Learning to play La Malaguena

We've all heard this Spanish classic tune known as La Malaguena aka Malaguena Salerosa but I must admit I didn't know what it was called. Here's a YouTube reminder (one of many) if you don't recall the tune.

A couple of our ukulele players were playing it during the break at practice last week, which caused me to want to learn to play it. Today I received a call from one of the guys asking me to join a tutorial he was giving this afternoon, but I had another commitment. YouTube to the rescue; There are numerous videos on how to play this tune, along with guitar tabs. Suits my baritone ukulele just fine. It's going to take a lot of practice for me to play this at the "normal" tempo.

Malaguena is one of my favorite guitar pieces.  Joe Giglio of the Four Aces plays a nice arrangement but I can't find any youtube videos of it.

I've seen this guy a couple times, he never had so much as a string chirp.

Malague?a- Pepe Romero

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=COc1ljZEb-M



But I'd rather play stuff like these. (The second one I play, not near this well but I play it)

Saw her in Vegas, she was AWESOME!!!
Natalia Val's no 3
http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=MNNbFkb0gBk

He's really impressive. Thanks for the link.

Tom - Do you always look at the strings when you play? If so that is a habit you need to get out of. Playing with your eyes closed or not looking at the stings will help you and your confidence immensely. At first you will make a lot of mistakes but as your confidence grows you will improve. If you watch the strings when you play then you don't really know how to play the song. 

I've seen this guy a couple times, he never had so much as a string chirp.

Malague?a- Pepe Romero
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The Romeros are superb -- I have had some of their albums for years.

Until now, I've been only strumming chords, and don't usually need to look at the strings; Muscle memory takes my fingers to the right place. Picking notes is new for me, and initially I find myself looking at where my fingers are landing. I'm trying to memorize the sequence of notes, and hopefully will become less and less reliant on sight. I'll try your suggestion and start picking with my eyes closed.

I have an interesting story about watching your fingers. Back around 1990 I decided to switch from being a rhythm guitar player to playing lead. So the first song I tackled was my all time favorite lead guitar solo, Song of the Wind by Carlos Santana from the Caravanserai album of 1972. I got a copy of the sheet music that showed me every note in the solo. It is basically a very slow song with only three places where Carlos got going too fast for me to keep up. So I would fake it in those parts. But the rest of the song was fairly easy to play, but since it was a 7 minute song it took me a while to get the whole thing memorized so I didn't ever have to look at the sheet music. I would play the whole song two or three times a day for about a year or so.

At this point I could play the song from beginning to end almost perfectly but the whole problem is I did not sound anything like Carlos did. Then one day I was playing the song and as a joke I decided to start making the same facial expressions Carlos would make when he plays (lead guitarists make strange faces when playing). Bingo! As soon as I stopped looking at the fretboard and just let myself go and play the song then I sounded like Carlos. What a shock.

Interesting story Tom. I can make weird facial expressions, but they don't help improve my playing 

I think the key here is that while playing, rather you make faces or not, is that you play for yourself. Rather people are there to listen or not it's not about them, but I play for myself.  I selfishly enjoy playing, and feeling the music, rather anybody else is or not. That's the key. Carlos Santana is one of my favs too. I've taken Flor d'Luna and arranged it fingerstyle and also El Farol. I like both and I play someone else's Samba Pa T?.  Guitar, or any instrument, takes incredible patience, determination and dedication to master. I struggle along pursuing mastering it myself. If you're just beginning the Uke, then I recommend getting it correctly first, placing in slow motion each finger precisely where it belongs. CONSTANTLY search in slow mo the closest and easiest route as your fingers are moving. Speed comes later, gradually little by little, but if you learn finger placement incorrectly and it goes unchecked you will never advance to where you want to be. 

Tom said:

Interesting story Tom. I can make weird facial expressions, but they don't help improve my playing 

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I am not suggesting you make faces ;D I was just relating a story. As a finish to that story I always wanted to meet Carlos and tell him that story. Well in 1998 I got to meet him at the opening of a new CD store in San Francisco. I got to chat with him for about a minute, I got his autograph and I got to shake hands with him. I was so awestruck at the moment I totally forgot the idea of telling him the story.  I figured we could have made some faces together. :-\ :-X :'( :

  I've never evan seen Carlos Santana, I keep threatening to go see Santana when he performs close enough. I never got to see my other guitar hero Paco de Lucia who just died the other day.
I did see Chet Atkins a couple times.

I saw Elvis too.

This thread has inspired me. I hope you are doing well with La Malaguena. I just got my first hard wired Internet connection in 12 years and it is fast. For the first time in a long time I can watch YouTube videos so I decided to take on a project that has been on my mind for a long time. I want to learn the 10 hardest Beatles leads. I am starting with And Your Bird Can Sing. It is short and I used to know it 12 years ago. So it is just a matter of getting my muscle memory up to speed. The song is very fast with very tricky picking, at least by the standards of 50 years ago. Modern guitarists go about three times as fast as this thing. The reason I am posting this is because I have been blown away by the tutorials on Youtube. AYBCS is a two lead guitar parts with George on the high part and Paul on the low part (and bass) and John on rhythm. The guitars in the video are stacked with John on top, Paul in the middle and George on the bottom. The guitars are all the correct models. If you watch the video you can skip past the lesson part and go straight to 2:48 where they play the piece. It is a short song, less than two minutes and not as pretty as La Malaguena for sure but a blast to play when you finally get it up to speed.

The other nine songs I am going to tackle are I Saw Her Standing There, All My Loving, You Can't Do That, I'm Down, Taxman, Good Morning Good Morning, Hey Bulldog, Something, and Maybe I'm Amazed (last one is not technically a Beatles song, but close enough). This will keep me busy into the next millennium. ;D

I haven't spent more than an hour playing guitar in the last year. After my surgery for some reason I just haven't been playing guitar. This has been bugging me lately and this thread pushed my buttons. Thanks for posting it Tom.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4N6f6YbHoMI

BTW the guitars on the wall behind the guy could probably be sold to buy a nice motorhome. Those are all rare classics from the 60s.

Interesting video.

Not looking at your fingers while playing reminds me of my early years as a kid learning to play the piano. My music teacher was real old school! I dared not even trying to look at the notes, or "wham"    comes a hard whack across my hands with a ruler, of all things. Other than that she was real sweet and very proficient as a pianist, and I turned out not too bad a student after all said and done. 

mariekie4 said:

Not looking at your fingers while playing reminds me of my early years as a kid learning to play the piano. My music teacher was real old school! I dared not even trying to look at the notes, or "wham"    comes a hard whack across my hands with a ruler, of all things. Other than that she was real sweet and very proficient as a pianist, and I turned out not too bad a student after all said and done. 

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I was taking classical guitar lessons after learning travis style and the 5 string banjo. I kept placing my baby finger on the soundboard as that's how I had become accustomed to doing it as like an anchor. He said "get that finger off the soundboard" about three or four times before slapping my hand. I stopped a second and was about to light him up, then thought what the hay, let it go. I learned a lot from that guy.

When I bought a bass guitar a few years ago I noticed I was resting my thumb on the top edge of the fretboard and I had not seen any other bass players doing that. So I signed up for a bass guitar forum and posted a question about my right hand technique and what was the best way to do it. The overwhelming response was 'whatever works for you'.

I realize this is an old thread but I have a tip about learning a song the way the Bass Institute of Technoligy (BIT) in Hollywood teaches.  But this method applies to any instrument, and probably to any type of recital be it music, poetry, public speaking or whatever.

How many times have you watched someone playing a new song literally fall apart the further they get into it?  Having been the music director for a summer music program, songwriting competition judge etc. I see this happening quite often.  The reason is that by the time they've learned it they've played the beginning many many more times than the ending.  The cure? Learn it backwards!  Dissect it into as many parts as necessary and then learn the last one first.  Then go back a few measures and start from there and play it to the end. 

By the time you feel ready to perform the beginning the ending will be firmly implanted in your brain or wherever else it needs to be.  No more falling apart.  And as they say - "you gotta have a strong ending".

Do I do this every time?  Nope.  Most songs just don't require the effort because I've usually got no more than an into, verse, chorus, bridge, and extro to learn.

Believe it or not, I've learned many a (vocal) work backwards, usually for fun rather than easier learning. Now if I could just strum chords or play a melody backwards  ???

You don't actually learn the piece backwards.  You learn the ending first, in it's normal direction.  Then the middle, in it's normal direction all the way to the end. And so on.

You're just messing with me, right?