Classical guitar guys - has it helped your electric playing?

[mcmurray]

 

Hi all,

I'm about to embark on some serious classical guitar study with a goal of studying music at university a few years down the track (for self interest only, already got a careers sorted). I had the instrument narrowed down to piano or classical guitar, and decided on classical guitar as I'm a frustrated electric player that could use some new ideas.

 

To anyone that studied classical guitar, has it helped your electric/steel acoustic playing? If so, what areas did it help with?

[1001gear]

Classical music in general if you're so inclined helps a great deal. It shows that ALL the notes matter for one... Oh, specific harmonic and sonoric content.  Then there's melody, counterpoint, voice leading is big ... layering by register ...

Wish I could do all that lol.

For example:

 

[speechless]

It has helped with my left hand technique as it's both, in my experience, more demanding and less forgiving in that field. The tone comes almost entirely from your hands, so it teaches you to mind the subtle things, which I feel are too easily overlooked in the world of picks and gain. In that regard it's also helped my right hand technique in other styles, if indirectly.

The most important thing I've gained from it I feel is the sense of musicality. Learning a piece can begin as something of a rote process, and that transformation you can hear as you learn to play it more and more expressively is just remarkable. You've already got the music on a page in front of you - there's no worrying about "what scales should I play over this chord" or "how do I make this transition to the bridge really cool?" It's more "how am I going to make these 32 bars sound as beautiful as I possibly can? And what, after all, is a beautiful sound, and what, exactly, goes in to producing such a thing?" These are considerations I try to bring to bear in my electric work also.

Every single note counts in a classical piece and has a role to play in how it all comes together. Much is made of keeping all those notes cohesive as individual voices, and making the various voices cohesive as a proper whole. So it demands attention and intention. To do it well you must be able to really listen to all the minutae, and then learn to manipulate them. Again helpful skills no matter what instrument you are playing.

As for the instrument itself, music aside, it's **** difficult, and I've found that the time required has seriously hampered my development on electric in a lot of ways.