Lesson: Staccato Articulation for Beginner Classical Guitar

Method Book Lessons: Beginner Guitar Duets
Staccato Articulation for Beginner Classical Guitar
Waltz by Carl Czerny (1791-1857)

Free PDF Method Book & Lesson List: Classical Guitar Method Vol. 1
Youtube Video Lesson Link (4k)
Youtube Video Performance Link (4k)

This is a lesson on staccato articulation for classical guitar. Aimed more at the beginner player, this lesson covers right hand staccato and briefly dives into left hand muting. The piece is Waltz by Czerny.These are duets for beginners who have learned the notes in first position on the top three strings. Thanks to Natasha for helping with the duets in the book. Make sure you’ve covered the previous lessons first. Find the rest of the video lessons here and subscribe to my weekly newsletter for pro videos, lessons, and sheet music.

Bradford Werner
Bradford Werner

Bradford Werner is a classical guitarist and music publisher from Victoria, British Columbia, Canada. He originally created this site for his students at the Victoria Conservatory of Music but now shares content worldwide. Curating guitar content helps students absorb the culture, musical ideas, and technique of the classical guitar. Bradford also has a YouTube channel with over 94,000 subscribers and 13 million views. He taught classical guitar at the Victoria Conservatory of Music for 16 years and freelanced in Greater Victoria for 20 years and now dedicates much of his time curating content online and helping connect the classical guitar community. See more at his personal website.

2 Comments

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  1. Hey Bradford,
    Love and appreciate the free pdf so far! I’m having trouble performing strictly right hand staccato with only the ‘i’ and ‘m’ fingers and smoothly transferring to a higher string (i.e., from G to B, or B to high E) while continuing to alternate throughout the piece. Are you supposed to mute the string with the ‘next finger’ then quickly strum the higher string with that same ‘next finger’? That seems to be in bad form, but I’m not sure. I honestly find left hand staccato a little easier, but don’t want to skip out on learning with the right!

    • Excellent observation, you are doing well since you noticed that. Don’t worry about it for now. It’s more advanced than needed at this point in your development. Yes, the open strings will ring out unless we mute with a rest stroke or the left hand but since this is still early in the book you can get more picky with staccato later.