Funky Juan is a contemporary piece in Trinity College London’s Grade 3 syllabus for guitar.

This piece is great fun to play and bridges the gap between traditional classical guitar repertoire and contemporary acoustic guitar repertoire. Funky Juan makes use of a contemporary percussive style technique that may be new to many classical guitarists, but is one that is enjoyable getting to grips with.

One of the stand out features of Funky Juan is the percussive technique used throughout the first and last phrases. This will be new to many classical guitarists, so I want to start this lesson with this technique.

In Trinity College London’s publication of Funky Juan, you’ll see a note at the bottom of the page that says “* Percussive tap of all strings with a flat hand over the soundhole.” This is a clear directive of how to produce the percussive sound, however this will still need practice.

The percussive sound is produced when the strings, particularly the bass strings, hit the frets. If you’re struggling to get much of a percussive sound, try moving closer to the frets with your hand when you tap the strings. You could also try focusing on tapping the bass strings more than the treble strings, as these tend to produce a more satisfying sound when hit in this way. Finally, if all else fails, tap harder!

As well as mastering the percussive technique, there is a ‘Glissando’ mark in bar 8, just before the section repeats. Glissando is where the guitarist has to hold the pressure down on the string while gliding in the direction marked on the score (either up or down the neck). In this case, the glissando is coming down, so we have to slide our finger down the neck.

Glissando notes don’t have an exact finishing point, so as you glide down the neck, slowly lift the pressure as you go. This will hep the note sound like it’s gliding into the distance and gradually fading away. It will help you to avoid landing and pausing on a particular note, giving an unwanted effect to the music.

There are lots of specific performance directions throughout Funky Juan. Familiarise yourself with the following points before finalising your own interpretation of the piece.

Funky Juan is littered with accents. To create a stylistic performance of the piece, it’s important to include all of these. To achieve a good accent, you’ll need to be able to play strongly, without snapping the strings. For advice on how to play strongly with your right hand, check out this lesson on right hand technique.

You’ll also notice a lot of staccato marks throughout Funky Juan. Staccato is where you stop the note immediately after playing. This gives a very abrupt end to the sound, and can be fiddly to get right in the middle of a performance. Practice will be required to ensure notes are stopped fully and cleanly. If you’d like some help with staccato, check out this lesson on staccato technique.

There are a some very specific dynamic marks in Funky Juan. Before you get stuck in, scan through the score and pick these out. The dynamics are so important for this piece, they build a narrative and tell the story of the piece. I’d usually suggest being open to your own interpretation when it comes to dynamics, but the prescribed version on the score is so effective that I think it’s just worth sticking to these. Once you’ve mastered the notes and the rhythm, begin working the dynamics into your performance. Take particular note of bar 10, where we have ‘subito piano’. It’s easy to get caught out by that one!

If you like this piece, you’ll also enjoy listening to:

• Dancing Shadows (Peter Nuttall)
• Russian Bear (Gary Ryan)
• Stomp (Peter Nuttall)