Right hand

[Subesharyal]

I've been playing classical guitar for four years now but I still have problems on my right hand.I can't seem to produce a clear tone.I've been practicing Guiliani 120 right hand rule, however I haven't practiced any scales.So will the scales help me to play some beautiful pieces?Please advise.

[Chris Davis]

I've been playing classical guitar for four years now but I still have problems on my right hand.I can't seem to produce a clear tone.I've been practicing Guiliani 120 right hand rule, however I haven't practiced any scales.So will the scales help me to play some beautiful pieces?Please advise.

Scales will help you gain coordination between the hands, and, depending on how you practice, speed.

It's important to practice with proper mechanics and motion, though. There's been pleny of threads on scales, just do a search on the forum.

[kys1]

Many people find scales helpful, and others discount their usefulness. I personally find that my playing is more secure if I practice scales daily (I have gone through phases where I haven't and phases where I have). Something else that I find helps my right hand tone and accuracy is after a bit of warming up, I use an arpeggiated piece like VL's Etude 1, or Bach's prelude from BWV999, and play it nice and slowly with a metronome, focusing on a secure plant, and a nice fat clear tone. I might play it through 2-3 times, increasing in speed each time. I find it really helps the right hand. You do however have to have both of these tunes under your belt before you can pull them out as a warmup like that, however they have helped my right hand.

[david_classg]

if you are not currently with a good teacher, maybe you should consider finding one at least for a few leasons, that way you can find out if you are doing something wrong or if you play in an incorrect posture or one that doesn't help you

[freddy]

I am not sure, as a relative beginner to classical guitar, but as a professional violinist scales are invaluable tools for technique. Unfortunately, they are very boring...

[owjackson]

I think scales are fun! One can do many things with them to create beautiful music!

[ksjazzguitar]

...So will the scales help me to play some beautiful pieces?...

Segovia sure thought so. It will ceratinly help if you want to play anything with scalare passages in it. (Playing all "arpeggio" pieces will get boring after a while.

If you fear scales so much maybe that is an indication that you MUST work on them. Often we unconciously avoid practicing our weaknesse, when that is ironically where we should be spending the most time.

Peace,
Kevin

[owjackson]

That is soo true! Practice and practice a lot more!

[Steve Kutzer]

Often we unconciously avoid practicing our weaknesse, when that is ironically where we should be spending the most time.

Peace,
Kevin

This is a great point. I used to have a karate instructor that would force us right-handers to drill, drill, drill on our left side. It was humbling, it improved our left sides, it improved our overall balance, and when we finally got to "play" by trotting out our right arms and legs, they had somehow magically gotten even better.

[kfisherx]

Just to add here. Scales are the wort thing in the world you can practice if you find them boring or if you don't know how to practice them (what your directives are for that scale) Forcing yourself to do them will only propagate mindless practice as opposed to focused practice which is what you should be doing 100% of the time.

Also if you have been playing for some number of years and still don't get good sound I hope you realized that you have some foundational elements incorrectly built into your playing. No amount of any sort of exercises are going to fix that if you don't have the problem or problems root caused. If you are serious about fixing this then you MUST find a competent teacher to evaluate and root cause your problems.

We can't do that on the internet for you by written word. You must find a good teacher in CG. My teacher will occasionally do free evals for interested folks right now over the internet via video. You will have to be able to make a video of your playing from the correct angle but he does this with a large degree of success. He makes this offer to people at this time period occasionally as he is experimenting with how effective the method of teaching is. He has been doing this for almost a year now and so far the results are amazing. You might start there. Then when you go to find a local teacher you can use the information that you learned to help you assess if the local teacher is competent (many, many are not). Or you can continue on the elearning course of study.

In any case that is really the only help that we can in good conscious offer you to fix the problem that you present.