I appreciate the perspectives on the different kinds of guitar playing. I remember when I was in a jazz trio in high school, my friend told me that he thought scales on guitar were easier than what he saw me doing on the tenor, since the shapes (his word) of the scales were pretty similar on the fret board, is that true? I do anticipate a whole lot of exercise if I'm to make any sort of progress with this thing. The strings for classical are nylon, but 4th-6th are wound. At the moment I'm gearing up to restring the damn thing. My buddy told me I should clean it all up first before I restring it, which makes sense to me. I do have a regular acoustic guitar and I figured I'd clean that one up too and restring that one so I can compare experiences. All I can say, is doing what I'm doing now seems a lot easier than getting my sax back into playable condition (there are so many tiny screws and springs!) not to mention the physical part of rebuilding my lung capacity (my fault) and embrouchure. Any scale/chord/arpeggio or right hand type exercises you'd recommend?
The scales are easier, yeah. Once you've learned a scale starting on one position from one particular string, then you can just work your way up the fret board and that position never changes. Kind of hard to describe, more of a doing thing. But the tricky thing about guitar that I think makes it a hell of a lot harder (and/or more fun): there are a ton of ways to phrase every scale. For instance, with major diatonic, you can play three of the notes on the first string, three in the same position on the second, three on the third, three in that position on the fourth, three on the fifth, three on that position on the sixth. You could just as easily play two on the first, three in a different position on the second, three in different on third... so on and so forth. Bottom line: every scale can be phrased umpteen ways, whereas, say, on the piano, C major can only be played one way ever, so you don't end up being paralyzed by choice. Eventually, this is a huge strength- as you play, you can choose whichever scale shape fits the phrasing of the song and where your fingers lie. But starting out... ugh. My best friend/best guitarist I know says that the best rule of thumb to go by is: pick the shape that requires the least amount of hand movement in terms of going up and down the fret board. This'll help insure that transitions from note to note and string to string are fluid. My favorite exercise was always:
(starting on the root)
1-3-2-4-3-5-4-6-5-7-6-1-7-2-1 and then back down. Once you nip that in the bud, it's fun to start mid-scale instead of the root.