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Spanish Guitar Techniques is a free video guitar lesson series by Brian Riggs. Check out Brian’s guitar blog and be sure to subscribe for more free guitar lessons!

This series will focus on the techniques that make up what is referred to as Spanish or classical guitar playing. Whatever style of music you play; these techniques will give you a solid foundation to build on for whatever direction you end up going in your playing.

In this lesson we’ll get started by taking a look at how you can use fingerpicking to play arpeggios on the guitar. After discussing basic terminology including rest stroke and free stroke, we’ll explore ways to play a melodic line with the right hand thumb and have an accompaniment going on at the same time using the right hand fingers.

This lesson features a breakdown of one the most popular pieces to play on the guitar, “Leyenda” (also known by the alternate title of “Asturias”) by the 19th century Spanish composer Isaac Albeniz. This tune may be familiar to anyone who’s heard the song “Spanish Caravan” by The Doors. We’ll take a look at the basic movements of right hand and how to develop a natural and relaxed approach to playing.