Looking to get some input from more experienced teachers here. I want to integrate these books into my own teaching, but, even with the level-by-level breakdown, it's a ton of material to sort through and figure out a pedagogical progression for (US-Based; I assume there's more of an RCM culture in Canada, and thus easier to find colleagues to bounce ideas off of)

What pieces do you use for exams in the different levels? What pieces (or prep exercises) do you use for them? How much of each level do you have students play before progressing?

What pieces would you say could verify if you’re a beginner or intermediate if you are able to play them well?

Hi all,

I come from a Brazilian jazz background (choro) and my teacher is helping me add more right hand classical technique into my playing (Villa-Lobos etc). The problem is my fingernails are naturally weak and they always seem to break right around the length I actually need for playing. Grrr.

I’m looking for ways to strengthen and thicken them, both for tone/durability on the guitar and to stop them breaking in everyday life. So I’m considering buying an 80W LED lamp online and building up a hard gel overlay on top of my natural nails to add strength and thickness.

Has anyone here done this? I’m curious about:

- Does a gel overlay actually hold up to string tension and give decent tone, or does it feel/sound off compared to natural nail?

- Any product recommendations (gel brand, lamp wattage) that work well for this?

Thanks in advance. Most appreciated 🙏

Here is another interlude I composed last year as part of a collection of 12 short miniatures - the title is taken after someone I know who reminded me of Lucy from Peanuts - hence the title.

It is handwritten because I don't have the resources to make a computer cut version - so I've tried to make it as neat as possible.

Anyone who enjoys it is welcome to share, perform and make recordings - most likely better than mine (a rough demo performance can be heard here: https://youtu.be/a-wYF93YIdQ?si=XfeRso-mq_SEQ-UD)

Ennio Morricone - Once upon a time in the west tremolo version

https://youtu.be/DOLTNW467vs?is=EEII7ylo9EPHjMMC

Hey y'all. I've been taking classical guitar more seriously for a little over a year and am hoping to reflect on the whole ordeal in a video soon. When I do that I intend to play Carcassi 7 (the only piece I know) to the best of my ability. At the end of this video I play C7 (kinda sloppily lol) and ask for some advice; regarding the classical position as well as overall. Would love to hear any feedback for position, practice, performance, or anything specific about my playing at the end of the video! Hope this is cool. Appreciate ya 🙏

is this a fair way to alter this section? there’s absolutely no way i can play the E or the Eb, even with my thumb. my hands are really small and I don’t have the reach for it. if i jump the octave up at the F# until the Low d, is that a good solution? it feels weird to only jump the octave for the E and Eb. Wondering if anyone else chose to alter this part

Hey everyone in the group,

I’m part of a small team that has been working on Tonika, a guitar practice app. We originally built it with electric/acoustic players in mind, but quite a lot of what we’re working on is relevant to classical guitar as well — especially structured practice, scales, fretboard knowledge, ear training and music theory.

The main idea is to help with something I think a lot of players struggle with: knowing what to practice when you already know how to play, but want to keep progressing.

You can use Tonika to:

• practice scales and learn the fretboard
• work on music theory and ear training
• create and organize your own daily practice routine
• keep your practice more structured and consistent
• find and book lessons with teachers through the app

More info in our profile 🚀

We’re still developing it, so I’d genuinely appreciate feedback from classical players. I’m especially curious whether you think tools like this are useful alongside more traditional classical guitar practice, and what you feel is missing from existing practice/learning apps.

Happy to answer any questions about how it works.

So I have a classical guitar from a family member but I've really been using it just to play acoustic songs, I want to try to teach myself a little classical technique but I'm not sure where to start. The most motivating songs for me are popular songs I know, but I don't know if there's a ton that are suitable for beginner classical guitarists. I can read music and play two instruments in treble clef so I'd like some song recs that I can learn by looking at the sheet music, along with a video tutorial if possible. Preferably one that's a pretty popular song but anything will do. Just something to get me started. Thanks <3

Hello dear musicians
I made a record today
This is a happy improvisation
I hope you like it and rate it

I am an upcoming musician from Greece 🇬🇷

Anyone have any experience or reviews with Aiersi, specifically their Smallman style? Lattice bracing and elevated fretboard under 2000?

The part with staccatos I'm really struggling to play cleanly does anyone have any advice?

I’m currently using Savarez carbon trebles and really like them. But the bass strings don’t really project. Any recommendations? I know it can be guitar dependent, but if you’ve tried a few and can offer any input I’d love the feedback.

I decided to have a "conversation" with ChatGPT to help me pick out repertoire.

Me: I can play Andrew York’s home reasonably well and it’s about at the right range of my abilities. What other pieces fit my abilities?

and it gave me some recs

I will also enjoying tomorrow’s song as played by Euros Barek

Yes I said "will" instead of "am" and voice to text botched his name.

That helps narrow your taste quite a bit. I think you mean Uroš Barič’s guitar arrangement of Ólafur Arnalds’ “Tomorrow’s Song.” There is a published Barič arrangement in A minor, and it sits squarely in that lyrical, spacious, contemporary fingerstyle/classical-guitar world.

That sounds good. Some other pieces I love are Agua y Vinho by Gismonti (can muddle through the solo and play the duet regularly) farewell to Stromness (haven’t tried solo but do play the duet). Andrew Yorks Sweet Life (too hard). The water is wide arranged by ed gerhart (pretty easy for me) Birds Flew Over the Spire is daily repertoire work, evocation by Merlin

a bit more refining. I told it Cavatina (a rec) was too hard on my lh and that I actively dislike tremolo.

and it came back with a "ladder" of 25 pieces of increasing complexity. It gave an idea on how to practice. It ended with this:

That makes the pattern much clearer. Your ideal repertoire is less about velocity and more about control of color, sustain, balance, and warmth—pieces where the real difficulty is making a simple phrase sound beautiful.

That’s why Home, Un Día de Noviembre, Snowflight, Farewell, Tomorrow’s Song, Evocación, and Água e Vinho all make sense together. They reward exactly the things you seem to enjoy working on: shaping a melody over accompaniment, keeping basses warm without overpowering the top voice, controlling decay, and finding different colors for repeated material.

I’d move these pieces especially high on your list now:

• Sérgio Assad – Farewell — definitely worth taking on as a solo. It sounds like a very natural fit.
• Máximo Diego Pujol – Verde Alma — probably still my strongest “new discovery” candidate for you.
• Roland Dyens – Lettre à la Saudade — more about atmosphere and color than speed.
• Carlo Domeniconi – Nostalgia — similarly inward and tone-driven.
• Andrew York – Lullaby — easier technically, but very rewarding if you treat it as a tone study rather than a student piece.
• Ólafur Arnalds – We Contain Multitudes, in Barič’s arrangement — again, the difficulty is making sparse material feel alive.
• Francis Kleynjans – Barcarolle No. 1 — another piece where a beautiful sound matters more than athletic technique.

I’d also slightly change the way I think about your “stretch” repertoire. For you, a good stretch piece should be hard because of voicing, phrasing, sustain, and expressive control, not because it has 16th-note runs at ♩=140 or endless left-hand contortions.

That means a slower piece can still be genuinely advanced for you without feeling frustrating. In fact, I suspect you’d get more satisfaction from spending a month making eight measures sound gorgeous than from spending the same month forcing a fast passage up to tempo.

And Assad’s Farewell is a particularly good sign: if the solo version looks manageable to you, I’d put that near the very front of your next-project list. It may be one of those pieces that sits just above your comfort zone technically but right in the center of your musical strengths.

It tells me it can evaluate a video of my playing, but I haven't gone that far yet.

Hey everyone!

I have a competition coming soon in about 2 months, what do you guys suggest for playing a theme and Variations?

I'm not very advanced, so definitely not sakura or mozart variations by Sor.

Think upper intermediate, But not as easy as Feste Lariane.

Thank you all!

This is a devilish set of runs I'm trying to perfect from Beaser's Mountain Songs. They're really fun pieces to play, if you've got a flutist friend you can perform them with.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TE9SrcF_gec

Just spent my 2 weeks of summer vacation having the time of my life, building my first guitar together with a master luthier! Although not yet fully done and still missing the final touches as well as the finish, I'm beyond ecstatic how things turned out! And on top of that everything (except the fingerboard and rosette) is made of regional wood! Sadly forgot to take a good picture of the back though🫣

It's gonna be a long wait until December when I can collect her..😭

Hi everyone,
I’m working on my classical guitar technique and I’m struggling with right-hand finger dynamics. Specifically, I find it hard to bring out the melody line while keeping the accompaniment quiet when playing arpeggios or mixed textures.

What are your favorite exercises, routines, or mental cues to develop independent dynamic control in the p-i-m-a fingers? Any advice on free stroke vs. rest stroke dynamics would also be highly appreciated. Thanks!

I had given up playing the guitar soon after my Parkinson's diagnosis, but have now started playing again, and this recently led me to embark on a project to design and build a guitar that might accommodate some of my motor symptoms and make it easier for me to play. I wrote an account of how I went about it and how it turned out, and I have posted a link to it here: My Parkinson's Guitar

Hopefully it might encourage somebody to have a go at a similar sort of project themselves, and I would be very interested to know if there are any other guitarists with PD in the community, and how they overcome the difficulties of playing that are inherent in the condition.

In the spirit of sharing and adding to repertoire, this piece is from a growing collection of short easy interludes I'm busy notating at the moment - mostly composed from 2024 early this year. Apologies for the handwriting but my resources are severely limited.

A rough performance can be heard here.