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AN INTRODUCTION TO
ABEL CARLEVARO’S SCHOOL OF GUITAR
By JAD AZKOUL
DURING THE SUMMER OF 1975, I had the opportunity to attend a two-week guitar festival in the
lovely city of Arles, where Vincent van Gogh had
once lived and painted, and where Leo Brouwer,
Abel Carlevaro and the Flamenco guitarist Manolo
Sanlúcar were giving masterclasses. Because I did
not feel that I had the necessary level to attend the
Brouwer course, I opted for the one by the
Uruguayan virtuoso guitarist and composer, of
whom I had barely heard, Abel Carlevaro. During
the academic year I was on a French government
scholarship in Paris, studying with Nadia
Boulanger and Pierre Petit, as well as with guitar
masters. Paris was a hub of guitar activity with
Robert Vidal organising the international guitar
competition for Radio France as well as many other
events. Normally, I would have gone to visit my parents in Lebanon, but a raging civil war prevented
me from making my annual summer visit there.
On the opening day of the festival, all of
Carlevaro’s students auditioned for him. After a few
of us performed, the Maestro’s only observation
was, ‘Each one of these players has the same problem.’ When the next group played, he made the
same comment. I was perplexed, and even more so
when after hearing everyone, about 20 of us, ranging from middling to excellent players, he again
said the same thing.
We came to understand that he was referring to
the almost exclusive reliance by all of us on the
strength, speed and agility of our fingers and only
the very occasional use of our wrists, forearms,
upper arms and torsos. I later learned that the limited use of the body not only reduces the guitarist’s
potential but also causes unnecessary fatigue and
sometimes injury.1
During the course of the two weeks, we were
given a panoramic view of the School of Guitar,
which Carlevaro had developed and which was new
to us in France at the time. This went from an
ergonomic sitting position through, for example,
effecting left hand shifts without undesirable
squeaks and unintentional glissandi, to producing
different colours with the right hand without
always having to go to the bridge.
One of Carlevaro’s cornerstone principles of his
guitar playing and teaching was ‘fijación’, a term
which he coined to refer to a momentary and voluntary blocking or immobility of one or more articulations. For example, correctly done, the immobilisation of the fingers or the hand can permit more
powerful elements, like the forearm, or even upper
arm, to produce the desired action on the strings.
During the masterclass Carlevaro substantiated
the concept of fijación by comparing it to the same
principle in piano technique as developed by Karl
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Abel Carlevaro, Robert Vidal and Paco de Lucía.
Leimer and made famous through his renowned
virtuoso student Walter Gieseking.2 It is thanks to
the subtlety of the action of the arm that through
fijación guitarists can, just like pianists, produce a
fortissimo with ease, as well as execute a pianissimo with a most delicate touch.3
Fijación is of course also relevant to the left hand,
as for certain displacements and some types of
trills. With regard to the momentary and voluntary
aspect of this procedure, Carlevaro insisted, ‘that
nullifying an articulation never implies a state of
rigidity. Furthermore, fijación must not only begin
just when necessary, but must stop immediately
when its need has terminated, with the articulation
in question resuming its flexibility and readiness
for any other mechanical demand.’4
Carlevaro illustrated these and numerous other
technical devices, all the while emphasising the
importance of using minimal physical effort to
achieve maximum musical results. This was the
beginning of a long musical voyage that would
eventually lead to my mastering of his technique, to
being his teaching assistant, and to becoming a
teacher and concert guitarist in my own right.
Of the many compelling pieces of advice that I
retained, there was one related to practising: rather
than practise for eight hours a day, one should play
for one hour and think for the rest of the time.
Another was the necessity of analysing the work
and meticulously respecting the indications in the
score in order to best determine the composer’s
intentions. And because Carlevaro subscribed to
Classical Guitar Magazine
the similitude between a guitar and an orchestra,
he advocated the use of different colours to
enhance the interpretation of a musical work.
After this enlightening experience with Carlevaro,
I returned to Paris where I had been studying for
two years with Alexandre Lagoya and his main
assistant at the Paris Conservatoire, Carel Harms.
I decided that I couldn’t continue with their teaching method that essentially consisted of a particular way of striking the string, known as ‘attaque à
droite’, meaning attack to the
right. This was a prescription to
make the nail glide slightly to
the right (towards the bridge) so
as to avoid a harsh sound,
which according to Lagoya was
produced by flamenco guitarists
when they strike the strings at a
perpendicular angle.
In order to achieve this, most
students tended to bend and fix
their wrists, with respect to the
forearm, rigidly to the right.
Apart from this, there was nothing particularly distinctive about his teaching except perhaps that
Lagoya would often repeat to the students the
importance of relaxing (‘décontractez-vous!’), but
without necessarily being able to teach them how.
It was clear that I needed to change teachers. At
that time, there was another renowned Uruguayan
guitarist in Paris, Óscar Cáceres, and I assumed
that his approach would be similar to Carlevaro’s.
During the year I studied with him, it became
increasingly apparent that my assumption had
been naïve. He may well have been a fine guitarist,
but the ever-increasing conflicts during my lessons
(probably caused by my incessant demand for
explanations) led me to terminate our relationship
at the end of the year. I was further convinced that
I had made the right decision after attending my
second summer masterclass in the city of Castres
in southern France with Abel Carlevaro and was
able to learn more of his School.
Upon my return to Paris I continued my search and changed
teachers once again, this time to
Alberto Ponce who was a prominent master in the ‘City of Light’.
Although I knew his method was
not what I was seeking, I
thought I could somehow continue my quest under his guidance.
Ponce’s
right-hand
approach was the exact opposite
to that of Lagoya. Now I learned
the ‘attaque à gauche’, whereby
one should allow the nail to glide slightly to the left,
towards the fingerboard.5 I found this new position
of the hand more natural than the ‘right attack’,
and I was able to continue with Ponce for another
year.
During the 1960s and 1970s, guitarists who
wanted to improve their sound used to flock to
Paris to study one of these two approaches because
it is a fact that gliding the fingernail slightly to one
side or another did produce a rounder tone. So to
which ‘political’ stroke of the finger did Carlevaro
subscribe? – in fact, to neither. After a full year with
Ponce, I attended my third masterclass with Abel
Carlevaro, and became more and more aware of
what, back in Arles in 1975, he meant when he
said, ‘everyone has the same problem.’
For Carlevaro the solutions lay elsewhere. To
understand the difference between the traditional
approaches to the right hand and the Carlevaro
School, whether this concerns the left vs right
attack, or whether it refers to the free-stroke/reststroke dichotomy, a paradigm shift is indispensible, an important subject that will be dealt with in
one of my future articles in this magazine. Another
distinction deals with the two possible strokes of
the thumb, nail vs flesh. While the majority of guitarists use the thumbnail most of the time, there
are some who frown upon its use. Carlevaro, however, taught how to produce a full-bodied sound
using either, and even both simultaneously!
For me, the turning point came in 1978 when I
enrolled in my fourth masterclass with Carlevaro,
this time in Madrid. There the Maestro proposed
that I attend his ten-day workshop in Montevideo
in October of that year and stay on there until
Christmas. I was truly overjoyed at the prospect of
this opportunity. So I finally packed my bags and
left Paris for Montevideo to re-learn how to play the
guitar. Given all the masterclasses I had taken with
the Maestro, I thought that the proposed stay there
“rather than
practise for eight
hours a day, one
should play for one
hour and think
for the rest of
the time.”
Abel Carlevaro and Jad Azkoul
in Castres in 1976.
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Classical Guitar Magazine
Bartolomé Díaz, Abel Carlevaro and Jad Azkoul.
for three months would suffice. As it turned out, I
stayed for three years.
During this extended period I was able to study
the foundation of the Carlevaro School in greater
depth, beginning with how to use his four exercises books (known as Cuadernos) more efficiently.
Unlike other maestros that I had before, he insisted that even the simplest Carcassi Etude was to
be treated as seriously as a Beethoven sonata in
order to merge the musical and mechanical skills
from the outset. This training helped me to listen
in a different way: more than being able to distinguish the actual pitches of notes and when they
should be struck, I learned to hear the true colour
and the actual duration of each note, the silence
between the notes, and any extraneous noises
that do not belong in the music.
He taught me the importance of the vital role of
the right hand not only in producing different
types of sounds through the use of fijación, but
also in stopping strings and avoiding harmonically conflicting resonances. I learnt how to have better poise when I sat to play, how to use my whole
body when necessary, how to change positions
with precision and ease, how to change colour,
and how to practise creatively and productively.
It was while I was studying with the Maestro
that I collaborated on the translation from
Spanish to English (and later to French) of his
book, The School of Guitar, a task that certainly
helped my understanding of the Carlevaro
School. This monumental work is comparable to
the 1830 publication of La Méthode by the great
guitarist and composer, Fernando Sor. Rather
than being a collection of exercises or studies as
are most method books, each of these two works
is a comprehensive treatise on how to play the
guitar.
Carlevaro was one of the most important figures
in the guitar world and since the 1970s his popularity increased immensely in Europe. In France
he was hailed by Robert Vidal6 as the guitarist
with the most perfect technique. He was invited to
Classical Guitar Magazine
give masterclasses in North and South America,
in Asia, and in many countries of Europe. Since
that time, the technical level of guitarists has
improved and continues to do so, directly or indirectly through the influence of Carlevaro. His
legacy is due not only to his all-encompassing
technique and his readiness to re-examine established approaches, but also to his compositions
(some of which have entered standard guitar
repertoire), to his virtuosity as a performer, and
even as an inventor of a new concept of guitar
construction.
While guitarists can quickly benefit from using
some of the principles and ideas of Carlevaro, the
in-depth assimilation of his School has some similarities to the learning of a martial art, requiring
dedication, self-discipline, confidence and fearless motivation. The whole purpose of Carlevaro’s
method is to permit the guitarist to achieve his or
her greatest technical capacity and musical
potential through an understanding of the music
to be played and the means to achieve this. It is
a holistic and healthy use of the body, or to paraphrase an Alexander Technique term, an
improved use of the – musical – self.
Notes:
1. In fact, there is little doubt in the medical profession
that the exclusive use of the fingers favours injury,
such as RSI, Carpal tunnel, tendonitis and bursitis.
2. Walter Gieseking and Karl Leimer, Piano Technique.
(Dover Publications: New York, 1972). The original
German edition was published in two separate volumes: one in 1932 and the second in 1938.
3. Interestingly, in the French and English translations
of his iconic work School of Guitar, Carlevaro requested I use of the Spanish ‘fijación’ rather than its French
or English equivalents ‘fixation’, perhaps to dissociate
it from the same term in Freudian psychology.
4. Abel Carlevaro, School of Guitar. Trans. by Jad
Azkoul and Bartolomé Díaz. (Boosey and Hawkes: New
York, 1984), p. 23. The original Spanish version was
published in 1978.
5. The political terms left vs. right were born after the
French revolution. It is therefore not so surprising that
these same terms used by guitarists were also born in
France.
6. Robert J. Vidal (1925–2002) was an exceptional figure in the classical guitar world for over 40 years, presenting programmes on French radio and television,
recording for RCA and ERATO, and establishing the
Radio France international guitar competition.
The Lebanese guitarist Jad Azkoul has been
teaching at the Conservatoire Populaire de
Musique, Danse et Théàtre (CPMDT) in Geneva
since 1984. From 2010 he has also been on the
music faculty at the London College of Music.
He regularly gives masterclasses throughout
the four corners of the world.
Jad Azkoul, is writing a series of articles for
Classical Guitar Magazine about Carlevaro’s
School of Guitar to follow on from this introductory article. The guitarist and composer Abel
Carlevaro was born in Montevideo, Uruguay in
1916. He died while on a concert tour in
Germany in 2001.
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