Fado Guitar to Guitarra

Learning the Portuguese Guitar (Jordan Shipley)


Of all the exciting things that have been happening lately with Fado Novato, one stand out for me these days is beginning to learn more about the feel and technique of playing the Portuguese guitar, or Guitarra. With its unique, and at first baffling tuning, and "backwards" right hand technique (in relation to classical guitar fingerstyle technique) it was quite a challenge at first. For you guitarists out there; get ready to get used to fluttering your i finger up and down while being out in front of your thumb (feels so strange at first).

I have spent a great deal of time learning the cavaquinho and bandolim (mandolin), both traditional Brazilian instruments for chorinho and samba, with my project Mistura Fina here in Kansas City. Both were challenging at first because of the scale of the instruments and the tuning of the mandolin, but I was able to wrap my head around them fairly quickly since I had been playing many styles of Brazilian music for several years and I knew the role of the cavaquinho and bandolim well before learning to actually play the instruments. My experience with improvisational music from my jazz guitar training, and thorough knowledge of the guitar fretboard also helped with learning the geography of other similar plucked string instruments with different tunings. It has been a somewhat similar experience for me with the Portuguese guitar since I have been primarily playing the Spanish guitar in Fado Novato and learning how to interact with the Portuguese guitar parts that Beau is playing before learning those parts myself. However, there were far more materials (books and online resources) and easily accessible recordings available to guide my study of Brazilian music. Not to mention I had been playing Brazilian music for half a decade before I branched out to cavaquinho and bandolim. And neither the cavaquinho nor bandolim have any strings tuned in seconds like the Portuguese Guitar (Lisbon tuning low to high strings DABEAB).

In the Beginning

It may not have been the most productive way to go about it but I began with Carlos Paredes' composition "Verdes Anos," and one of my favorite new fados from Ana Moura, "Os Buzios." Those two songs inspired me to pick up the instrument in the first place so I was determined to make them work. Both really helped to break me in on the instrument, but I am now going back and learning parts for more tradition fado forms like fado menor, fado Mouraria, and others.


Off to Lisboa

I am indescribably excited for the opportunity to travel to the motherland of Fado and further my study on the Portuguese guitar and Spanish guitar parts. My travel to Brazil made a lasting impact on me and I expect this experience to be just as eye opening and humbling as my travel to São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro! I was lucky to have the chance to visit Lisbon for a week this past January but I barely got a taste of the city. I can not wait to have more time to get to know Lisbon, Coimbra, O Porto and other important cities where this beautiful urban folk music is thriving, and bring some of that energy and inspiration back here to Kansas City.

 - Jordan