Customer Reviews

Classical Guitar 2000: Technique for the Contemporary Serious Player

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(0)
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2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This book is terrific for any serious student who wants a complete book of exercises for left and right hand development. What I like most about this book is the presentation of the scales. He gives you 33 pages of scales: melodic minor, major scales, chromatic, diminished, etc. in one, two, and three octave ranges. He shows you different approaches to the same scale -- two string version and three string version; 5 string versions and six string versions, etc.

There are good arpeggio exercises, cadence exercise,slur exercises, chord change exercises, chromatic octave and tenths exercises, and everything else you could think of. The explanations are clear. The print is big (nice layout to the book) and easy to read.

I first read Duncan's book, The Art of Classical Guitar Playing, which is a companion to his Classical Guitar 2000 book. That's also very good and unique. Classical Guitar 2000 is the practical application of what he discusses in his Art of Classical Guitar book.

I also have Pumping Nylon by Scott Tennant, and although both books are outstanding and I use both on a frequent basis, I prefer this book.

This book contains the quintessential essay on nail-filing in the literature for classical guitar. I require it for all serious classcial guitar students studying with me. It's discussion of tension as falling into the categories of functional and dysfunctional tension is a very important discussion that helps the developing student realize how the hand function properly. This book is on my "Basic Library" list for all students, classical and otherwise.

Thomas O. Olson, MM, Performer and teacher of Classical guitar, graduate, the Cleveland Institue of Music.

I can't really add much more to say about this very useful book - the above reviewers did an excellent job of describing it's content. I will, however, type up a list of what's in the content page since you can't "see inside" this book:

Preface

Introduction: First Principles

Section I: Scales

Comprehensive Diatonic Scales

Two-Octave Scale Forms

Rhythmic Formulas for Practice

Two-Octave Diatonic Scales in all Keys

Three-Octave Scales

Developing Velocity in Scales

Scales Beyond the Diatonic

Section II: Chords and Arpeggios

Systemic Cadences

Recurring Chord Forms

Cadences in the Principal Keys

Arpeggios

Basic Arpeggios in Increasing Complexity

Arpeggios with Thumb and Fingers Played Together

Practicing Arpeggios with the Carcassi Etude 2

Two Etudes by Dionisio Aguado

Section III: Left-Hand Development

Slurs

Basic Ascending Slur Exercises

Descending Slurs

Ascending and Descending Slurs Combined

Triplet Slurs

Slurs Across the Fingerboard

Chromatic Octaves and Tenths

Bar-Chord Strength Development

Section IV: Exercises in Technical and Interpretive Control

The Left Hand

The Right Hand

Interpretive Control

And there you have the entire contents page. Pretty impressive I think. If you practice these exercises and drills that Mr. Duncan has given, you will improve in many areas. I ask my more advanced students to purchase this book and we begin practicing two octave scales - minor and major.

There is nothing about this book so far, that I can find anything negative to comment on. It's well worth the money.

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UPDATE: OCTOBER 23, 2008

I see that one can now "SEARCH INSIDE!" this book. That's good. It's a great book and I'm always finding new things to study out of it!

Classical Guitar 2000 is what is says:a companion to Charles Duncan's Art of Classical Guitar Playing (Art of Series).

Tons of guitar instruction books are being published. Just type in words like "mastering the guitar" and within soon you may get lost musing what to choose.

This book, written in 1993, may be the one to look for.

It is not written for the beginner. You'll not find the word "easy" in the book.

The serious student (Duncan's words and, I may add, the serious guitar player) will be guided from basic guitar technique to practical examples taken from the classical guitar literature.

It offers a well organized compendium of excercises, tools which provide guidance to "the process of learning and performing music". Again Duncan's words however to be completed by the tag "technical".

Do we learn "music" from books? I don't think so. The book provides the tools to reach the technical levels to perform but it is not by accident that Duncan uses the word "student" several times in his introduction.

Set a goal, get organized, be inspired and find a source to fire the inspiration and enthousiasme to make music. The book may help you to reach that goal.

I am a hybrid classical/steel-string fingerstyle player and I use this book daily for practice. The sections on right hand development are excellent and there are many exercises and options for right hand picking patterns. The etudes in the book are also very good and the lesson suggests alternate right hand picking patterns for variations.

Aside from that, there are other parts of the book that I don't use but that can be useful to anyone that is interested: scales, legato, et al.

Edit, October 24th, 2011: I am still using this book almost daily with great results. I have a recommendation for right hand development: create a spreadsheet for every right hand exercise and track your metronome speeds. I color-code my speeds according to how many BPM I reach. Once I am able to play all the exercises at a certain tempo, I increase the BPM. This has brought me great results thus far.

This has somewhat easier exercises and harder exercises. I'm an old keyboard player trying to learn classical guitar. I had electric guitar, basically chords, in the 60s. Classical Guitar is much different as is the fingering, which is one of my nemesis. There are several arppegios with excellent finger techniques to learn. I'm still in the stage where I get my 3rd finger mixed up with my real 3rd finger. So learning the finger tehcniques in here will be invaluable to me.

All the others above have mentioned many of the other areas already in this book and have done a fine review job so I'll leave it at that.

A very interesting practical basic and intermediate classical guitar book. There is also a Volume 1 by the same author, also very interesting as an introductory classical player guitar book.

Was written for the expert. Would be good for someone who already knew the technique. Good company to do business with.