Q&A Lesson: Rest Stroke (Apoyando) and Free Stroke (Tirando) on Classical Guitar. Thanks to all my patrons and supporters who submitted questions. If you enjoyed this lesson please consider supporting the site.
My main advice is to include both rest and free strokes in your technique routine so that the skill and technique is available to you to use or experiment with during repertoire. There is so much debate about when to use rest or free stroke but the the debate itself doesn’t interest me much, I’m more concerned about students having the technique at their disposal for use either right now or down the road.
Times & Questions
- 00:00 – Intro & Advice
- 2:01 – Position and movement for rest & free Stroke
- 7:51 – When to use rest stroke, forte playing, indications
- 13:48 – Sagreras, arpeggio rest stroke, melody accents
- 16:14 – Rest stroke with the thumb, exercises
- 19:40 – Single finger repeated rest stroke, tone
- 21:57 – Playing without nails and end results
- 25:50 – Are nails necessary?
Here’s the YouTube link if you want to watch the video there.
Bradford, enjoyed your q&a on rest stroke and free stroke. You mentioned some professional guitarists play wihout nails. Can you name one, I would be interested in watching one of their YouTube videos.
Hmmm, good question. I can’t verify what people are doing these days but I have heard lots of lute players switch to guitar without nails and it sounds pretty good.
Hi David, Virginia Luque is an excellent player with no nails. Her website mentions this in particular, also you could check out Rob MacKillop – rmclassicalguitar.com. Lorenzo Micheli plays lute and guitar with similar technique.