As always an extraordinarilly good Tutorial from Matthew! You should make more Videos with him, he's amazing! And respect for the beautiful Sound and cutting quality! Very Very Good Work!!!
Never knew how complicated guitar playing is. I for one is annoyed about squeaking. But I see now its purpose and the challenge for any player to eliminate it. I just have great respect for guitarists. Please continue with these tutorials.
VERY interesting. Even though he was happy with the performance, someone pointed out something he did not know was a factor. This for me is interesting in the fact that he has a lot of stake in the opinions of the audience. I always used to say if I had an audience of 100 guitar players and one layman the most important opinion would be the layman and what he/she had to say. Even though they may be ignorant of the technicalities, did they like it? Did it touch them? Stir an emotion? That is the basis of art. Mr McAllister sees this and even though he is Scottish and I may be biased, I am impressed. As far as squeaking goes, I never thought much about it before this video. It would be nice if they could manufacture better bass strings?
Thanks, the Villa Lobos is above my pay grade at the moment but I tried the slide and there is plenty of work I can do there. Helpful. There is a video somewhere of one of Russell's masterclasses, taken from a cellphone, in which he demonstrates his daily warm up routine as starting with a rather significant amount of one finger pluck and release. Very disciplined, I can drink coffee with the other hand like he does but it is mentally difficult to stay focused on such a seemingly small thing. He later plays a Segovia scale or two incredibly fast, not a squeak as I recall. Anyway, I like to pay attention when musicians I enjoy listening to talk about how they do it. Appreciate this.
One of the best videos on the subject. I am struggling with the squeaks even without horizontal position jump, eg when unpressing a bar chord or switching from C to B7. But the same principle applies. For now, I need to extremely concentrate on each bass string unpressing, but I hope it will go into automation with time...
Excellent advice. I used to swear by the original Concertiste strings. They had wonderful crisp but round-toned basses - very different from today's steely sounding basses. The composition was very different - more nylon with much thinner and softer copper windings. They were not nearly as squeaky as today's strings. The main drawback was that they actually physically wore out whereas now the windings are so dense that they never wear through. It seems that we have unfortunately sacrificed quality for power and longevity.
Thank you very much for your video. It is really impessive! I would like to buy one Hanika 58CC, could you please tell me where can I come to try and buy it. I dont want to buy on amazon. I am living in Germany, near Aachen city. Thanks !
For the treble strings my 3rd and 4th fingers will slide off fret position, also if you line up your fingers just a half step on a string, my 4th (sometimes 1st) finger will cave-in/ cave out , it looks like a “M” “N” “W”shape.
Watching you balance the guitar on your knee is making me uneasy.... Are the owners okay? :) Brilliant tutorial. What do you think of the bass strings such as D'Addario EJ45LP? Thanks in advance.
Maybe the solution that can further help is a manufacturer producing flat wound bass strings made for classical guitars just like how some basses have flat wound strings. I wonder why no manufacturers have attempted this for the classical ? Maybe too hard to manufacture ?
The subject is very interesting and timely, but do you REALLY have to repeat EVERYTHING 5 plus times? Or show the most obvious physical demonstration, while describing it in the deepest detailed minutiae, as if it was completely unknown to anyone else besides enlightened, Avatarish beings? Or as if it were spoken in some rare Martian-dialect, so cryptical that it was supposedly far beyond the intellectual scope of us, poor deranged sub-humans? After a while (for example, when you endlessly kept lifting your finger from the Sixth string, as if it was the most intricate and impossible feat for Humankind to perform) I HAD to skip this one, as it obviously was intended for low-level, incognitive individuals, mostly mentally retards, who solely play the Guitar occasionally, whom surely would be incapable of reaping any real, fluent and productive musical result, afterwards. I'll be delighted to watch a video/lesson from you which would be directed to Adult, Mature, Capable, Intelligent, Sharp & full Cognitive audiences only. Cheers!
Hi guyfromBRI unfortunately must fit into the class of "low level, incognitive individuals, mostly mental retards....." etc etc ad infinitum you so eloquently describe, as I found the information quite informative, especially coming from one with the high stature and standing in the world of classical guitar as Mathew McAllister has.So with that in mind I have been waiting with great anticipation and excitement for your much superior post to set us aforementioned "mental retards" on the right path as to how best to avoid and eliminate squeaking from our playing.From the supercilious and condescending nature of your critique, I hope I have correctly assumed you must be in the top echelon of virtuoso guitarists and I cannot begin to voice my great disappointment in not being able to find you anywhere on the internet to be able to hear how wonderful you must be.Please ,with great respect for your undoubted but so far undiscovered talent, post some videos of not only your knowledge on how better to explain how to vanquish squeaking, but of also your superlative performances so that we, the childish, immature, incapable, unintelligent, dull and emptily incognitive can enjoy your great musicianship.
+Desigovia Although I really consider sarcasm in person-to-person Writing a very insincere, despicable and low manifestation, I thank you for the kick. Your input is a welcome chance that will allow me to set the record straight. Firstly, I must state that when I wrote the above criticism - which "Content" to me is still correct, by the way - I'd probably was having a bad day somehow, 'cause I ordinarily don't bash people for no reason, as it ended up "sounding" like in my original message. Also, I generally seek to check, through the mist of misunderstanding and insults which characterises exchanges between people here, if there's a good, worthy "point" to help us all progress and evolve as Humans. I know for a fact how people are generally conditioned to be emotionally unbalanced from Birth (except the lucky ones, with conscious and aware parents, of course), so I tend to refrain our "natural instinct" as to hit back immediately and usually don't care too much regarding a slip of a coarse language here and there from yt'ers. It was all the more inappropriate if such harsh remarks were directed to such a nice and gentle character as mr. McAllister, who's nothing short of a genuine sharer, which happy, light demeanour can be found in every video I saw from him - as I, unfortunately, never met the man - who, as a devoted and experienced fellow musician, was simply partaking his personal Experience & Technique with all of us. Being him so lovely, it made me cringe with my choice of "Words/Form" to express my dissatisfaction with that specific part of his video-tutorial. If he reads these lines someday, I'd like to say that I sincerely regret being so rude, and apologise for my bad manners. And if I'm allowed to share in return something with him, I'd like to suggest for him to restudy the "3.Allegro Solemne" from that fabulous "La Catedral", after the versions on those recordings from the great John Williams, 'cause it shows a much more musical and better structured writing than those first versions we all had access to. If he can't transcribe it off the records himself, I'll be glad to share it with him, as I got a verbatim transcription from a close friend of mine, Sérgio Abreu (from the unsurpassable "Abreu Duo"), who kindly did it upon my request when I was a young and very talented student who obsessively wanted to play it like that fabulous "John Williams' version". Poor deluded chap I was (hahaha...). Different Destiny. Well, if that's relevant and/or comforting, not only "myself", but, frankly, "nobody" ever did it quite like him... ;) Secondly, it seems that you're an overall devoted fan of mr. McAllister, which is nice. He's good, but I gather that if you're focused only into Scotland musical scene, that'll be limiting. Maybe you might want to expand your horizons, to enrich your Life & Musical experience even more. I'll suggest some names from my own personal experience. Because being a lucky brazilian, I always got around fantastic Guitarists such as (right off the top of my head) the already mentioned Abreu Duo (or "Abreu Brothers"), the Assad Duo and their teacher, the celebrated master Adolfina 'Monina' Távora (yep, I had the privilege to met her 'in loco'), plus Marcelo Kayath, Badi Assad, Alice Artzt, Fábio Zanon, Duo Siqueira-Lima, Paulo Martelli (he did the best "Koyunbaba" rendition ever). These are not all the greats that I got to meet and know personally, but just few and easier names for you to look up in YT, among dozens of other luminaries from Brazil's Classical Guitar scene who left an undelible mark on the Musical World. This 'colony' here had such a blend of Cultures that it made Brasil one of the (if not "the") richest in the World, by its varied foreign influences, in the same vein as what happened with the US. Not to mention some other musical & guitar geniuses, such as Raphael Rabello (astonishing guitarist, deeply and kindly admired by the great Paco de Lucia himself), Hélio Delmiro (without a doubt, the greatest soloist and improviser of Jazz Guitar of all time), and respected Composers such as Carlos Lyra (co-founder and one of Bossa Nova's greats) and Dori Caymmi (one of our greatest Composers, Dorival Caymmi's eldest son), all legends on their own right, whom I also had the privilege to meet and hear them play and talk about many topics, as Music & Life. Do your research on those and see if you find them worthy of your interest and, maybe, help to inspire and enrich your own musical and personal progress. Although it can be seen as such, that was not a name-dropping list to "impress" you, as I really don't need that. All those listed above I've really met, played and exchanged many ideas, and it was truly soul-enriching. So, in short, I'm recommending the ones I was really fortunate enough to know and share some quality time with, among so many people that impacted my life positively. As I don't know your experience and targets in Music, I'm sharing what I can to help widening your choices. So, I strongly recommend for you to look up those names to further your musical horizons, 'cause nobody crosses Life's Paths by "chance", and here's my contribution to you, in (quite) the same vein you did to me. If you have some doubts or need some infos, just get in touch and I'll do what I can to help. Thirdly and final point: just because I admittedly was an jerk on my comment, it doesn't mean that I should refrain my only criticism on your reply to me ('cause that'd be "Omission", which to me is a "cardinal sin"). It was a serious mistake many people do, specially the young ones, still immature and unable to form their own set of Morals in Life. I'm referring to this assumption that anyone who ever says anything contrary to one's stance should put a video on YT to "prove" something to anyone. Please, don't follow this illogic, irrational trend. That's silly at best, and stupidard, at worst. Imagine you're at a restaurant, and the waiter brings your Orange Juice which you find awful, and tell him so. If he'd to follow your previous "line of reasoning", he'd ask you to "produce" a better Orange in order to be able to criticise it or shut up, because "as long as you're not an Orange-Tree, you bear no enough credentials to have a say on the matter". Of course this is a metaphor, but don't you see its insanity? Or, closer to home, imagine the great Julian Bream playing on London's RAH, and a critic saying that his Bach renditions were not up to scratch - and then JB, with his guitar in hand, come to him furiously demanding that the critic plays it better. Have you ever heard about it? Never, hun? Of course, not... He's a Man, an Adult (unlike Segovia, hehehe), and, except for his drinking, he's a good, gentle character to emulate - not to mention his fabulous Wisdom, excellent Musicality and permanent good humour. It seems that due to your lack of experience in Life you had learnt this line of confrontation and just adopted it as "the right". Well, it is not, period. When you'll be a bit more mature, you'll then realise that most of the greatest Masters-Teachers in every field are unable to perform as their medium-talented students - and, conversely, the greatest players in every field are unable to teach properly. "To each his own". One notable exception in Guitar is Pepe Romero; the rest that I've met and had known fits the rule. Think about it. In short: nobody have to post anything on YT and/or play anything better than anyone to be able to have a say on his/her performance. Most morons always spew this nonsense and you just inertially followed the herd. I can understand the influence one suffers from their social circle, but anyway it was a bad choice on your part, and if you keep this pattern, soon you'll be buying Rihanna's and Lady Gaga's records... ;) I sense that today is a good day for people to start to "Think" for themselves, isn't it? Well, it was a long read, but I hope it helps you to Reflect and add to you, somehow. All the best and, again, thank you for your input. After all said and done, we're all in the same "Prison of Illusion"; so, we better start being kind to each other... Cheers!
GuyfromBR, Why not write a book about your issues.? If I were you, I wouldn't bother to waffle on RU-vid because I have to break it to you, your terribly boring monologue must be embarrassing if you have any sense. You can actually delete your rambling nonsense if you want. I hope you know that.!
