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Staccato

Classical Guitar Right Hand Control

"Staccato - Characterized by performance
in which the notes are abruptly disconnected:
a staccato style of playing..."

The word is an Italian one meaning "detached" or "separated". It is, in effect, the shortening of the duration of a note or notes. It is a very useful guitar technique but often very poorly executed.

I’ve seen many students over the years try to play this way with their left hand! That is, releasing the notes of a chord or melody rather than stopping them with the fingers of the right hand.

As you can imagine it can make for a very sloppy and careless performance indeed.

Practicing this guitar technique separate from performance is recommended to ensure the proper sound is produced. This will stand you in good stead if under pressure when playing in public.

Staccato is normally indicated in music by the use of a small dot over a note or group of notes. It can also be indicated by a pointed dash (much like an upside down triangle) and a series of dots and slur lines.

If dots and slur lines are used it means that the passage to be played is more moderately.

Here is a little graphic to show what I mean…

Staccato

And here's a little example on video to show right hand control when either playing chords or single notes as in a scale...

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If you’ve ever played the Twenty Studies for Classical Guitar by Sor (Arranged by Segovia), I’m sure you would’ve been tempted to play Study No.9 in a very staccato fashion. Although not indicating it in the above mentioned traditional way, most classical guitarists tend to play it that way because of the 8th note, 8th rest nature of the notation.

Playing it even a little more so can often be a lot of fun, especially at a higher speed (even though it is indicated to be played "Tranquillo"). Try it sometime if you’re up to that intermediate level of classical guitar or any style of guitar for that matter. It really is a lot of fun.

Good luck!

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