This article previously appeared in the June, 2002 issue of Guitar Sessions©, the monthly webzine of Mel Bay Publications, and is a condensed version of a very detailed three-part series published by the Guitar Foundation of America in the Spring, Summer and Fall, 2002 issues of its quarterly journal, Soundboard. Used with persmission of the author and Mel Bay Publications.

ADDING THE RIGHT HAND LITTLE FINGER TO GUITAR TECHNIQUE

By Charles Postlewate

This 16-year research project presents the first publications and recording of music for guitar that make extensive use of the entire playing spectrum of the right hand. Adding the little finger to the right hand technique of classical guitar is a concept that various guitarists have contemplated and attempted since 1825, but lacked the time and/or resources necessary for such a task. Over the years I would occasionally encounter a guitarist who also had an interest in utilizing the little finger and his remark was always something like, “If I had a few years to stop my playing career and devote time to training the little finger and retraining the right hand, I could do it. But, I have to make a living.” I was lucky enough to have an employer, The University of Texas at Arlington, to support my work in the form of a research grant, two summer stipends, a one-year developmental leave and 25% release time from my teaching load in the Department of Music. UTA also provided travel funds to Argentina, Brazil, Peru, Spain and Uruguay, as well as within the United States, for work related to this project. I was also naive enough to think that I could complete this project “in a few years.”

My two goals to extend right hand technique—a set of right hand studies to train all five fingers and music to demonstrate the advantages of this technique in actual repertoire—were released by Mel Bay Publications in October, 2001, at the Guitar Foundation of America’s Convention in La Jolla, California. RIGHT HAND STUDIES FOR FIVE FINGERS (MB98710) is a collection of 353 exercises using chords, arpeggios, tremolos and harmonics. HOMAGE TO VILLA-LOBOS, and Other Compositions (MB98711), and its accompanying CD, HOMAGE TO VILLA-LOBOS (MB98711CD) demonstrate the practical use of a five-finger technique in 12 compositions—standard repertoire pieces, new transcriptions and arrangements, and original compositions—fully fingered for both hands. The book presents the complete scores to all but two of the pieces on the recording and gives excerpts of the two under copyright to show the use and advantage of the little finger to the guitar world. The texts to the two books and the CD booklet are in both English and Spanish

Charles Postlewate	Five Finger Hand Position

BACKGROUND
I have had an interest in this subject since I first began studying classical guitar in 1967 as a music major at Wayne State University in Detroit, Michigan. Although I had played electric guitar with a plectrum since I was 12 years old and aspired to be a professional musician, my first college education was at General Motors Institute (now Kettering University) in Flint, Michigan, where I received a Bachelor of Mechanical Engineering Degree in 1964. As a music major at WSU, I was taught the “proper” classical guitar technique of using the thumb and first three fingers. My engineering background convinced me that I was losing efficiency by not using that extra finger, but I was told that using the little finger would put the right hand in an awkward playing position. In the 1960s proper right hand technique consisted of bending the hand to the right with the knuckles parallel to the strings to emulate the hand position of such masters as Andres Segovia (1893–1987). This bent-wrist position pulls the little finger away from the strings and makes its use quite awkward. Today, guitarists have begun using a straight-wrist position, which is mechanically superior and better accommodates the little finger.

HISTORY OF RIGHT HAND TECHNIQUE
The origins of classical guitar right hand technique lie in the history of the Renaissance period lute, whose players used a thumb and index finger technique to imitate the plectrum style of the Middle Eastern oud. The Middle Ages crusaders brought the oud back to Europe and adapted it to European music as the lute. The oud is played with a plectrum, and Renaissance lute playing used the thumb to imitate the down stroke of the plectrum and the index finger to imitate the up stroke. By the end of the sixteenth century, lutenists were using the middle finger to play the more complex polyphonic music of the period and Thomas Mace (1619–1709), in his book Musick's Monument (London, 1676), describes the application of the index and middle fingers in specific situations. The baroque guitarists borrowed many of their techniques from the lutenists and the guitar eventually replaced the lute in popularity by the end of the eighteenth century.

Federico Moretti published the first known collection of right hand studies for the guitar in 1792 in Naples, Italy, and reprinted the book in Madrid in 1807, under the title Principios para Tocar la Guitarra de Seis Ordenes (Principles for Playing the Six String Guitar). The last section of this book contains 202 arpeggio patterns over a C major chord in first position, using only the thumb, index and middle fingers of the right hand. Without the ring finger, Moretti's arpeggios require much finger repetition and many awkward string crossings, by today's standards.

The first half of the nineteenth century saw the addition of the ring finger to right hand technique with a difference of opinion between the two leading guitarists of that time, Mauro Giuliani (1781–1829) of Italy and Fernando Sor (1788–1839) of Spain. Sor's instruction book, Methode pour la Guitare (Method for the Guitar—first published in Paris, 1830), uses a diagram to show that the ring finger is geometrically unsuited for proper hand position and explains that he only employs it for the playing of four-note chords where there is an intermediate string between the two lower notes. In 1812, Giuliani published his Metodo per Chitarra, Op. l (Method for Guitar). The first part is a set of 120 right hand studies for the thumb, index, middle and ring fingers over a C major to G7 chord progression in first position, bearing a strong resemblance to Moretti's arpeggio studies. These studies, published separately, are still an important part of right hand pedagogy.

The first known endorsement for the use of the right hand little finger came from the Spanish virtuoso Dionisio Aguado (1781–1849) in his 1825 method book Escuela de Guitarra (School of Guitar). Study #12 from this book is a five-string arpeggio pattern with instructions that it can be played with the five fingers of the right hand. It is a mystery and a pity that Aguado did not further explore the little finger.

Argentinian guitarist Domingo Prat (1886–1944) made the first major attempt to add the little finger to right hand technique. His book, La Nueva Técnica de la Guitarra.....para la práctica de los cinco dedos de la mano derecha (The New Technique of the Guitar..…for the practice of the five fingers of the right hand), was published in Buenos Aires in 1922. Prat put forth the radical idea of severely bending the right hand wrist to the right while playing arpeggios in an inverted order—for example, to play a five-note chord or arpeggio on the first five strings, he would use the order of thumb, little, ring, middle and index for the fifth to first strings, consecutively. All of the exercises in Prat's book include normal right hand fingering as well as this inverted order. The book is incomplete and disorganized, but the inverted order of fingering probably discredited the good that could have come from this book.

American virtuoso William Foden (1860–1947) and Brazilian jazz/classical guitarist Laurindo Almeida (1917–1995) made limited use of the little finger to play five-note chords. Their New York-published method books, Foden’s Grand Method for the Guitar (1920) and Almeida’s Guitar Tutor (1957), as well as some of their solo compositions, show this use.

Brazilian composer Heitor Villa-Lobos (1887–1959) is one of the greatest contributors to twentieth-century guitar literature. He considered the cello to be his main instrument but also taught himself to play the guitar and the piano. After the death of his father, the 12-year old Heitor helped support his family by playing guitar in street groups and cafés in Rio de Janeiro. Being self taught, Villa-Lobos seems to have naturally begun playing the guitar with all five fingers of the right hand, even though he claims that he later studied the techniques of Aguado and Sor. Many of his early compositions were guitar solos, which, along with his later and better-known guitar pieces, abound with arpeggios and five-note chords that are easier to play with the use of a five-finger technique. Villa-Lobos never notated the little finger in any of his published manuscripts (which have almost no fingerings of any kind) and makes reference to it only one time in his memoirs, published by the Villa-Lobos Museum in Rio de Janeiro. In their first meeting, Villa-Lobos claims that Andrés Segovia told him that his compositions were not guitaristic because they used the right hand little finger, which is not used in classical guitar. Villa-Lobos retorted, “Ah. It's not used? Then, cut it off!” After a rough start, their friendship led to the Twelve Etudes (1929) and the Concerto for Guitar and Orchestra (1951). Segovia never convinced Villa-Lobos to stop writing for the little finger and Villa-Lobos never convinced Segovia to use the little finger; and, guitarists have always found a way to get around Villa-Lobos' obvious use of the little finger.

Over the years, many guitarists have realized the advantage of using the little finger but have refrained from its use, believing that doing so would place the right hand in an improper playing position—the same reason used by guitarists in the early nineteenth century for resisting the use of the ring finger. The facility gained by the use of the little finger far outweighs the disadvantages of a modified hand position. A similar debate over keyboard technique took place during the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. At that time, keyboard players debated the use of the thumbs (not normally used at that time) and their tendency to place the hands in a position that constrained the movement of the other fingers. The complex music of Johann Sebastian Bach (1685–1750) and François Couperin (1668–1733) forced keyboard players to the systematic use of the thumbs.

RIGHT HAND POSITION
Guitarists in recent years have begun using a right hand position that is straight from the arm to the knuckles, as opposed to a wrist slightly bent to the right. This straight-wrist position makes the use of the little finger more accessible and minimizes the shortness of the little finger, in relation to the others. One argument that guitarists have raised over the years has been the shortness of the right hand little finger, although it has not kept them from using the equally short little finger of the left hand! Because of the varying relative length of the fingers and shape of the fingernails of individual guitarists, I stop short of recommending a very specific right hand position and only recommend one that is comfortable, accommodates the use of all of the fingers and produces a satisfactory tone. Using a straight-wrist hand position will place the knuckles at about a 45 degree angle to the strings. The best approach I have found is to simply make a fist with the right hand and then relax the fingers onto the strings with the thumb on the fifth sting and the index to little fingers on the fourth, third, second and first strings, consecutively. The nails of all fingers usually have to be shaped at an angle for this straight-wrist position. In the near future, guitarists will find it difficult to imagine not using the right hand little finger in the same manner that guitarists today would find it difficult to imagine a technique that excludes the ring finger (or a keyboard technique that excludes the thumbs).

SCOPE OF RIGHT HAND STUDIES FOR FIVE FINGERS
The 353 studies contained in this book are designed for the beginning guitarist as well as for the intermediate or advanced player who wishes to add the little finger to an already developed four-finger technique. The guitarist who uses this book will find that, in addition to gaining the use of the little finger, the other fingers of the right hand will gain increased strength, independence and dexterity. The studies begin simply, with the thumb combined with the other fingers, one at a time and progress in complexity to the thumb and four other fingers together. For the left hand, each group of studies is played up and down the fingerboard over a parallel progression of intervals or chords, given at the beginning of that group, to make the left hand simple, yet keep the harmonies interesting. The studies are presented in five sections:

1. CHORD AND ARPEGGIO STUDIES are divided into four groups (Thumb and One Finger, Thumb and Two Fingers, Thumb and Three Fingers, Thumb and Four Fingers) to add the little finger to the technique in increasing density and allow the right hand to adjust to a position that will accommodate all five fingers in any combination.

2. The TREMOLO STUDIES progress the right hand from standard three and four-note tremolo patterns to a tremolo pattern that uses all five fingers—with a melody note played by the little finger simultaneously with the thumb bass note to produce an uninterrupted tremolo melody.

3. RIGHT HAND HARMONICS STUDIES use the little finger to pluck the harmonic note, previously plucked, in the four-finger technique, with the ring finger. The little finger is much stronger than the ring finger, with more musculature than the other fingers. Its extra separation from the index finger (which touches the string at the harmonic node) gives it more mechanical leverage to produce, in combination with the extra strength, a much stronger harmonic sound than the ring finger. These studies progress the player from two-note texture (thumb and harmonic note) to four-note chords that include a harmonic note.

4. DEVELOPING THE MELODY FINGERS. The extra strength of the little finger gives it an important advantage in playing melodies, either as the top note of a chord or arpeggio, or in simple combination with a bass note played by the thumb. It is ironic that guitarists employ the ring finger, the weakest digit of the hand, as the main melody finger of the four-finger technique. Keyboard players make good use of the little finger's strength by employing it as the main melody finger of the right hand and to play the lowest bass notes in the left hand—the two musical parts that usually require the most strength and volume. This section contains exercises to develop the strength and balance of the little, ring and middle fingers to play melodies with simple bass note accompaniment as well as with two, three and four-note chord and arpeggio accompaniments.

5. PREPARATION STUDIES FOR SPECIFIC REPERTOIRE PIECES takes five pieces from the standard guitar repertoire and demonstrates how the guitarist can develop special exercises, similar to those presented earlier, to overcome right hand technical problems not covered specifically in the other sections of this book.

SCALE STUDIES: The study of scales in any technique is very important, but is a whole book in itself and beyond the scope of this book because of the complexity and variety of left hand fingering systems. Maintaining the same procedure now used with the four-finger technique, I recommend the practice of scales—both rest and free stroke—alternating with all six of the two-finger combinations (im, ia, ic, ma, mc, ac) to develop independence, strength and dexterity in all of the fingers. The little finger alternates quite easily with the index and middle fingers, but is very awkward when alternating with the ring finger, with which it has very little natural independence. Some very fine concert players have recently shown that three-finger alternation of ring to middle to index (ami) in scale playing is a very fast combination. I used that combination for many years, with more speed than I could ever get with the standard index and middle finger alternation. I now alternate little to middle to index (cmi) and it has proved to be even faster, due to the little finger’s strength and its extra independence from the middle finger.

REPERTOIRE – HOMAGE TO VILLA-LOBOS BOOK & CD
In the years before I began the concentrated effort on this project, I observed and experimented with a handful of existing pieces, by various composers, that I felt would be easier to perform with the use of a five-finger technique. There were many in this category and the five by Agustin Barrios (1885–1944), Fernando Sor, Federico Moreno Torroba (1891–1984) and Heitor Villa-Lobos that I include in this publication are the best examples. The Study in A Major by Sor (Segovia edition #10) employs a pattern of five repeated notes that makes an excellent study for the five fingers of the right hand, and it makes an excellent preparation study for the variety of ways in which this pattern is used in the third movement of the Sonatina by Moreno Torroba. Sor’s Study in E Minor (Segovia edition #17) is a good piece for training the little finger in the role of a melody finger, especially since the majority of the measures contain arpeggio patterns that cover five strings, again perfectly fitting the five fingers of the right hand.

Villa-Lobos’ use of the right hand little finger in his playing technique shows up throughout his compositions, with five-note chords and arpeggio patterns that are easier played by a five-finger technique. His Prelude #2, with the arpeggio pattern in the middle section that perfectly fits five fingers of the right hand, is the best example and is the only one that I include in my recording.

The beautiful Una limosna por el amor de Dios (An Alm for the Love of God) by Barrios was chosen for this collection to present the playing of a “completed” tremolo on the guitar—an uninterrupted tremolo that includes melody notes plucked by the little finger at the same time as the bass notes. I feel that composers such as Barrios and Francisco Tarrega (1856–1909) probably would have written the tremolo this way if a five-finger technique had been used during their times.

Previously, I had also come across a few piano pieces by Claude Debussy that I wanted to transcribe, but found them very difficult to transfer to, and perform on, the guitar without the use of a well-trained five-finger technique for the right hand. La puerta del vino (The Wine Gate) is an impressionistic habanera that refers to one of the inner gates in the Alhambra castle in Granada, Spain, and comes from Preludes, Book 2 by Debussy. It contains passages that imitate the sounds of flamenco guitarists, passages made playable with the addition of the little finger. Debussy's interesting harmonic progressions make Dr. Gradus ad Parnassum (the first movement of his Children’s Corner suite) a beautiful arpeggio study for the five fingers.

While working on this project in Peru, in 1986, I encountered the beautiful music of that country and arranged two Peruvian popular songs to perform as encores on a concert tour sponsored by the American and Brazilian embassies. I naturally put in some sections that made good use of the little finger. José Maria, by Alicia Maguiña (b.1939), is a creole waltz and representative of the music found along the coastal regions, while Vírgenes del Sol (Virgins of the Sun), by Jorge Bravo de Rueda (1896–1940), represents the indigenous music of the Andes Mountains.

I also wanted some original compositions for this recording. Stephen Dodgson, the prominent English composer, told me that it really takes a guitarist to compose specific right hand studies for the guitar. Upon his advice, I decided to draw upon my background (I was an undergraduate theory/composition major in college before switching to guitar performance my final year) to produce compositions that would involve the use of the little finger in scales, chords, arpeggios, tremolos and harmonics. My goal was to produce music that did not sound didactic but used a heavy dose of a certain technique (or techniques) in various sections. As a student, performer or teacher, I have always believed it best to do technical exercises with a specific goal in mind to help learn or better perform a piece of music. The reverse is also true—it is good to choose interesting repertoire pieces containing technical exercises that improve and maintain a proper technique.

Homage to Villa-Lobos, in three movements, pays tribute to the composer who has been the biggest inspiration to this project, for his foresight in composing music for a five-finger technique long before anyone else. Each movement of this homage is inspired by different guitar compositions of Villa-Lobos, presenting various uses of the five fingers in chords and arpeggio patterns. My visit to the Villa-Lobos Museum in Rio de Janeiro in 1985 was an important beginning to this project.

Variations on a Theme of Prokofiev was inspired by the Piano Concerto #2 in G Minor of the Russian composer, Sergei Prokofiev (1891–1953). I arranged one of the themes for the guitar while on vacation and began improvising variations as chord, tremolo, arpeggio and harmonics studies. The more I improvised, the more ideas came to me until I had almost twenty variations.

My first interest in guitar was in the field of jazz and I often find myself improvising on the guitar to relax during practice sessions. These "relaxation breaks" led to all of the original compositions presented here and are best represented in Improvisation on Green Dolphin Street, a set of jazz variations based on the title song from the 1948 movie, On Green Dolphin Street. The many five-string arpeggios and five-note chords, as well as the fast single-string scale runs of the introduction and “quasi improvisation” section, make excellent use of a five-finger technique.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Throughout this project, I have had the help and support of many individuals and institutions. At the head of the list, for the reasons listed earlier, stands The University of Texas at Arlington, to whom the entire guitar world owes a debt of gratitude for its support from the beginning to the end. The Villa-Lobos Museum in Rio de Janeiro gave me access to their files and provided me with valuable information on the life and music of Heitor Villa-Lobos. Arlington Memorial Hospital’s Department of Occupational Therapy provided expertise and guidance in the training and exercising of the right hand in a safe and efficient manner. Some of the many guitarists who assisted are Laurindo Almeida, Abel Carlevaro, Javier Calderón, Mike Christiansen, Peter Danner, Raúl García Zárate, Carlos Hayre, Ricardo Iznaola, David Leisner, Joseph Loduca, Michael Lorimer, Enric Madriguera, Joel Mauger, John Mihalik, Matanya Ophee, Philip Rosheger, Aaron Shearer and Mark Taylor. I thank them all for helping me to extend the technical and compositional possibilities of the guitar.