In this guitar lesson we will look at another great classical guitar piece that adapts well to pick style guitar. The piece is Etude 1 by Heitor Villa Lobos and is a great guitar lesson for building alternate picking coordination and for building chord skills.
In a previous lesson (Arpeggio Madness) I showed you the opening measures to Villa Lobos's Etude 2. In this Etude, you'll see that there is a constant picking pattern that perpetuates through the entire piece as the piece undergoes a series of great sounding chords. Mastering this piece depends on some extent to mastering the picking pattern.
Above is the tab for this piece. Note that each measure is repeated before moving on to the next. Also note that I have indicated the finger picking pattern as well as the alternate picking pattern. Finger pickers certainly have the advantage since they essentially have 4 picks they can use! But the piece is certainly doable pick style and with enough practice it can be played pick style at the same tempo as most classical players perform it at. And the payoff is enormous, as your alternate picking chops (especially picking intricate patterns that don't involve consecutive notes on the same string) will skyrocket!
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