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Ask HN: How do you learn Spanish guitar?

20 points mazzystar | 2 comments | 24 Jun 25 05:52 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source

I've recently become interested in Spanish guitar, particularly the Gypsy and flamenco styles, but I don't know how to get started. Are there any beginner textbooks or videos available? I previously bought a book that started with scale exercises, which I found very tedious, and ended up giving up. Thank you very much.
1. ringeryless ◴[28 Jun 25 05:29 UTC] No.44402474[source]▶
first of all, stop being an outsider and calling it "spanish guitar" and start listening to decades of recordings made available via the internet.

do you want to learn flamenco techniques? there are a zillion youtube tutorials on rasgueados, on alzapua, on picado, etc.

i find that you can watch the legends and masters directly playing their music, and watch their fingers.

song forms, chords, all can be learned if you know what it is you seek to learn.

i taught myself flamenco guitar to quite a high level of competency during the pandemic, and i can promise you that with a few hours practice a day, and some passion for listening to and discovery of new music, you too can achieve what normal mortals consider to be extremely developed skills, because, truth be told, it's like any human endeavor: you can get competent quickly, but it will take a lifetime to master.

playing a musical instrument is a different modality than verbal wankage and supposition about this or that, aka it's the opposite of an online comment, IMO

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2. ringeryless ◴[28 Jun 25 05:34 UTC] No.44402483[source]▶
i can promise you that classical theory is not how 99% of flamenco players learned what is essentially an oral tradition folk art.

OTOH, classical guitar, if that is what you are after, is exclusively a repertoire music, you learn it by playing songs. here, get some guitar sheet music and start playing. they include numbers for fret positions above the staff of notes, sometimes, and they often indicate which finger to pluck with on the right hand. you literally can just follow the directions on the box