I came across this quote about music theory on a classical guitar forum:

Keep in mind that these papers are written to get into doctoral programs or to secure tenure. Rarely do they help people play better music.

It’s somewhat taboo to talk about interpretation in terms other than emotion. After all, music is meant to be an emotional experience. Playing music is meant to evoke an emotional response. Ever feel tingles when listening to music? That doesn’t happen to everyone (here’s the original study).

Are those tingles an emotional response? Or is it just a physiological response that evolution left us and happens to feel good?

Here’s the secret: it doesn’t really matter. We are what we experience and feel — however that it’s interpreted or lived. When we perform we get to choose what we want to evoke and how the music makes us feel.

To get back to music theory: interpretation is hard. Interpreting a piece from scratch each and every time we pick up the guitar from some place of pure emotion is a fantasy. We are always building on past repertoire, listening, and our lives as a whole.

Is a performer who has played a piece every concert for a year or more going to feel the same every night? Is her audience always going to have the same experience? No, but it’s still the performers job to do the work of interpreting the piece each concert even if they don’t feel like it. More importantly, interpretation is part of muscle memory and is part of learning a piece right from the start.

Music theory is one tool which can be used to make sense of music and bring interpretive elements into play (or defy those expectations).

Ever heard a deceptive cadence? How did it feel (physically or emotionally)? Things like that are not accidents. Deceptive cadences are composers taking advantage of expectations and subverting them. They can do that because they know the rules: they know how dissonance is supposed to resolve and can do it in such a way that sounds wonderful, but defies expectations.

Similarly, understanding the harmony of a piece can inform interpretation. For example dissonance on a strong beat often sounds good when accented and is then resolve softer and more relaxed (often how one performs an appoggiatura).

The form of a piece may influence where a rallentando or ritenuto or other stretching of the beat gets placed. Or knowledge of form may make it clear where a composer is eliding a phrase into the next — a place where any stretching of a beat may not make sense. Bach uses elision quite a bit in his preludes.

A great exercise to learn more than these too examples is to listen to a favorite interpretation and start to think of it in terms of how it reinforces the way a piece is written. Why is the performer accenting where they do? Why slow down here or stretch a beat there? Why get louder here?

It’s also worth while to analyze pieces where the composer has left a lot of interpretation markings. The Carcassi etudes are great for this. Tons of interpretive marks that when taking critically can form a really good guide on interpreting 19th century music. Remember that loud to soft dissonance resolution mentioned above? Take a look at Etude No. 2 (measures five and six specifically).

Importantly, analysis does not need to be formal. We can all hear dissonance and resolution and cadences, they don’t need labels. They just need a critical ear.

Interpretation is hard. Music theory is one tool that can help. Just because something was done consciously and critically does not mean that it won’t evoke an emotional response — in yourself or the audience. Just because theory was used to inform interpretation does not make it less pure or authentic.

Emotion and Music Theory in the Interpretation of Music from Classical Guitar

Quarter Rest or Eight Rest?

A quarter rest in older editions tends to look like a backwards eight rest. In the image below (taken from Sor Op. 1 No. 1), the red box is an eight rest while the green box is a quarter rest.

The rest of the context, in this case, makes this really easy to spot. There are times, however, where the texture is thicker and those quarter rests are easy to mistake for eights.

Wonky Alignment

Dotted or double dotted notes tend to get their dots floating places they shouldn’t be. The example below has a dotted half note in the lower voice and a double dotted quarter in the melody. The dots are floating in such a way that they make G and B (in green) staccato.

Similarly, the typesetting often required voices to be shifted around and possibly stemmed differently. The example below has two accompaniment notes (the middle voice, in green) stemmed differently from the rest of the accompaniment in the measure.

Of these examples of wonky alignment, the second still can happen in modern typesetting. It’s very uncommon to see other marks in places the composer didn’t intend in a modern edition.

These two things barely scratch the surface of all the strange things that can pop up in old scores. More broadly, we need to be careful to look at the larger musical context. If something doesn’t seem to make sense there’s probably a reason for it. Usually that reason is us! mostly us misunderstanding musical typesetting from previous eras.

Two Common Ambiguities in Old Scores from Classical Guitar

The second type of shifting, however, is one we all do every single time we pick up the guitar, but rarely think much about: shifting between an angled and straight left hand position.

Both of these shifts are important and useful. So if we all do this all the time, why bother pointing it out?

Things We Notice Are Things We Can Practice

The more we take in — the more we observe and think about — the more we can practice. It’s important to account for both types of shifting so difficult passages and be worked out in such a way that the various shifts happen consistently each time.

Practice is about building muscle and musical memory. It’s important that each perfect repetition is done in exactly the same way. That’s an impossible task, but the more things we notice and factor into each repetition the more effective our practicing gets.

Two Types of Left Hand Shifting from Classical Guitar

The barre at the second fret, indicated by II⁵ (barre at second fret across five strings), does not mean that the top five strings need to be depressed and ready to play. Really only the B in the lower voice and the F# in the higher voice need to be depressed at the start of the measure. None of the other notes under the barre are used. There’s no reason to waste effort keeping those strings pressed down.

It’s not until the third beat of the measure that another note under the barre comes into play: the A. When that point is reached the pressure of the barre can be adjusted to include it.

So why bother with sequencing the pressure of a barre chord? This example is another form of sequencing the left hand, which is often used to preserve a more legato sound. In this case, the goal is to do as little work and produce as little tension as possible. More broadly, most barres do not require all the strings to be depressed. It’s a lot of effort to keep a full barre pressed down. So don’t bother if it’s not necessary.

A Barre is Rarely a Barre from Classical Guitar

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New Year, New Look from Classical Guitar

This is a really great concept for practicing just about anything. Guitar included.

Busy day? No time to get a full practice session in? Don’t skip it, modify what was going to happen. If you normally spend a few minutes on technique, then more time on repertoire, maybe today there’s only time to hit a few things. Maybe there’s only time to get your fingers warmed up and do a bit of technique.

It’s okay to not sit down for 10 minutes instead of 30 or an hour. It’s okay to only hit a few things and call it a day. Practice is practice. As long as it’s focused and goal driven, any practice is better than no practice.

You can practice this sort of thing by setting time limits for yourself. Often time we set time minimums: today I’ll practice at least an hour. Flip that on it’s head. Today I will only practice for 30 minutes. How does the practice session have to change to be effective? Is there fluff that can be cut out? Imposing these limits on yourself can prepare for days when the world puts limits on practice time.

Embracing the modify, don’t miss philosophy means fewer excuses to skip practice sessions.

Modify Practice Sessions, Don’t Miss from Classical Guitar

But our fingers get tired; we make mistakes. Our mind gets fatigued, we loose focus, and we make different mistakes.

Sometimes what’s really needed to improve a passage or piece is some space. That may mean putting a piece aside until the next day right when it feels like a breakthrough is around the corner. It could mean coming back to a difficult passage a few days later with fresher ears and fingers.

One need not hit a wall to see how a bit of time off can help.

As an experiment, instead of hammering a difficult passage over and over again shoot for a set number of repetitions. The number of repetitions should be enough to work things out but not enough to be mentally or physically fatiguing: remember the goal here is to get the passage perfect a set number of times. This might mean simply playing a passage at tempo if that can be done without mistakes or applying a practice technique to it.

Once the last repetition is complete, put the passage away and don’t touch it again until the next practice session or the next day. Then do it all over again for a few days and see how that passage shapes up over time.

It’s easy to forget that musicians are working on a large time scale when we learn music. A piece doesn’t come together in a day — even the most virtuosic player who can read a piece perfectly on the first go will find things which they can really dig into and improve. Take advantage of the time. Use the breaks from a piece or passage to work on different things without getting stuck in a loop of frustration and stagnation.

Give the Repertoire a Break from Classical Guitar

Performance for an audience, teacher, camera, or even just a practice performance is obviously not practice. There is no stopping or going back unless something goes very wrong.

Ignore mistakes and keep going. If you’re at a place of practicing performance in preparation for a real performance, be sure to practice moving on from mistakes.

If possible, record yourself for later review. Then take notes about things to improve.

Some mistakes are only mistakes — one off errors due to shaky hands or other factors. Some mistakes, however, are mistakes of intention. Passages or pieces were left to chance and no deliberate choices were made or real practice wasn’t done. Some inconsistent tone is due to adrenaline, but some is because no choice was ever made about how a passage should sound. No interpretation was developed. No fingerings were chosen.

Only the performer can decide if a mistake in a performance was due to a lack of intent or just the result of a genuine flub. Flubs get better with more experience performing. Mistakes of intention get better with deliberate practice.

How to Handle Mistakes During a Performance from Classical Guitar

Stop me if this sounds familiar: noodle around on a passage or piece 10 times, get it right once. Call it quits for the day.

This is not really practicing. The only thing practiced there are mistakes. The one great repetition won’t outweigh the dozens of bad ones. We are all busy. Time is valuable. Practice time is valuable. We should all strive to spend our practice time in effective ways.

So the overarching goal of practice is to never make a mistake. Sounds impossible, right? That’s what things like practice techniques are for.

Apply practice techniques to a passage or piece in an effort to avoid mistakes in practice. Make up your own ways to avoid mistakes. Go slower. Use a metronome. Start musical interpretation early so it has a chance to grow with your technical ability on a piece and doesn’t cause mistakes down the line. Get a few perfect repetitions of a passage in then leave it. Whatever works to stay focused and stay effective.

Like many lofty goals playing perfectly all the time is not going to really happen — even in a low stress situation like practicing. Aim for it anyway. Take a step back when a practice session devolves into noodling and ask if that is what’s needed. Some days noodling or practicing performance is what we need to destress or for simple enjoyment. That’s okay, but make the choice a conscious one.

Practice Perfect, Perform Better from Classical Guitar

But often times we read a piece, find a fingering that works and that’s that. We never move beyond that initial pass and maybe a few tweaks here and there. That first pass at fingering is a product of your technique and ability, past experience, and preferences.

Think back to your first guitar lesson or the first piece you played. Were you keen on trying something that was hard to do? No way! We all picked the easiest way to get something done. The first thing I ever played on guitar was Black Sabbath’s Electric Funeral. Why? It was easy. One or two fingers on the left hand, easy picking. Left to their own devices a beginning guitarist might never use their left hand pinky.

We can (and should) do better. Think more about fingerings. Try different things before really beginning to drill something into muscle memory.

How can fingering serve the repertoire being practiced? A legato section may require certain things: no jumping left hand fingers between strings, no early right hand preparation, sequencing the left hand, etc. Similarly, a fast section might mean that easy is the way to go in order to avoid tension and gain some speed. That ease may come at the expense of something else.

As our technique and ability grows and as we are exposed to more repertoire, those instincts around fingering and that first pass when reading a piece will get closer to ideal. An ideal fingering is an individual thing.

There are always options. Explore more of them before committing one to muscle memory, but find a balance. We can’t play a passage differently every time. Explore options, find one that serves the music and your hands, then commit.

Explore More Fingerings from Classical Guitar