Well, after years of playing Baroque and Renaissance guitar music, a couple of preludes here, a sarabande there, and maybe a couple of gigues there, but never having worked my way through a complete suite, I finally succeeded in learning one. Now, I admit it’s not a perfect performance by any means, and I still have a few embellishments to work out. And this isn’t Bach, it’s Ludovico Roncalli, who is usually quite a bit easier. Still, it’s great to have a whole suite in my repertoire. It makes me less timid about tackling longer works.
(doing Addams Family snaps:)
Neat! (snap snap) Suite! (snap snap) Complete!
For anyone interested, it’s the second of the Nine Suites, in Em. (Or is that G? Not always easy to tell.)
Approx. how long have you been playing the guitar? How much practice did it take before you considered yourself a “proficient” player.
What attracts you to Baroque and Renaissance music in particular?
Now that you’ve learned to play this suite, what’s next?
Would you be willing to link to an mp3 of yourself playing the suite? If not, is there a place on the web where I can hear it (I’ll take MIDI, if nothing else is available).
Takamine steel string–I know, I ought to get a classical guitar one of these days.
Off and on, over 25 years. I had played this particular style for a couple of years about 15 years ago, but never learned a complete suite. Then about a year ago I got back into it.
I suppose the textures and harmonies, and the fact that you can work it up to a complete, performance-worthy exposition without needing other musicians. I also play blues rock, and have always had a hard time finding people to jam with. Usually, the person that is trying to get the band together wants to do only their own songs, and they’re often just not that good. I don’t write music, so it’s nice to be able to read the music of others.
Gotta practice the hell out of it. I’ve learned the music, and can perform some parts of it, but other parts need more practice to make them really smooth.
I will work on that, but I"m sort of behind the times technologically speaking. I don’t have the equipment, but I suppose I could buy a disposable digital video camera and put something up on YouTube. When I do, I’ll bump this thread if necessary (or proceed otherwise in accord with the board rules. I know we’re not supposed to bump threads but this seems like it would be an exception.).
Ok I hope this won’t be considered hijacking the thread, but I guess since you play this type of music that you probably listen to it as well. Could you recommend some really good CDs? I adore classical guitar but haven’t bought any CDs because I just don’t know which ones to look for.
I’d recommend starting with any CD that has Bach’s lute suites arranged for guitar (or even played on the lute). There are four of them, and I have a vinyl 2-LP set played by John Williams (not the movie composer and Pops conductor, but a premier guitarist). Of course every guitar book recommends Andres Segovia, but he tended to specialize in a later period. Also check out John Dowland, an English lutenist of the Renaissance.
To think I was enumerating a list, and it addressed to Opal…one place where the old joke would still have been funny. Oh well.
I just had to mention another album I have called Four Centuries of Italian Guitar. It’s really what got me going with this music, and contains the Gigue from the suite above. I’m assuming that this, and the John Williams one I mentioned are now available on CD.
Second star beyond “cool” and straight on until morning. We had a classical guitarist come and play a dozen or so pieces all from memory at our village church last year. For two hours you could’ve heard a pin drop. I’m not even much of a guitar fan, but every once in a while when it’s done well… whoo!
Oh, and John Williams kicks ass and has a paid assistant to take the names while his mind is engaged on higher things.
Opal, IMO the greatest classical guitar CD ever is Christopher Parkening’s In the Spanish Style. I bought the CD in 1994, and I’ve probably listened to it once a week or more since then.
Spectre: Cool! I spent about three years trying to teach myself classical guitar, but I can’t read music and didn’t much want to learn; I finally realized I was learning pieces, but no actual knowledge. So I gave up, though I can still, with a few days’ notice, churn out a passable “El Noy de la Mare.” Congratulations on your perseverance!
I sometimes think that I, too, am just learning pieces–that is what amateurs tend to do, after all. But my reading has gotten better, to the point where I can see a barre G or open Am chord in standard notation and recognize it for what it is. Similarly I can now quickly recognize and play passages – I think all this must be very much like what happens when little kids are learning to read language. To this day, I remember my first grade teacher pointing out that the word “airplane” actually looked a little like an airplane, and at the time I thought, How can anyone learn this? If I have to remember the shape of every word, it’s hopeless! Reading music can be like that, I think, to new players.
When I have an MP3 or YouTube segment all of you will be the first to know.
I can almost do this for voice, less so for trumpet: see what’s on the page and transform it directly into sound without having to consciously process the notation as “Crotchet G, quaver F#, quaver G…”
At the moment, on the trumpet I still have to “Gosub Fingering” (it’s a mercy trumpet fingering is so easy) but it’s gradually getting easier with practice. Until the keys get difficult.
This is what I love about classical guitar. Only six notes, max, that can be played at a time, yet it can sound as rich as a grand piano, given adequate quality of guitar and musicianship.
He certainly does kick ass. I saw him at the old Ambassador Auditorium in Pasadena. If you ever want to see a knowledgeable audience, go to a classical guitar concert. Almost everyone in the audience will be a guitarist, albeit mostly amateurs like me.
No, I don’t even try to write anything. I’m just an interpreter.
However, I have noticed that as I become more familar with some of the typical fingerings and changes, I’m just beginning to be able to noodle around, Baroquely as it were. If I ever do invent a composition I would probably need some help in putting it down on paper, since that sounds like it would be more difficult than reading the same music.
