Technique endurance or looping exercises for classical guitar are an excellent way to add a challenge to a technique you feel confident with. However, do not add endurance exercises to a technique you are still learning as you do not want to incorporate or add bad habits or tension. Instead, once you’ve established a solid confidence with an exercise you can expand that exercise to test your skills in a more challenging setting.
All the examples are from my technique book but feel free to use any of your own exercises or repertoire to accomplish the task. Here’s the YouTube link if you want to watch it there.
When you first learn a technique you want to do it in small fragments and in isolation in order to learn the technique with proper alignment and without tension and to have maximum concentration while executing the movements.
Benefits: Once you feel like you have the technique under control, endurance training can help inform you about factors that might still exist in your playing such as:
- Fatigue and tension
- Lazy and sloppy technique the further I progress
- Compromised hand positions after continuous shifts
- Lack of concentration
- Less refinement
Endurance can teach you how the body reacts to “in context” playing. You might find that you add tension when you should be adding increased refinement, relaxation, and alignment.
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I have been learning guitar for about two years now, focusing on Bradford’s approach for the last year. I have been at the late bigginner stage for quite some time, but I’m hesitant to move forward at this point because I can still feel my technique getting better and I’m getting more comfortable. That allows me to be far more expressive when I play the music, rather than just focusing on getting through it.
I think one thing I have been doing wrong is that I am loathe to look at my left hand while playing. However, I think that has been a real hindrance to refining my accuracy and setting muscle memory. I need to get over that.
Videos like this are pure gold. They give me the motivation to keep at it, when, at times, it feels to me like I should be progressing more quickly.
Thanks for sharing that. Absolutely, it’s amazing how even after decades of playing I can come back to super basic stuff and approach it fresh and still learn more and develop more. It’s a forever thing!