# Guitar/music advice from a conductor



## Guest

Those of you who play the guitar might find this conductor's input to be quite interesting. (Actually, any instrumentalist could probably learn something.) I've always wondered why guitarists have so much trouble shaping a line--it seems to be a common problem in every masterclass I've attended. Anyway, it's a moot point since I gave up the guitar for the piano!


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## Robert Eckert

This really showed the young guitarist an avenue to improve his playing. Good teachers are rare and the conductor was wonderful.


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## Nate Miller

Kontrapunctus said:


> I've always wondered why guitarists have so much trouble shaping a line--


I think there's a number of reasons, but being a plucked string instrument, you cannot make a note swell in volume after you have plucked it. A wind or bowed instrument can do that pretty easily.

the video had a good point that in a plucked instrument the vertical can get more emphasis than the linear. Even if it is just in the player's mind.

my personal opinion is that it is just not something a fretted plucked string instrument does easily. If you were playing a flute it would be more natural. Another thing to keep in mind is that we as musicians (and guitar players) are taught chords and harmony as our foundation. The interaction of independent voices is not something guitar players grow up with

when I was young, I thought Julian Bream played the long idea in Bach's music better than anybody and I remember him talking about that in a Master Class I got to attend when I was around 20 years old.

so guitar players can actually shape lines, but why is it that students have so much trouble? Well, my guess would be that if you are talking about students as in young players, they may not have reached a level where they are thinking on those terms yet.

but to say that guitarists in general have trouble shaping lines isn't being fair


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## Guest

Yes, it's very hard, but it can be done. My comment is based masterclasses from both young and fully adults students, and even seeing a few pros in concert where there was little in the way of phrase shaping, dynamics, tone color...the list goes on!


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## Nate Miller

Kontrapunctus said:


> Yes, it's very hard, but it can be done.


absolutely it can be done. In fact, I'll be doing some of it tomorrow night 

I am fully aware that my instrument has a lot of prejudices against it, and quite frankly most of it is warranted.

But I heard Segovia when he was 90 years old on his final tour of the States, and so I believe that there are exceptions


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