“Romanza” is a simple, arpeggiated, piece of guitar sheet music in the classical style that gives you an opportunity to accentuate the melody notes with rest strokes (all of which you play on the 1st string with the a finger). To play “Romanza,” you need to know how to play free strokes and rest strokes; how to barre chords; and how to roll your Rs while saying “Romanza” (to sound truly continental).
For practice, you can play the piece by using all free stokes, adding the rest strokes later. Use the thumb to play all the bass notes (downstems in the standard notation). Use the right-hand fingering that we give you in the first measure throughout the piece. In measures 9–10, make sure that you keep your first finger barred at the seventh fret, with your second finger pressing down at the eighth fret (3rd string) the whole time. Stretch your little finger up to the eleventh fret for the first beat of measure 10. Note that this is reflected in the left-hand fingering indications.
Standard classical guitar notation uses some special symbols for indicating barre chords. The symbol C with a Roman numeral after it indicates a barre across all six strings. (The Roman numeral tells you which fret to barre.) A C with a line (|) through it indicates a partial barre (fewer than six strings). And a dotted horizontal line to the right of the C tells you how long to hold down the barre.
