In addition to a stack of technique manuals on the guitar (particular favorites are Aaron Shearer's Classic Guitar Technique, Vol, 1 & 2; Christopher Parkening's Guitar Method, Vol. 1 & 2; and Matteo Carcassi's technique manual (lots of chord and arpeggio exercises, good for accompaniment practice); with frequent dips into The Complete Sor Studies (Mel Bay edition), I have a couple of manuals by Ricardo Iznaola, one full of exercises (Kitharologus) and the other, a small book, hardly more than a pamphlet, entitle On Practicing, that's pricy for its size, but invaluable for its content.

I try to make it a habit to go all the way through Shearer Vol. 1 every few months and get in some practice from Kitharologus every day. In this one, Iznaola has exercises that cover all the basics and then some (!) of anything one might encounter playing classical guitar—or any kind of guitar, for that matter. His instructions for playing the exercises say to use a metronome and when first working on an exercise, put the setting very sl-o-o-o-o-ow, paying close attention to correct finger action and listening carefully to the tone. Once you can do it perfectly, move the metronome setting up a click or two and do it again. Then again. And again.

Then, apply this to any piece of music you're learning, playing it dead slow until you can get through it perfectly without blowing it. Then, move the setting up and do it again. Until finally, you can play the piece about five or ten percent faster than it should be played. Then back it off and play it at the correct speed, secure in the knowledge that you've got a lot in reserve.

May sound unnecessarily tedious for a folk guitarist, but you'd be surprised how much easier it is to learn something like alternate bass picking by this method. Most people start out trying to play this stuff at full speed, wind up tangling their fingers in the strings, and never seem to be able to get beyond the sloppy stage.

If you want to dazzle people with your miraculous speed and precision, the secret is to practice slowly.

Why do I spend a lot of time practicing and playing classical when most of what I do is folk song accompaniment? Because after working on classic guitar pieces (which I can toss in occasionally when I'm performing), playing "Burl Ives Basic" is duck soup!

AND recording practice is an excellent idea and very valuable, painfully revealing of what needs work sometimes, with (in a good year) the occasional potential Grammy winner that you wish you'd caught with your studio condenser mics instead of just on the Zoom H2 at mp3 setting.

Don Firth