Classical or Acoustic Guitar?

Question:Hi folks, I can't make up my mind whether to learn classical or acoustic. I'm interested in learning some Flamenco and skills to play-and-sing. Will I be overloaded if I learn both classical or acoustic or is it even necessary? Any advice appreciated, thanks!

Best Answer - Chosen by Asker: Hi folks, I can't make up my mind whether to learn classical or acoustic. I'm interested in learning some Flamenco and skills to play-and-sing. Will I be overloaded if I learn both classical or acoustic or is it even necessary? Any advice appreciated, thanks!

Flamenco runs parallel with classical guitar, they both contain many technicial and musical aspects that are nearly identical such as finger plucking techniques, back of the hand strumming etc. These methods usually are not every encountered in the folk/blues/jazz/rock type of playing.

Classical players can learn Flamenco very quickly, whereas a regular 'folk' type accoustic player will really struggle with the techncality of the right hand (string) finger plucking technicniques for a considerable time.

Any classically trained player can pick up regular folk/accoustic type songs once they get used to the slightly different progressions used and loosen up a bit in terms of ear playing.

The ball's in your court now ......

- Edit -

You can pick up the differences from classical training without much effort other than slight retraining of the fingers or more accuately adding supplimental techniques. The same can't be said from accoustic to classical.

One thing though, classical training is very tedious for the first few years, however the potental boredom is offset by a far greater level of technical ability overall once the basic learnin period is over.

that's great you express an insterest in Flamenco, but what it comes down to is whatever you enjoy listening and playing the most, in my experience learning classical guitar was much harder and almost took the fun out of it.

Acoustic because if you want to change to electric later its easiar to make the change

I would suggest that you learn classical. You'll end up with the skills to play a lot of different styles. It really isn't necessary to learn both! My husband took classical guitar lessons, and he now plays a little of everything.
Best of luck!
Ivy

Doesn't matter if you play acoustic or classical. They are both 6-stringed and both can be played with or without a pick.

Classical has less range in the upper registers. The sound is smoother and less metallic than an Acoustic.

I go with Acoustic