What’s this week’s guitar course question? Let’s dive straight in…
Question: I have the opportunity to take an online classical guitar course. I’m an electric guitar player, but I also want to learn some classical stuff, but, unfortunately I don’t have a classical guitar, nor an acoustic. I only have an electric strat. Do you think I can still do this course. If I’ll buy a classical guitar in the future, will I be able to apply the techniques I’ll learn?
Answer: It is difficult to play classical guitar music on a Strat. The strings are too close together for classical style finger picking. I had a hard time doing it and I have little dinky fingers. Plus I tried it on my strat, so I know for certain it’s hard to do.
For my classical guitar course in college I used my old student sized Classical I’d had since I was 8.
It was a bit difficult to do with a 3/4 sized guitar.
It won’t hurt for you to try to take the course, if it’s free. But if you have to pay for lessons, then you should think about buying an inexpensive nylon stringed full size acoustic like this:http://www.rondomusic.com/classkit1na.html
Nylon strings are soft so they are easy to play, so for a new classical player, you don’t need anything fancy.
Also some of the techniques for classical do not translate well to electric, for example the finger vibrato is a bit different, more like a violin than electric guitar.
A classical guitar *is* an acoustic guitar.
It’s possible although difficult to learn classical guitar on an electric guitar because electric guitars have narrow, radiused fretboards designed to be played with a pick. A classical guitar has a flat, wide fretboard designed for playing fingerstyle.
Yes I would say by all means do it. It will actually improve skills on the electric guitar a lot, and classical can be a lot of fun. Playing on an actual classical guitar will be much different from electric but I’m sure you can apply what you learn once you get a classical. You have nothing to lose so go for it!