Guitar Lesson: Combining Legato and Picking Techniques on Spanish Guitar Runs

By: Shai Agmon

Shai Agmon

In this guitar lesson I’d like to introduce a picking method I use to perform rapid scalar runs on the classical guitar, in the fashion of John Mclaughlin and Al Di Meola acoustic works.

In general, it is harder to play fast runs and get a clean and flawless sound on the classical guitar, comparing to the electric guitar, for two reasons:

1. Physically – the strings action is usually higher on classical guitar and the neck is fatter, which makes it physically harder to play fast lines.

2. The electric guitar is usually played with overdrive/distortion effect which gives extra gain and dynamic compression, which covers up notes that are actually being played too quiet, while in the classical guitar – what you play is what you get. Besides slight reverb and EQ there are usually no effects involved and the sound and dynamics are quite natural, meaning that they are completely in your hands.

So, in order to overcome this difficulty most flamenco and classical shred oriented guitar players develop a killer right hand technique, with a strong and steady attack to get this crazy, intense effect when playing runs. Since I was always more of a legato person, and a big fan of great electric legato players such as Richie Kotzen and Allan Holdsworth, I have developed a different technique to play these fast Spanish lines on classical guitar, using a combination of alternate picking, two-strings sweep picking and legato.

For the first example we will take a simple diminished scale run (the Diminished scale is a symmetrical scale in the format of Half tone-Whole tone-etc… meaning you get an 8 notes scale which can be played on 8 different diminished chords, and on all sorts of altered dominant chords). It is being used a lot in both flamenco and jazz and has a very unique harmonic character which is easy to recognize. 

example 1

You can see that the combination of picked and unpicked notes creates a very cool dynamic effect where some of the notes stand out more than others. Technically, as you can see I am using a combination of U-D-P/H pattern (where 3 notes per strings are played) and 2 strings sweeping when there’s a situation of 3 notes, each one on different string (for example note 1 is on string 2, note 2 is on string 3 and note 3 is on string 2 again) – the first note has been played legato (was not picked) and the other 2 notes will be played in sweeping technique, as a single downstroke movement. The basic idea of this technique is to avoid using alternate picking on consecutive notes which are on different strings as this is the hardest type of alternate picking (especially on classical guitar), and instead using a combination of legato and 2 strings sweep picking to perform these runs.

Here are a few additional examples using the same technique:

example 2

In this example I am using the A melodic minor scale at first, and finish with a four notes phrase from the natural minor scale. The change in the scale in the last phrase gives the run a feel of harmonic movement although it can work great on a single chord (can be the tonic, dominant or some kind of altered/diminished chords)

example 3

In this one I’m combining the melodic minor and harmonic minor scale, which gives it a bit more dramatic feel.

example 4

Last example is in a slight different technique. It is actually a simple descending sequence in the diminished scale, but this time I use a D-H-D-H-D-U-D… picking sequence, meaning that in this case I do play three consecutive notes on different strings using alternate picking, because I find it more comfortable than using sweep picking with an upstroke for  2 strings. This type of sequence is one of my favorites, as it is relatively easy to get to fast tempos, and it has a very cool effect cause by the “one note picked, one note hammered” method, making it sound very dynamic- half staccato half legato.

I hope that you enjoyed this lessons and that you can incorporate some of my ideas in your playing, be sure to check out some of my classical guitar tunes to hear how I incorporate this techniques in my improvisation in a very musical way :

Burning Bright by Shai Agmon

Mysterious by Shai Agmon

About Shai Agmon: Shai Agmon is a guitarist, pianist and composer from Israel, performing with local rock and folk musicians. He is currently working on his first solo album, planned to be released in 2014. His music is very eclectic and combines influences from rock, latin, Flamenco, orchestral and modal jazz music. Initial recordings and sketches can be heard HERE.