How difficult is it to learn the guitar as a harmonium

Schott Music

"Air strikes" are also sometimes recorded as striking technique information in the score. The movement of an upstroke or downstroke is carried out, but contact with the strings is avoided. This makes it easier to keep the rhythm. A downward air strike is with symbolizes an upward air strike with.

pizzicato (Italian: pluck)

This playing instruction is mainly used in connection with string instruments. Here the notes are not drawn with a bow, but rather plucked with the index finger of the right hand. The sound effect of pizzicato is transferred to the guitar by striking the thumb of the right hand and simultaneously muffling the same string with the ball of the hand near the bridge.

portamento (Italian: to lead)

This is understood to mean the connection of individual tones of a melodic line.

rasgueado (Spanish: grab the strings)

This versatile guitar technique of the right hand, which is predominant in flamenco playing, describes the knocking down and upstroke of the fingers over several strings. With this reversed finger strike, the string is first touched from the outside of the fingernail, the thumb always being hooked onto the low E string. On the one hand, this serves to better fix the hand, but is also important for the touch and the sound production.
There are different types of strokes of the rasgueado, from which the simple, the split and the tremolo rasgueado are primarily to be distinguished. At the simple rasgueado the fingers are bent slightly against the ball of the hand. Then up to four fingers hit the strings at the same time. The tee is made with the outer surfaces of the fingernails.
While with the simple rasgueado the same or the same fingers always snap back, with the shared rasgueado an alternating stroke of two or three fingers made.
The Tremolo rasgueado is generated when the fingers strike alternately but in both directions.

Scordatura (Italian: to change your mind)

It describes a tuning of the stringed instrument that deviates from the norm. This retuning of either individual or all strings serves, among other things, to achieve special sound effects and to make difficult passages easier. Because the music is still notated as the performer would have to grasp on a "normal" instrument. In reality, however, it produces different tones as a result of the retuning.

staccato (Italian: separated)

This means playing instructions that require a short and clear separation of the tones from each other. On the guitar, staccato is created by releasing the finger pressure of the left hand immediately after the strike, but not completely removing it from the string. Playing staccato on open strings is not recommended because of the reverberation.

sul ponticello (Italian: near the footbridge)

These playing instructions require the string to be struck near the bridge. This creates a hard, metallic sound.

tambora (Spanish: drum)

This describes a technical playing effect in which the strings are made to vibrate with the inner edge of the right thumb close to the bridge in order to achieve a drum-like, almost clinking effect.

tirando (Italian: pulling)

This means a guitar attack technique that is the opposite of the plucking technique of the apoyando. In the tirando, also called "free attack", the finger of the right hand moves from above over the string to be played so that it does not come to rest on the adjacent string after the attack.


In connection with the guitar, this refers to a technical playing effect in which one and the same note is quickly struck with the successive fingers of the right hand.


This describes the slight tremor or vibration of a sound. This periodic fluctuation of the pitch is mainly used to shape long tones or to make them sound more interesting, and is often used in both acoustic and electric guitars. There are three types of vibrati:
Horizontal vibrato: The fingers wiggle left and right on the strings.
Vertical vibrato: The grasping fingers wiggle up and down on the strings.
Wrist vibrato: Here, not the fingers, but the whole wrist are moved. This is the most effective type of vibrato, but also the most difficult.