The Progress of Studying Classical Guitar

In the year 2021, I began to study a simplified version of the anonymous Romance D’Amour on the classical guitar. There were quite a number of months for me to be able to play this arrangement, which only has the melody surrounded by some low register accompanying. Despite it being said to be a very simple arrangement, it was quite challenging for me at the beginning as it was the first time that I practised playing the melody together with simple harmonics. It was also the time I began to realise the need to alternate my right-hand fingers. Yeah, these were very fundamental points for entry-level classical guitar playing, yet even these very basic techniques are challenging for me who was a self-taught middle age adult.
I played this piece of music to my wife on the second anniversary of our marriage. At that time I was playing without using the nails of my right hand. From the beginning when I studied classical guitar, I had been rather reluctant to grow my nails as I felt it would sacrifice much in other aspects of life. I was encouraged to do this as I heard that some legends of this instrument such as Sor only played with flesh of fingertips in history. However, I soon found that the guitars in the old days were different from contemporary instruments, and the most distinguishing characteristic was that the guitars in Sor’s period used gut strings rather than nylon strings which were the standard nowadays. There were a few professionals who played without nails today but their techniques favoured gut strings more, and the gut strings were not only expensive but also sensitive to environmental factors such as humidity and temperature. I was disappointed and even tried to give up playing classical guitar for this reason. Despite many people online said as an amateur, one could use just flesh on nylon strings. However, I was such a perfectionist who could not bare this. My enthusiasm was cooled down to a great degree due to the fact that I couldn’t find a well-known professional player who played barely with the flesh on nylon strings.
The turning point was at the end of 2021 when I realised that there were some top-level virtuosos playing on nylon strings with very short fingernails, especially notably Virginia Luque and Lorenzo Micheli. There were not that many details about how Lorenzo filed his nails but from his comments on his own Youtube channel, he said he used very short nails of the right hand and with the pinky attached to the soundboard, which had allowed him to play both modern classical guitar and baroque guitar conveniently. Virginia was Segovia’s last private student, there were interviews for her online regarding her techniques which were said to be taught by Segovia. She claimed herself to be a nailless player, though it was controversial as she also grew nails which were of course very short (not beyond the fingertips) on her right hand and the nails were said to be only used to support the fingertips, and she really did not touch the fingernails. Her techniques were also described briefly in the comments of her Youtube channel.
I was very excited to know these short nails techniques, which could be a very good compromise between my classical guitar hobby and other aspects of life. I listened to the music played by Lorenzo Micheli and Virginia Luque again and again, and then I grew my nails and then bought a fingernail file to file my nails so that there were not exceeding the edge of my fingertips. I soon found that Virginia’s technique which does not use the nail to touch the strings was very hard to achieve, and the posture of Lorenzo’s technique which placed the pinky on the soundboard was a bit stiff. However, I did feel that using some short nails, which first touched the strings with flesh and then released the strings so that they also touched the nails, could produce a better tone quality than only using flesh. I thought that I did not need to fully copy the others’ techniques, as everyone was different.
From the beginning of the year 2022, I studied a new piece of music, the ancient English folk song Greensleeves, arranged by Bradford Werner. I practised and practised and finally became familiar with it around the time of our third anniversary of marriage. Bradford’s Youtube channel has many free only lessons, but I was not very interested in them. I was more interested in the music sheets that he edited. I bought some PDF books from the website and the song Greensleeves was from the books. When I studied to play songs from the very simple classical guitar repertoire, I found that my knowledge of music theory was very limited so I read some books on music theory, especially harmony. Also during this period, my old classical guitar, which had accompanied me for nine years since I bought it when I was 28 years old, was broken. I purchased a new one online and also learned to change the strings.
I then got a bit tired of it. In the following couple of months, I hadn’t touched the guitar that much. 
One day when I was with my wife and son in Aspley Hypermarket. We stepped into a musical instrument shop. There my child was attracted to the colourful ukeleles. Then we purchased a yellow soprano ukulele for him. When we were back home, Ivan was playing with the new bought ukelele. Then I went to my working studio and brought my guitar to the lounge. I played the Romance D’Amour and Greensleeves while he was happily touching the strings with his little hands. A couple of weeks later I also bought a glockenspiel for him. I was especially enjoying the moment when he was grasping the mallet with me holding his little hand to play some simple melodies such as the Birthday song and Jingle Bells on the glockenspiel. The boy liked the glockenspiel and also the ukelele. To allow him to grow up in an environment with art and music, I regularly brought my guitar to play in front of him.
Then I thought I should study a new song. This time I chose the Chinese folk song Jasmine Flowers. The arrangement was also made by Bradford. With the fundamentals built during practising Greensleeves and Romance D’Amour, I was becoming familiar with this piece of music faster than when I studied Greensleeves. I could play it in a few days. These days I was also reading a book about the biography of the classical guitar Maestro John Williams. Before reading the book, I had known that John was born and then grew up in Australia. But I was surprised to know that his mother’s father was ethnically Chinese.

A discussion on Xiao’s versatility

The Xiao, which is an ancient Chinese vertical flute and also my favourite musical instrument, has gained interest from all over the world recently. There have been English tutorials on Xiao on Youtube, some English books for Xiao on Amazon and some makers of Xiao from the United States over the past decade, but it is still not as popular as Dizi or Shakuhachi worldwide, let alone compared with the western concert flute. Generally, the versability of Xiao has been underestimated, both in and especially outside China.

Recently the social media platform Reddit, there was a question raised by someone who was going to compose a piece of music for the Xiao flute and asked if it is possible to play all the 12 chromatic notes with one Xiao flute. A few people answered the question and said that it was impractical to play all the chromatic notes on Xiao before I posted my answer that it was in fact possible although challenging to play chromatic scales on a Xiao by covering half holes for some notes.

Geoffrey Ellis is a well-known keyless flute maker living in the United States, who also makes Xiao. On his website, there is such a statement as an introduction to Xiao, “The length of the bei xiao ranges from around 24” for the smallest xiao up to 36” and it has more than a two-octave range. Skillfully handled it will play four notes of the third (altissimo) octave. Very skilled players can (technically) achieve fully chromatic play by the use of half-holing, though such notes are not as strong as open-holed notes, and in particular, the second note (Eflat on a D/G xiao) will be very anemic when achieved through half-holing. Because of this it is not really considered a viable option.”

I just want to comment on this statement. Nowadays the Xiao should easily reach two and a half octaves, while skilled players can play the full range of three octaves on a well-crafted Xiao. I have tried that I can play the full range of three octaves on my Xiao made of plastic though I am just an amateur level player. By the techniques covering half holes, it can play chromatic scales. However, the techniques of half hole covering should not merely be a technique of finger movements, but also the control of the breath. Master Winson Liao has a tutorial online for the half-hole covering technique. Based on his technique, a player should also blow downward to the Xiao and in this way the half hole can be opened larger. Here we should note that half hole covering here means to cover some part of the hole, not exactly half of it. The principle here is very simple. The pitch will be turned down if one blows downward to the Xiao flute so that the half-covering hole can be opened larger to maintain the accuracy of the pitch.

Easter Holiday

How fast time flies. Three of the four days Easter holiday have passed. It is now the time to record the activities during these three days.

On day one we went to Cleveland, which was a seashore suburb to the east of Brisbane. Several years ago before I went to Shenzhen, I had visited this suburb a few times. It was the place where I bought my car in 2016. As the car dealer gave me a discount to have the car service in their store, I visited there for car service twice from 2016 to 2017. For the first time for car service, I went there with two friends who were studying at QUT then. After the car service, we drove to many places of interest in the surrounding area. For the second time, I went there with my parents, and we found a snug place for fishing.

This time I went there with my wife and son, and the scenic views were as beautiful as before. The sea was so calm that it looked like a huge lake. It was not a popular place for tourism, and most visitors were local people. The shore, the river, the street and houses were all very clean and tidy. I could not be able to spot even a piece of rubbish. The buildings there were all nice with very few old and broken houses. The region of Raby Bay had many canals, along which the houses were splendid and all with a boat ramp. We first arrived at Raby Bay Boulevard Park. It was a quiet, beautiful and small park by the sea. There were not that many people, with some of them casually fishing. There was a nice small playground for children with a slide, four swings and a few rides. We had a wonderful time and had our prepared lunch there. After lunch, Ivan played with the lunch box by casting it on the lawn and picking it up with much fun. We had tried to find the fishing location where I and my parents visited before, but as I had forgotten where it was, we eventually couldn’t find it. In the afternoon, we went to the park next to the old Cleveland lighthouse. There was a canteen with a great sea scenic view. We bought a box of fish and chips and ordered two cups of coffee there.

On the second day, we had a good time in South Bank Parkland. We parked our car at QUT’s gardens point campus, and walked there through Goodwill Bridge which was across the Brisbane River. South Bank parkland is a memorable place for my wife and me as it was where we hold our wedding in 2019. Our wedding was held in the then Steak House (a western-style restaurant with river views) that was located along the river and next to Goodwill Bridge. Now the restaurant has changed its boss and is named OTTO. We had planned to have our lunch there but we gave up this idea as the dishes seemed too small and expensive when we checked the menu online. We went through a passage of an arched metal channel on which lots of bougainvilleas spiring around. When we arrived at the swimming pool, Ivan had some fun with the water. Then we headed to the Ferris wheel. This was the first time for Ivan to be on a Ferris wheel, but I had not much more experience than him. I had become a bit nervous and vigilant during the process while my wife said I looked too stressed. Sitting in a carriage on top of the wheel, we could see a full view of Brisbane CBD.

On the third day, which was today, we went to Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary, which was a zoo not limited to koalas but was the largest sanctuary for koalas in the world. The zoo was located in a western suburb of Brisbane with river views. Ivan was a bit afraid of the koalas when he first saw them. However, he soon liked them after a while. He wanted to touch them but of course, he couldn’t do that as there were fences surrounding the trees where the koalas resided. After watching the koalas, we entered the kangaroo field. There were plenty of kangaroos on a large lawn. Some kangaroos were in the restricted areas with a board saying that only staff could enter inside, while some were in unrestricted open spaces where people can feed them. I was a bit afraid of the kangaroos though I knew they were tame animals and probably would not attack humans. Naturally, I would like to keep a certain distance from them. However, my son was so brave and excited that he chase the hopping kangaroos, touched them, kicked their tails, pinched their ears, and attempted to tear their furs. I was so worried that the kangaroos might be irritated and hurt him. There were so many kangaroos that the grass field was full of kangaroo poos. There were also a couple of black big birds which were too heavy to be able to fly. I forgot their names but based on my memory they were endemic animals within the Australian continent similar to koalas and kangaroos. After playing with the kangaroos, we went to the barn to see some sheep and pigs. There was a small pool on the way to the barn, where there was a crocodile. We bought yearly tickets so we could go there many times in future.

The weather was nice during these three days, The sky was clear with a few clouds. It was not hot though the sunshine was bright.

Playing the Guitar

Today we went to the Wellington Point, which was the endpoint of a peninsular to the east of Brisbane. The spectacle there was splendid, and the weather was clear and pleasant. When we arrived at a lawn by the shore, admiring the beautiful scenery formed by the sunshine, the calm sea, the blue sky, the white clouds, the green trees, the beach and the flying birds such as seagulls and ibises, I brought my classical guitar out of the bag, sat on the grass under a tree and played the song Romance De Amour. The guitar I played was a new one, which was purchased a week ago online after my old guitar had broken. It has a solid bruce top and nato back and sides, and thus sounded a little better than my old one that was built with a laminated wood top.

Time has flown fast. I have been playing the classical guitar intermittently for 9 years. I am still at the beginner level, as I didn’t have that much determination for learning the classical guitar until very recently. It was during the time that I was devoting too much to research when I purchased my first classical guitar. I did not attempt to learn it seriously and merely used it as a way to spend some boring time or practice the fingers and wrists to avoid getting a disease called “computer mouse hands”. At the time when I started to be able to play some simple melodies, I went back to China to work there for a couple of years. I bought a steel-string acoustic guitar there but practice not that much.

In the year 2019, I returned to Australia to start a new life – setting up a family and starting a new career. I started to learn classical guitar again. I was always a self-taught learner, as studying with a teacher was impractical to me. I remembered that during my wife’s pregnancy, I normally played the guitar for some time almost every day at night. Then I could play some simple melodies such as Moscow Night, Greensleeves, and Minuete in G major more smoothly than I was able to perform before I went to China. This routine activity stopped some time before Ivan was born.

I then hadn’t touched the guitar for a very long time until around May 2021. To celebrate our second marriage anniversary in August, I tried to learn a piece of music played by the guitar so that I could play for my wife on that special day. The song I chose was a simplified version of Romance De Amour. It is simplified as it has been transposed to A minor and E minor so that it could be played in the open position. In addition, it only has the main melody and some low pitched accompaniments. It is said to be at the easiest level. However, it was still not so easy for me. First, I did not know I needed to alternate my right-hand fingers at the start. For a long time practising, I was using the wrong way to pluck the strings, which the ring, middle and index fingers responsible for the E, B and G treble strings respectively, and the thumb for the three base strings. I noticed this was the wrong way after I watched some online tutorials. I then bought a textbook which was Noad’s Solo Guitar Playing for reference. The other problem was I feel it was hard to pluck more than one string at the same time. The finger movements were too rigid and I felt it hard to move my thumb. But after some practice, I started to master this piece of music and played it on a special day as a milestone I set for myself.

When I was about to learn it deeper, my enthusiasm was cooled down again. It was because the textbook said for playing classical guitar, one had to grow some nails, which I did not want to follow. I searched a lot of information online, and eventually found Rob Mackilop’s website https://rmclassicalguitar.com/ for the techniques to use flesh purely for plucking the strings. It was said historically there were many famous guitarists such as Sor used flesh purely to play the classical guitar. I was encouraged as I knew Sor was probably the most famous figure for guitar in history so far. However, as I studied this technique deeper, I found it was more suitable for gut strings rather than the modern nylon strings. Gut strings were expensive, easy to break and the tune was sensitive to environments. They were definitely not what I could afford though I admit the sounds they produced were so attractive. I stopped the playing guitar, and instead, I played the flute and Xiao.

However, my wife and mother both believed the sounds of flute or Xiao I produced were too noisy, too high pitched, and not as pleasant as the guitar sounds that I produced before. This puzzled me and drove me to guitar again. Later, I got some materials online that some top virtuoso players such as Lorenzo Micheli and Virginia Luque used very short nails to play classical guitar. Virginia in fact claimed her technique to be a no nail method though she said she grew very short nails to support the fingertips. This information shed a light on me because I did not really care about whether to use nails or not, and I merely don’t want to have long nails to make many aspects of life not convenient. Very short nails are very acceptable to me. Though they hadn’t published any books or papers on this matter. There were comments given by them on their Youtube uploaded videos, which explained how they did.After some practice, I found I got a sense of using short nails for the playing. Then I started to learn new songs. I found that I could handle the two voices in the music much better than before…

Buying a Classical Guitar

 Today I was playing the classical guitar while watching Ivan playing toys in the lounge. Ivan was playing with the toyed fire engine and suddenly he wanted to sit on it. I asked him to not sit on it but as he is merely a toddler less than two years old, I shouldn’t expect him to listen to me. Then I stopped playing, laid the guitar against the wall and the sofa stood up and headed to stop him. But as soon as I stood up, I heard a “bang” sound, and the guitar had just fallen down to the ground. After I stopped Ivan sitting on the toy, I hurried to pick up the guitar and found the bridge of the guitar had been broken.
It is March 27 in 2022, nine years after I purchased the guitar. I could still remember that I bought the guitar in the second half of the year 2013. I was near 29 years old then, as a bachelor living with my grandmother in her house. At that time I was devoted to some tough research topics with very limited financial support. Life was not easy and I wanted to find a way to entertain myself a little bit. I started to think of learning a musical instrument. Previously I had played a type of vertical bamboo flute called Xiao, which was originated from China. As I had lived in Australia for several years, I believed I should learn a western musical instrument, and guitar was my choice due it its popularity and affordable prices.
It was in the afternoon. After shopping, I went to a guitar store near the shopping centre. At that time my parents were in Australia, helping my sister to look after her children. We were together. The staves saw us coming in, and then greeted us nicely. I said I wanted to buy a guitar as a beginner. Then he asked what type of guitars I wanted to learn, “For example, we have acoustic guitars, classical guitars and electric guitars. What do you want? ” This puzzled me as I hadn’t got much knowledge about that, but I first ruled out electric guitar as I felt it was too artificial. I liked the gentle sounds purely produced by the strings vibrating over the guitar body. “What is the difference between classical guitars and acoustic guitars?” I then asked. The staff smiled and said, “The sounds are very different, depending on which one you like. ” He then played some tunes with a classical guitar followed by an acoustic guitar, and said, “The feeling when plucking the strings are different. The acoustic guitars are made with steel strings and the classical guitars are using nylon strings, so the classical guitar is easier to pluck as it is softer. The classical guitar produces a warmer sound while the acoustic guitar’s sound is much louder and more brilliant. ” Only listening to the sounds produced, I thought I liked both of them, though I also agreed they were very different. I then asked the guy which one was more popular. He then said, “The steel strings based acoustic guitar is much much more popular nowadays, as it is used in pop music. The classical guitar is more favourable to playing classical music. ” My father then suggested I buy a more popular one as he thought it was better to follow the mainstream. However, I eventually decided to buy a classical guitar as I liked classical music more, and the price for classical guitar seems more affordable.

Admiring the Moon on the Sea Shore

In the late afternoon, we were arriving at the Shornciffe Pier again. The spectacle was as attractive as usual, despite the winds being much stronger than last time. The sea winds seemed to have blown the seawater into the atmosphere, making the air smell salty. Ivan was very active and exciting as he was merrily running along the pier. Since today was not the weekend, there were only a few people sparsely distributed on the pier, leaving enough space for us to linger around and take photos.


It was a sunny and clear day, though there were clouds with either white or grey colours floating in the blue sky. At the time when we arrived there, the sun was still quite harsh, shining its golden beams on the ground. But after a while, it soon fell to the west. The sunset had made a patch of red clouds to the west of the sky and smeared some pink mist to the east.
We took some photos and then we were thinking about going home as there were mosquitoes at night on the shore. However, a stranger asked me whether we needed his help to take some photos for us. I courteously refused as we wanted to keep a social distance from the others. However, they then asked me to help them to take a photo. Though I was a bit reluctant, I could not find a good excuse to refuse. This was what the life about living under the pandemic.


I checked the information online and knew moonrise time would be around 5:41 pm, which was about 20 minutes later. We then slowly walk to the children’s playground to spend some time before going to the end of the park where there was a narrow and long concrete passage stretching to the middle of the sea. We cautiously stepped to the passage and wandered there for a while before I saw a big and round moon appeared on the horizontal line of the sea. The moon gradually rose to the sky. When the whole world had become darker and darker, the moon itself had become more and more brilliant.

STEREOTYPE

Today both the rain and the heatwave have been gone for a couple of days, leaving a clear sky with plenty of cotton-like fluffy white clouds that occlude the sun. My wife suggested going out to the shore as she said we hadn’t been there after the Lunar New Year, and then we headed to the Shorncliffe Pier. The spectacle was beautiful, with a calm sea in front of us. Standing on the pier, we could admire the blue sky, the dark green sea, and the horizontal line at the far end where they met. Ashore there laid some quiet villages reflecting the golden sunshine. Far away were mountains that were blurred in vision. White seagulls were flying on top of our heads. Many fishing rods were laid on the fence of the pier, with some people sitting leisurely while waiting for the fish. My wife rejoiced with the beautiful scenery and urged me to take photos for her. When I had taken many photos for her and Ivan, she said she wanted to take some for me. I was not keen on photos and unconsciously accepted the idea. I didn’t know what postures and expressions should I make for the photos. So I was just standing naturally while she was taking photos for me. Then she looked at the photos on the mobile phone and exclaimed, “Oh, you look too feminine in the photos. ” I groaned, “What postures are considered to be masculine? ” Then I said, “There is some type of beauty for the feminine postures as well.” Then in the next photo, I made a posture by holding two fists in my hand, assuming that was meant to be manly.
In our society, there are always some behaviours and appearances considered to be masculine and some others to be feminine. It is expected that a man should be masculine and a woman should be feminine in terms of this. Otherwise, they will be considered abnormal or disgusting, and are teased. However, I believe these are merely stereotypes, and should not be viewed as wrong and teased. Could we consider them as a special form of beauty other than a type of guilty? I reckon at least we should view them as a form of nature, which should not be condemned or required to rectify.




I suddenly recalled in the old days when I was a child, I had a doll as my favourite toy. My father was not happy about that and he said as a boy I should prefer to play with toys such as a robot or a superman model to be masculine. However, in my mind, manliness was not meant to be playing what types of toys, it means braveness and determination though I admit that I am not a brave or determined man either.

Stereotypes do not only relate to gender characteristics. Sometimes it will be applied to other aspects. For instance, there is a type of stereotype for adults.

I would like to tell a true story of mine during the final year of secondary school. It happened just two months before the national college entrance examinations. One day the headmaster of my class asked me to her office to have a chat with me. It was said she wanted to understand all students’ requirements and provided helps if needed. As the headmaster had seldom chatted with me. I was very nervous. I admitted that I was weak in social interactions and communications, and my academic performance was poor in my class during the senior high school period. I was also under enormous stress for the coming examinations. For almost every mock exam I had diarrhea and needed to go to the toilet for some time, and then often had not enough time to answer all questions.

I was afraid to talk to teachers and worried about why she asked me to her office. It was during the evening classes. When I entered her office, I trembled a bit. “Miss Yang! What is the matter that you asked me to be here?” I said to her. I have forgotten much about the conversation. I just remembered that she said she wanted to see whether I needed some help. However, I clearly remembered that after I went back to the classroom for some time, she furiously went to the classroom, and blamed my rash gestures and rude behaviours during the conversation. She said, even other teachers had noticed that my facial expressions and gestures were unusual, which had made her rather embarrassed in the office. “You have been over eighteen years old,” She said in front of all students in the class, “and you shouldn’t behave like that, which was aggressive and rude.” Then she condemned me in front of all students in the class for about half an hour.

I admitted that my behaviours had never been elegant, and sometimes they were a bit uncourteous, but I had never intended to offend anyone. I was not sure why she was so angry with me for such a trivial matter. Ridiculously, the conversation, which was said to be used to understand whether I needed help, in fact, had hurt me greatly, especially just two months before the college entrance examinations. It is true that I had been over eighteen years old and had been a young adult. But why can’t an adult be shy and nervous? Why can’t an adult behave a bit unusual when overwhelmed by the coming exams?

Then later I went to Xi’an for university, and I told some of my roommates this story. They were shocked by how narrow-minded the teacher was to bother with a student for only the gestures and facial expressions matter. For many years, I thought I also had some faults to be not courteous enough, but now I think it is not a fault as an adult, especially when being overwhelmed by preparing for the world’s most competitive examinations.