Guitar performance techniques

thumb|A series of arpeggios in J. S. Bach's "Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring" [[File:Bach Arpeggio.mid|400x400px]] thumb|"The Star-Spangled Banner" opens with an arpeggio.[[File:The Star-Spangled Banner arpeggio.mid]] thumb|upright=2|Arpeggios open Beethoven's "Moonlight Sonata" and continue as accompaniment[[File:Beethoven piano sonata 14 mvmt 1 bar 1-4.mid|500x500px]]

In music performance and notation, legato (; Italian for "tied together"; French lié; German gebunden) indicates that musical notes are played or sung smoothly, such that the transition from note to note is made with no intervening silence. Legato technique is required for slurred performance, but unlike slurring (as that term is interpreted for some instruments), legato does not forbid articulating the notes with a very slight interruption.

thumb|250px|The node (physics)|nodes of a vibrating string are harmonics. thumb|Two different notations of natural harmonics on the cello. First as sounded (more common), then as fingered (easier to sightread).

guitar technique for steel guitars

guitar technique; part of the rhythmic pulse in conjunction with other instruments from the rhythm section

thumb|Erik Mongrain demonstrating the technique

musical chord composed of a root (tonal) note and its respective fifth

technique of playing the guitar by plucking the strings directly with the fingertips

form of dance and movement

howling caused by a circular path in an audio system

type of musical chord played on a guitar or other stringed instruments

type of guitar or the method of playing the instrument

melodic passage, instrumental section, or entire piece of music written for a classical guitar, electric guitar or an acoustic guitar

musical part for a guitar in which the guitarist plays melody lines, instrumental fill passages, guitar solos, within a song structure

guitar picking technique

thumb|300px|G run in G major variation contains both hammer-ons and a pull-off.

virtuoso lead guitar solo playing style

muting technique for guitar

vibrato and guitar technique

alt=|thumb|Rock 'N' Roll singer Chuck Berry doing a one-legged hop style "duckwalk" while playing the guitar. The duckwalk is a form of dance performed by assuming a low partial squatting position and walking forwards, maintaining the low stance. It is similar to stalking and prowling. It is most widely known as a stage element of guitar showmanship popularized by rock and roll guitarist Chuck Berry. It is also a physical exercise commonly used in military training.

Rasgueado (also called Golpeado, Rageo (spelled so or Rajeo), Rasgueo or Rasgeo in Andalusian dialect and flamenco jargon, or even occasionally Rasqueado) is a guitar finger strumming technique commonly associated with flamenco guitar music. It is sometimes used on other fretted instruments such as the ukulele and in other styles of guitar playing. The rasgueado is executed using the fingers of the strumming hand in rhythmically precise, and often rapid, strumming patterns. The important characteristic of this strumming style is the fingernail (outer) side of the finger tips (as opposed to the

guitar playing technique

thumb|300px|G run in G major variation contains both hammer-ons and a pull-off.

guitar technique to achieve artificial harmonics in which the player's thumb or index finger on the picking hand slightly catches the string after it is picked, canceling the fundamental frequency of the string, letting one of the harmonics dominate

term in music theory

guitar-playing technique

Downpicking, sometimes referred to as down-stroke picking, is a technique used by musicians on plucked string instruments in which the player moves the plectrum, or pick in a downward motion, relative to the position of the instrument, against one or more of the strings to make them vibrate. When down-strokes are played without the addition of upstrokes (as in alternate picking), the tip of the pick never comes in contact with the strings as the hand moves back up to repeat the down-stroke.

thumb|right|350px|Guitar strum : base pattern on open G tuning. Strumming is used to create a chord. Many patterns are created through subtracting beats from this base. thumb|right|350px|Guitar strum : pattern created by subtracting the second and fifth (of eight) eighth notes from the base, above. thumb|right|350px|Ska stroke : features dampened staccato upbeat downstrokes.

guitar chord that includes one or more strings that are not fingered; an open string vibrates with more resonance than a string which is pressed down

additional bridge added to a stringed instrument

guitar technique

method of playing a guitar

guitar fingerstyle

guitar technique

thumb thumb|right|Guitar strum, with down and up strums indicated Flatpicking (or simply picking) is the technique of striking the strings of a guitar with a pick (also called a plectrum) held between the thumb and one or two fingers. It can be contrasted to fingerstyle guitar, which is playing with individual fingers, with or without wearing fingerpicks. While the use of a plectrum is common in many musical traditions, the exact term "flatpicking" is most commonly associated with Appalachian music of the American southeastern highlands, especially bluegrass music, where string bands often fe