A lot of my focus these days has been on my examination pieces, which i feel is good and even though I am not spending as much time on more contemporary stuff I believe (and i can only speak from experience) that without even really playing other genres much, once i've completed my exam my playing will have improved across all styles. You might be thinking that it is just in my head and that having a certificate has a psychological effect on me and therefore I feel i have improved when I haven't really. Well of course the piece of paper with my Grade on it in reality means nothing, but the process whereby I have gone to obtain this piece of paper is where the real progress is. And somehow this art of practising and playing classical guitar is universally beneficial to all other styles of guitar. Now the link to acoustic finger/chicken picking wouldn't seem unreasonable as classical guitar is always with the fingers and thus fine motor skills are developed and improved. But in terms of using a pick and playing chords and melodies common to jazz and more contemporary styles and often contrary to classical - now thats where I am confused as to how I am able to improve without playing much of it.
I am not trying to label the classical guitar as the superior style, but I am somehow intrinsically convinced that it is by far the best grounding one could have in terms of a guitar background. I mentioned in an earlier blog that one should try to learn both classical and jazz guitar, I am not going back on that but still the classical discipline has this solid foundation that I can't ignore, that i don't see (or haven't yet seen) in any other style.
Anyway, I've got a few things due for uni so fitting in time for guitar won't be easy, but I should have another video up in two weeks so check back soon :)
