process.
I thought there were some interesting points. I've played guitar for 50 years, and haven't heard anyone comment about the need - and the reason - to be right at the fret. The i-m exercises I was more familiar with and believe they have value. I'm unlikely to spend as much time as David recommends on these exercises but, unlike George below, I'm having a hard time thinking that the world's greatest guitarist is a fool.
Truly phenomenal musician. What is his first language? It's English from scotland, right? Why does he speak as an english-as-a-second-language speaker?
Its a tragic waste of talent to have a Scottish guitar master like David trying to teach a bunch of third worlders who don't even know how to hold a fork much less a camera properly.
As Tommy Emmanuel often mentions, It is wrong to downplay the strength (of your hands, especially the left one, if you're right handed). Accuracy is all about control (you're controlling the position of your fingers, the amount of pressure etc.) and the control is achieved through strength. So, basically, accuracy and strength go along with each other. Let's imagine (just for the sake of explanation) that you've got accuracy of your left hand WITHOUT the strength. In that case, what is happening is that you KNOW exactly WHERE to put your finger(s), on which fret in a timely manner. So, you know where and when to press each string, but, the problem is that you cannot hold the finger there - your hand is trembling and you lose control.
@@cathalb2007 Sure. He plays ANY guitar that you can imagine (as well as those beyond your imagination). But the principle that is being discussed here is the same, be it a steel string or a nylon string guitar, be it a classical music, flamenco or bluegrass...
@@DrAgan_tortojed Russell explained why accuracy is more important than strength and demonstrated this. If you played a string instrument you would know this makes sense.
Accurate practice will develop strength. Strength comes from repetition. If anything the harder thing for me was learning to use less strength which then becomes unnecessary tension. Then again I work with my hands so I'm already strong.
