Flamenco Guitar for Beginners

This is where your flamenco guitar journey begins:

Flamenco Guitar Fundamentals is a comprehensive foundations course by atrafanaSchool. It covers the all the absolute essentials of flamenco guitar technique via lectures, demonstrations and drills. Each lecture is slowly and carefully narrated by Orhan in plain English. Captions are also added to each video to make sure you understand everything. There are 8 sections containing 38 video lessons, plus tabs where relevant.

Whether you are an absolute beginner or someone looking to improve their technique, or fix errors, you can simply fire up this course and follow it from beginning to end. Flamenco Guitar Fundamentals also includes the entire 101 series and its tabs under the “supplementary” section.

And this is where you go next:

If you cannot afford lesson packages right now, then check out the following free lessons.

SKIP TO Flamenco Guitar - 101 VIDEO LESSON SERIES

SKIP TO Learning Flamenco Palos - 102 VIDEO LESSON SERIES

SKIP TO Flamenco Guitar Warm-up Sequences

SKIP TO Flamenco Guitar Techniques Combined

Flamenco Guitar for Beginners - 101 VIDEO LESSON SERIES - FREE

This page features my free instructional flamenco guitar videos for people who are either wanting to learn how to play flamenco guitar from scratch or those of you who wish to brush up on their existing technical flamenco guitar knowledge.

Videos are numbered and follow a curriculum. So, I suggest you start from video 01 and proceed to the next once you feel you are satisfied with your progress. Videos also have on-screen flamenco guitar tabs that are in sync with the slow instruction.

Click on each video to access the relevant youtube page of atrafanaSchool

In case you think this page is helpful:

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Flamenco Guitar - Left Hand

In learning how to play flamenco guitar from zero, it is important to start with the left hand. By doing the following flamenco guitar left hand exercises, you will be preparing yourself for general freting, legato (hammer on and pull offs) and barred chords. Please be patient at this stage as it is the hardest. Take you time and make sure you have enough strength and dexterity in your left hand before proceeding to lesson 05.

Flamenco Guitar 101 - 01 - Left Hand 01
Flamenco Guitar 101 - 02 - Left Hand 02
Flamenco Guitar 101 - 03 - Left Hand 03 - Pull Offs
Flamenco Guitar 101 - 04 - Left Hand 04 - Spider

Flamenco Guitar - Picado

Flamenco guitar Picado lessons start with the basic mechanisms of picado playing. The videos are all self-explanatory with on-screen text that guide you through the drills. The lessons from 08 to 12 will take you through the most used flamenco guitar scales in such palos as solea, granaina, alegria. Spend most of your time on lesson 05 through lesson 07 as they contain the most essential flamenco picado exercises.

Flamenco Guitar 101 - 05 - Picado: Nail - Attack - Position
Flamenco Guitar 101 - 06 - Picado: Accuracy - Speed
Flamenco Guitar 101 - 07 - Picado: Basic Chromatic Study
Flamenco Guitar 101 - 08 - Picado: Malaguena
Flamenco Guitar 101 - 09 - Picado: The E Phrygian Scale
Flamenco Guitar 101 - 10 - Picado: E minor
Flamenco Guitar 101 - 11 - Picado: E Major
Flamenco Guitar 101 - 12 - Picado: A Major

Flamenco Guitar - Free Stroke

Free stroke playing in flamenco guitar is the most fundamental technique of all. Because it defines the fundamental flamenco guitar right hand position that is the basis of all other techniques. Every other technique is a derivation, or a deviation from, this basic flamenco guitar technique. Spend lots of time in this section and it will give you the basis upon which you can build a solid flamenco guitar technique. Especially video 15 is very important as it teaches how to use the pulgar rest stroke while playing finger free strokes.

Flamenco Guitar 101 - 13 - Free Stroke Fundamentals
Flamenco Guitar 101 - 14 - Free Stroke Exercise
Flamenco Guitar 101 - 15 - Free Stroke and Pulgar

Flamenco Guitar - Arpeggio

Arpeggio is a highly utilized technique in flamenco guitar playing. Pay close attention to the planting instruction. Planting is a technique of practising flamenco guitar arpeggios that facilitates speed and accuracy. Again, I will suggest that you be patient at this stage and go through the drills slowly. Make sure you have fully digested one video to go over to the next. Arpeggio is highly utilized in solea, aloe por buleria, alegria, fandango.

Flamenco Guitar 101 - 16 - Arpeggio Fundamentals and Planting
Flamenco Guitar 101 - 17 - Arpeggio and Picado
Flamenco Guitar 101 - 18 - Arpeggio and Pulgar
Flamenco Guitar 101 - 19 - Arpeggio Sextuplets
Flamenco Guitar 101 - 20 - Arpeggio P-i on the same string - Punta Umbria

Flamenco Guitar - Tremolo

Flamenco guitar tremolo is made up fo 5 notes: P i a m i. Video 21 will take you through all the basic aspects of flamenco tremolo and give you some concrete exercises to improve your tremolo speed and accuracy. The tremolo exercises utilize malaguena, solea, and solea por buleria to teach the various ways in which melody is incorporated into tremolo playing.

Flamenco Guitar 101 - 21 - Tremolo Basics
Flamenco Guitar 101 - 22 - Tremolo Thumb Melody - Malaguena
Flamenco Guitar 101 - 23 - Tremolo Finger Melody - Solea
Flamenco Guitar 101 - 24 - Tremolo - Irregular Cases

Flamenco Guitar - Pulgar

Flamenco pulgar or flamenco thumb requires a different right hand posture than the free stroke technique. Pay close attention to the lesson 25 where all the fundamental aspects of flamenco pulgar are presented. Flamenco pulgar takes up about half of all flamenco guitar playing. It is the king of all flamenco guitar techniques :-) The video lessons 25 to 29 present the various ways in which you are required to use your flamenco pulgar. Your thumb nail will suffer a bit :-)

Flamenco Guitar 101 - 25 - Flamenco Pulgar Basics
Flamenco Guitar 101 - 26 - Flamenco Pulgar Exercise - Solea
Flamenco Guitar 101 - 27 - Flamenco Pulgar - index technique
Flamenco Guitar 101 - 28 - Flamenco Pulgar - PPi Patterns
Flamenco Guitar 101 - 29 - Flamenco Pulgar - Upstroke

Flamenco Guitar - Alzapua

Alzapua technique takes the flamenco pulgar posture as its basis. Alzapua technique is unique to flamenco guitar playing where you use your thumbnail almost like a pick in both directions. Alzapua is a very flashy trick and it is not difficult to learn and perform if you watch and mimic the following tutorials carefully.

Flamenco Guitar 101 - 30 - Alzapua Basics
Flamenco Guitar 101 - 31 - Alzapua Exercise
Flamenco Guitar 101 - 32 - Alzapua on Trebles
Flamenco Guitar 101 - 33 - Alzapua 4 Notes Effect

Flamenco Guitar - Rasgueado

Rasgueado is an important flamenco guitar technique to master as it is through rasgueado that flamenco guitar really shines. Set aside a certain portion of your daily practice time for rasgueado drills. The following 7 video lessons will take you through different ways you can use your fingers to play rasgueado.

Flamenco Guitar 101 - 34 - Rasgueado - Index Strum with Golpe
Flamenco Guitar 101 - 35 - Rasgueado -Three-finger - ami - i
Flamenco Guitar 101 - 36 - Rasgueado -Four-finger - cami - i
Flamenco Guitar 101 - 37 - Rasgueado - ai - i - Buleria
Flamenco Guitar 101 - 38 - Rasgueado - i-ai - Tangos & Fandango
Flamenco Guitar 101 - 39 - Rasgueado - P - a - i Abanico - Buleria
Flamenco Guitar 101 - 40 - Rasgueado - Paip Burst

Learning Flamenco Palos - 102 VIDEO LESSON SERIES - FREE

The following videos teach you how to play solea, buleria, tangos, solea por buleria, fandango, and alegria via the main flamenco guitar techniques

Every flamenco guitar piece has a generic identifier attached to it such as solea, buleria, seguiriya etc. These are palos. Flamenco music is categorized under several of these forms that have their unique rhythmical and harmonic laws. Different palos have originated from different regions in Andalucia.

You can purchase the tef and pdf files of the 102 videos if you wish to print them or use the interactive features of the tefview application.
Click on the image below to access the purchase page:

How to play SOLEA

Solea has all the characteristic ingredients that make a guitar piece flamenco.

Primarily it is based on the 12-beat compas, which is the most commonly used meter in flamenco.

Within one bar (measure) there are 12 beats (quarter notes) and each musical sentence starts and ends within these 12 beats. The "cierre" starts on the 10th beat and marks the end of the sentence and takes up 2 beats.

Then there are the accents that mold the flow of music into something that relates to a larger context of musical performance i.e. singing, dancing.

The accents are on the beats 3, 6, 8, 10, and 12

You don't have to do much about these accents as a player really. Watch the videos paying attention to the compas counter. You will see that the accents are embedded in the music either as golpes or sounds/chords that stick out. And sometimes they are simply ignored as the music unfolds.

Flamenco Guitar 102 - 01 Solea Arpeggio
Flamenco Guitar 102 - 02 Solea Picado
Flamenco Guitar 102 - 03 Solea Alzapua
Flamenco Guitar 102 - 04 Solea Tremolo
Flamenco Guitar 102 - 05 Solea Rasgueado

How to play BULERIA

Buleria is the flashiest of all palos. Again it uses the 12-beat structure like solea but interestingly the compas takes 12 as the starting point. The accents fall on 12, 3, 7, 8, 10. Alternately, it can be 12, 3, 6, 8, 10. But I prefer the one that uses the 7, 8 accents because when I do the tap tap golpe on those two beats, I am reassured that I have not strayed away from the compas. Or if I have gotten lost then I wait for those two adjacent taps to get back on the compas flow.

Solea can tolerate some rhythmical flexibility but buleria can absolutely not. You need to stay in perfect compas for your performance to be perceived and appreciated as buleria.

The strumming has particular significance for buleria as it sets the tempo and the mood of the falsetas that follow it.

Flamenco Guitar 102 - 06 Buleria Arpeggio
Flamenco Guitar 102 - 07 Buleria Picado
Flamenco Guitar 102 - 08 Buleria Pulgar
Flamenco Guitar 102 - 09 Buleria Alzapua
Flamenco Guitar 102 - 10 Buleria Rasgueado

How to play TANGOS

Tangos is quite a simple palo that is easy to learn and play. The first general characteristic of tangos is it's galloping rhythm, similar to fandango. Therefore it uses the iai type of finger rasgueado for it's main compas strumming. Though I highly doubt tangos is related to the Argetine tango, the two forms share the same 4-beat structure. Tangos also goes through 1-2-3-4 but much faster.

The base compas pattern of tangos is 1-2-3-4 and it is cycled twice: 1-2-3-4-1-2-3-4

As for the accents, I have seen various combinations. Some say the accent is on 1. Some say on 4. And then there is the 1234-1234.

Flamenco Guitar 102 - 11 Tangos Arpeggio
Flamenco Guitar 102 - 12 Tangos Picado
Flamenco Guitar 102 - 13 Tangos Pulgar
Flamenco Guitar 102 - 14 Tangos Alzapua
Flamenco Guitar 102 - 15 Tangos Rasgueado

How to play SOLEA POR BULERIA

Also referred to as Buleria por Solea, Solea por Buleria is essentially a fast solea played in the buleria tonality.

It is one of the more popular palos in the modern flamenco scene. And for good reason. SpB brings together the best aspects of solea and buleria. It takes the 12-beat solea compas alongside the characteristic llamadas, remates, cierres and presents it in the key of A - aka por medio tonality. Again, it is basically a solea, however the accents fall on 3, 7, 8, 10, 12 exactly like buleria. As for the tempo I'd say from 120 bpm to 190 bpm would be a good range for this palo. Anything slower will fall into the domain of solea and if you exceed 190 then you will practically start playing buleria.

Flamenco Guitar 102 - 16 Solea por Buleria Arpeggio
Flamenco Guitar 102 - 17 Solea por Buleria Pulgar
Flamenco Guitar 102 - 18 Solea por Buleria Alzapua
Flamenco Guitar 102 - 19 Solea por Buleria Tremolo
Flamenco Guitar 102 - 20 Solea por Buleria Rasgueado

How to play FANDANGO

Fandango is based on a "galloping" rhythm almost as if you are playing guitar on horseback. That is why the i-a-i strumming pattern is used extensively. I personally find fandango quite complex and it took me quite a while to figure out how to incorporate melodies into it's compas grid.

Especially after playing solea and buleria for a while, fandango feels very foreign at first mainly due to it's gallopy nature.

You need to practise the strumming sequences really well before proceeding with the falsetas. The compas I use is based on a 6-beat structure with the accents on 4 and 5. It have also seen a 12-beat fandango compas structure with an accent on every 3rd beat: 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-10-11-12. Either works the same way.

Flamenco Guitar 102 - 21 Fandango Free Stroke
Flamenco Guitar 102 - 22 Fandango Arpeggio
Flamenco Guitar 102 - 23 Fandango Alzapua
Flamenco Guitar 102 - 24 Fandango Picado
Flamenco Guitar 102 - 25 Fandango Rasgueado

How to play ALEGRIA

Alegria is similar to buleria in terms of compas but it’s played a bit more slowly and it has a rather joyful (hence the term alegria) tonality. Alegria can be played in either por arriba or por medio.

Flamenco Guitar 102 - 26 Alegria Tremolo
Flamenco Guitar 102 - 27 Alegria Pulgar
Flamenco Guitar 102 - 28 Alegria Arpeggio
Flamenco Guitar 102 - 29 Alegria Picado
Flamenco Guitar 102 - 30 Alegria Rasgueado

Flamenco Guitar Warm-up Sequences - Free

Flamenco Guitar Techniques Combined - Free

FLAMENCO GUITAR 101