Bach on Classical Guitar

nickkinneg

Hi there
just wondering does anyone else play the prelude from BWV 1006a on Classical GUitar - i am currently learning this piece and love it although it is pretty hard - I havent done much Bach on the classical guitar - but have done the Courante BWV 1007 which is nice - would anyone like to share their favourite composer/pieces for Classical Guitar - have been playing for about 6 years - but one thing i have noticed is that the repetoire for classical guitar is very small - can anyone point me to any 'new' exciting pieces to learn - one piece I would love to learn although I cant find a score for it is 'little wing' by Jimmy Hendrix - Eric Henderson does a version of it and it sounds amazing, any thoughts?

Eph1958

Hi, the prelude in E is pretty demanding, as is the rest of that lute suite. I find the works of Barrios or JK Mertz to be far more rewarding and more "playable". Transcriptions of works for other instruments always involves compromise that only truly gifted musicians can succeed at. John Feeleys Chaconne and Cello Suite #1 are good examples.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JNEnzNHTkd8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pGipFrts650
I have encountered lots of very ordinary and usually inadequate transcriptions of more popular music, and these rarely stay on the music stand for very long. 'Would love to give Hendrix a try though, if you come across the sheet music. Enjoy.

Ephraim.

tomasrojo

I like a lot of the core repertoire, the transcriptions of Albéniz and Granados, the better known works of Tárrega and Llobet. Antonio Lauro seems to have fallen out of favour a bit, but I like his elegant but still rather quirky pieces.

The British twentieth-century works that Bream commissioned have some gems among them too.

I started recording duos with myself using Audacity to multitrack. The variety of transcriptions you can perform is much higher. However, I guess you'll need to find a kindred spirit eventually if you want to perform them live.

Eph1958

Ditto on the Spanish core repertoire...... they were what attracted me to the sound of the guitar years ago.
I find modern pieces composed by non-guitarists to be too technically demanding to be enjoyable to play. I love Bream playing them but struggle to reproduce them. In contrast "modern" music by guitarists like Brouwer and Koshkin falls under the fingers better and is thus more accessible and enjoyable.
I too have dabbled in Audacity dubbing but found it overwhelmingly frustrating.

Eph.

tomasrojo

Eph1958 wrote: »

I too have dabbled in Audacity dubbing but found it overwhelmingly frustrating.

I found playing all the parts in tempo very hard, which brought home to me how wobbly my timekeeping is.

But I was happy enough after a lot of perseverance.

This was my shot at the Carulli Rondeau in G for two guitars:
http://dermotryan.ie/music/microphone_recordings/02_carulli_duo_in_g__op_34__rondeau.mp3

You can hear it going out of synch here and there, but I think it's not bad.

And I think this recording of Schubert's Ave Maria shows you can open up your repertoire with multitracking:
http://www.dermotryan.ie/music/microphone_recordings/ave_maria.mp3

There's a gaffe or two there too.

I took advantage of the multitracking to play block chords in harmonics over the backing towards the end. You don't get to hear many block chords in harmonics for solo guitar, except Eminor and open-string configurations like that.

I have an arrangement of Ravel's Pavane pour une Infante Defunte for flute and guitar which I hope to try and record, playing the flute part single-line on the guitar as I did for the Ave Maria.

EDIT: I should have mentioned that those are big mp3s. 6-9MB sort of range.

Eph1958

Great stuff, Tomasrojo. Sound quality is pretty good for a home setup.

Eph.