Step-by-Step Guide: How to Play Cavatina (Stanley Myers) arr. John Williams, on the guitar

Full Transcript of the Video:

[00:00:00] This is measure 1 to 2, an overview of left-hand technique. First thing you want to do, is pre-plant the first chord. In other words, place all four fingers down before you play one note. That way, you're certain that the first measure will go well for the left hand. Now, you can do it without the bar like this, or you can use an optional 5-string bar, which we'll talk about in a moment. Either way, pre-plant everything. Now the problem here, measure one to two, is getting a smooth change. The tendency will be to clip the last note of measure one like this. That's no good. We don't want to clip that note short like that. I'm going to connect it as best as we can. Now one option is simply to be careful, and not to clip the note, not [00:01:00] to lift early. Like that, but it's a tough change and there's a high likelihood that you're going to miss that change.

[00:01:12] So, one thing you can do, you can use an optional bar. You can bar 5 strings at the 4th fret. And what that does, it gives you the first finger as your guide finger to just slide up two frets for the bass note, for the D sharp. Then, all you have to do is land the second finger on the first string. So it gives you a lot of stability, and will help prevent you from clipping that G sharp.

[00:01:44] Now notice that when we do the change, we only land the first finger and the second finger, and then we add the third finger and the fourth fingers later, as we come to those notes. We do not try to grab the entire chord. No way. Just the first finger and the [00:02:00] second finger.

[00:02:01] Now the problem with the bar, is that it can be noisy. You can get, you know, string noises even squeaks sometimes. So if that's the case, you may not want to use the bar. But if you can do it like I'm doing, and not get the string noise and get very little squeak, it might be a good way to go, to give yourself stability to make that chord change.

[00:02:25] If you do squeak, and the bar is not an option, then go without the bar. But here's another option for you. Take the second finger as you play the last note of measure 1, and pre-plant it on the first string. And that becomes your guide finger to go to measure two. Gives you a lot of stability. So all you have to worry about is slapping the bar down across there.

[00:02:52] So it looks like this: plant it and slide. Very good way to go. The [00:03:00] only, the disadvantage of that is that you do lift the E early, in other words, to move it over to pre-plant. So the E gets chopped off, but I have to say, most people are hearing, they are listening to the melody and the last two notes of the measure. They're not going to hear that E being cut short to get to the next chord.

[00:03:31] And, another option is to use both. Do the bar, and do the pre-plant. So it looks like this. You're doing the bar. You lift the second finger early to pre-plant it. Then, you have both fingers down and all you have to do is slide up. And you can't miss the change. And you won't be tempted to clip that last note of measure one short either, because it makes the change so [00:04:00] secure. Bar, pre-plant, and make the shift. That's almost foolproof. That's a good way to go.
[00:04:10] But again, if you don't like, if the bar is too noisy for you, if you don't like lifting that second finger early to pre-plant it, then you're left with just trying to do the change with none of that and just going for it and hoping you land it. So you'll just have to try all those things out.

[00:04:33] On the second, measure too, the obvious choice is a five string bar. But some players may have trouble getting the five-string bar to come out clearly. So if that's the case, you might try a 6-string bar. It might work better. The sound will be the same. It's just whatever comes out the best.

[00:04:52] And then, another option is to use a partial bar, barring only the 3rd, 4th, [00:05:00] and 5th strings. Like that. Some people may be more successful using that. Again, you just have to try out the different options.

[00:05:10] The final consideration on the first two measures and actually for most of the piece, is that you want a continuous vibrato to make the sound shimmer, to make the melody full, and to just add that glorious tone quality to the entire piece. You really want that. So get used to using continuous vibrato throughout.