Having taught thousands of guitar students over the decades and used just about every book there is, I keep coming back to only a few rumbas when I teach how to play this fun Spanish guitar style. 

The Rumba Basics

Rumbas can be counted in 4/4 or 2/4 time (I'm partial to counting in 4/4) and typic...

Choro is a type of music that originated in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. It's an upbeat style which typically features a small ensemble with instruments like the guitar, flute, cavaquinho, clarinet and mandolin among others. While some songs are played fast, others can be very slow and melodic. Some peop...

Introduction

Fingernails are an important part of your hands as a classical and nylon string guitarist. Not only do they help you to grip the guitar strings and provide volume and tone, but they also serve as a protective barrier between your skin and the strings. The fingernails are an integral pa...

The rumba is one of the most exciting rhythms to play on acoustic guitar. It's a rhythm that is pretty familiar to the "western ear" as opposed to many flamenco forms that follow a much more complicated rhythmic structure. In my decades of teaching guitar, I have composed many studies for students t...

When you listen to classical guitar music, you're likely to see works adapted for guitar from composers like Bach, Beethoven and others who weren't writing for the guitar, but the pieces have been adapted to the instrument. However, you seldom hear the works from Russian composer Pyotr Ilyich Tchaik...

Take a quick tour of five of the best and most iconic gypsy jazz songs. In this video I briefly explain what gypsy jazz is and some of the vital elements of this style, pioneered by Django Reinhardt in 1930’s Paris with violinist Stephane Grapelli. If you’re into Latin guitar or acoustic guitar of a...

The Argentine tango is a musical genre and dance style that originated in the late 19th century in the working-class neighborhoods of Buenos Aires, Argentina, evolving from a mixture of European and indigenous musical styles. 

The tango is characterized by its syncopated rhythm and intense, dramati...

"Blue Bossa" is a jazz standard composed by the late American saxophonist and flutist Kenny Dorham. It was first recorded on his 1962 album "Afro-Cuban" and since then it has become a staple in jazz repertoire, often played by jazz musicians in live performances and jams.

"Blue Bossa" is significan...

Malagueña is a Spanish song that has become one of the most well-known and beloved traditional folk melodies in the world. The origins of the song are somewhat unclear, but it is thought to have originated in the region of Málaga, Spain (hence the name) in the late 19th or early 20th century. Over t...

Let's look into the history of the nylon string guitar...

The nylon string guitar (most simply call it the classical guitar) has a long and storied history, with roots dating back to the Renaissance period in Europe.

The modern classical guitar can trace its origins back to the lute, which was a p...

Gypsy jazz guitar is one of the most exciting styles to play for Guitarist at any level. That characteristic "la pompe" rhythm coupled with beautiful melodic phrases often incorporating "gypsy" elements like the harmonic minor scale, Hungarian (or gypsy) minor scale, and copious ornaments (like quic...

The Gipsy Kings basically own the entire genre of rumba flamenca. There are other artists who have capitalized on the guitar rumba style like Ottmar Liebert, Jesse Cook, Strunz and Farah and many others. (We can trace the history of this style back to Paco de Lucia's Entre dos Aguas.) But no artist ...

The "rumba flamenca" style of guitar playing is so fun and there are so many songs out there to play. Not to mention a tremendous variety of ways to strum a rumba, as I talked about in my "Play Romanza as a Rumba" video lesson. In this arrangement, I've included a new variation on the rumba pattern ...

Here's one of the exercises I do just about every day for my classical guitar technique: Allegro by Mauro Giuliani. This is not the more well known Allegro by Giuliani but rather a seldom-heard piece that is made up entirely of the double arpeggio technique where we play all fingers of the right han...