Creativity in Classical Guitar Practice

How do we use creativity in classical guitar practice?  Is creativity only for the jazz guys?  The lead guitarists in the band?  The composers?  The improvisers?

Absolutely not.  Below, we’ll explore ways to be creative with our classical guitar.

Classical Guitar is Different from Other Styles

Guitar is the most popular instrument in the world. More people play it than any other (unless we count the voice as an instrument).

For this reason, we find guitars featuring in nearly every style and genre of music.  (While the guitar is not a traditional orchestral instrument, we do have concertos written for orchestra and guitar soloist.) 

Most commonly, it’s used as an accompaniment. This means the guitar player strums or plucks chords. The main focus of the music is sung lyrics, or another melodic instrument which plays the tune.

Guitar is also used in ensembles (groups). This could be as accompaniment or as the lead instrument.  The “lead guitar” player in a band will improvise melodies. These players choose the notes in the moment. There may be a structure (chords) to the song. But the actual notes will be different each time they play the tune.

Traditionally, classical guitar players rarely improvise. We have the notes printed on a page in front of us. The rhythm is there as well.  We’re told when to play loud or soft, warm or tinny-sounding.  Many times, we’re also told which finger to use.  In short, we have detailed instructions on every little movement.

So where does creativity come into play in this? With everything decided beforehand, how do we nurture our creativity as classical guitarists?

In fact, we are creative on classical guitar in (at least) three main ways.  (Below, we call them “zones”, just to be creative.)

Classical Guitar Creative Zone #1: Solving Problems

Classical guitar can be extremely challenging. Even if we have the technical skill, many musical passages (lines) in pieces can be hard to play well.

Tricky spots, shifts, fast scales – all these can create problems. And we can use our creativity to solve these problems.

In fact, much of what we do is learning how to practice and solve problems. Different problems may call for different and original strategies. Working through these strategies takes creativity.

For instance, should we use slow practice? Change the rhythm? Use accents? We have dozens of strategies available. And each little problem may take a unique combination of solutions.

Classical Guitar Creative Zone #2: Musical Expression

Even though the composer may tell us “loud” or “quiet”, we still need to make the music believable. Unless the music creates an emotional response, we may not be doing our job.

Just as actors have their lines and instructions, we have to breathe life into our music. They have characters and roles to animate. We have notes to animate. The job is the same.  To make it believable.

To play expressively, we often have to get creative. If we’re told to “get louder here”, we have to decide how loud and at what rate. Is it linear, with each note steadily louder than the previous one? Or is it exponential, getting much louder at the end?

This depends on the effect we’re aiming for. The more creative we become, the more we can experiment and exaggerate.  (More on this below.) This helps us find more details and opportunities to bring our music to life.

Classical Guitar Creative Zone #3: Curation

We can also exercise our creativity through curation. We choose what music to play and in what order. In this way, we create an experience.

Museums decide which paintings to hang on a wall and in what order. Likewise, we choose our music. We create sets and programs.

And we can do this even if we only have a few pieces we’re comfortable playing. For instance, we choose the order.  We decide what to include and what to leave out.

We may make these choices by finding creative similarities between tunes.  We can contrast and compare styles or musical periods.  Or we can contrast composers, moods, or themes (like love, conflict or transformation).

We’re limited only by our creativity.

The More Creativity the Better

Classical guitar has a wealth of creative constraints. Many of the elements are already chosen for us.  But we can still keep an engaged and experimental mindset. The more we try new things, the more we discover.

And because of this, we can put our full creativity into the remaining areas.

Action Tip: How to Start Being More Creative in Classical Guitar Practice

We can bring loads more creativity and exploration to our daily practice. A great way to start, is through exaggeration.

For example, when we practice, we can wildly exaggerate swells and fades in volume (dynamics).  We can try to reduce the soft parts until they’re barely audible.  And push the loud parts as far as we can.

We can also exaggerate our body language.  Appropriate head, hand and arm gestures can bring more musicality to both practice and performance.  It increases our expressiveness, and enhances our communication to an audience. 

Here are some other ways we can use exaggeration to increase creativity in our practice:

• Speed (tempo) – Experiment with drastically slower or faster passages than traditional interpretations
• Links between notes (articulation) – Exaggerate staccatos to be extremely short or make the notes as connected as sweeping as possible (legato).  Slur notes you wouldn’t normally slur!
• Rhythm – Play with rubato and agogic accents to discover new phrasing possibilities
• Tone changes – Explore tone colour by moving the plucking hand to the extreme left or right of the sound hole
• Silence – Extend pauses between phrases longer than feels comfortable
• Non-traditional techniques – Incorporate percussive elements, play the tune entirely in harmonics, or explore unusual guitar techniques

This is great fun, and it also improves our technical and musical abilities.  It can lead to unique interpretive choices that might never emerge if we always play conservatively.  We wouldn’t use these extremes in a performance.  But we can use them in our practice to discover creative possibilities that we can mould or refine to enhance our musicality.

Creative exaggeration can bring more enjoyment, satisfaction and beauty to everything we play.