A Sea of Music – Widening Your Musical Influences

Nicole Neal2 Comments

In my recent interview with guitarist Xuefei Yang, she noted that “lots of guitarists, guitar students, or maybe amateurs, tend to focus on the guitar world. Maybe they play the guitar because simply they love the instrument, which is no problem at all, nothing wrong with that. But I just feel that they’re more fanatic about the instrument. I hope that they can put themselves in the sea of music. Myself I love guitar as an instrument, but I think of guitar just as a method, just as a medium, of music. It’s a media to express music and I like to think about music more than about the instrument. I think that  for more advanced students, if they want to be a musician, to make a career, I think it’s quite important to put yourself in the sea of music and think more generally about music, rather than just guitar.”

I couldn’t agree with her more, and exploring different instruments, different musical eras and styles is something that I actively encouraged my students to do when I was teaching. And it’s very much something I do myself too – I’m a big music fan generally and I’d say around 90% of the music I listen to is music other than classical guitar music. I do a lot of listening of all sorts of things – from various eras of classical/ Western art music, Indian classical music, jazz, pop, rock, blues and everything in between.

Why? Aside from keeping things fresh and interesting, I find listening all sorts of different kinds of music and different kinds of instruments (solo and in groupings) helps bring differing perspectives on my playing – how I think about a piece of music for example, how I want something to sound, how I know a line is or can be played be a particular instrument and wanting to try and capture or reflect that on the guitar. The “sea of music” is a great source of inspiration.

So today I thought I’d share with you some of those pieces of music that have been inspiring me of late. Here we go, in no particular order…..

(1) Thomas Tallis’ Spem in alium

A glorious 40 part motet (choral composition), originally composed for eight choirs of five voices. This is a great example of English Baroque choral writing with lots of soaring, interweaving lines

(2) Maurice Ravel’s Daphnis et Chloe Suite No. 2

The whole suite was originally music written for a ballet, and is Ravel’s longest orchestral work. The second suite is my particular favourite – it has these gorgeously lyrical melodies, big fat textures and fantastically lush Impressionistic harmonies. Wonderful dynamic shapes and melodic lines to feel and learn from.

 

(3) Giovanni Battista Pergolesi’s Stabat Mater

Quite simply beautiful melodic lines, with equally beautiful counterpoint.

 

(4) JS Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto No. 3 in G Major

I’d say this is a fairly well known example of Bach’s work, but also an easily accessible one for those less familiar and looking to start to immerse themselves in the Baroque master’s work.

 

(5) Frederic Chopin’s Nocturne in E Flat Major

Well, any of Chopin’s Nocturne’s and Etudes are great listening. In some ways the piano is rather like our own classical guitar in that it’s a”self-accompanied” instrument, so there’s much we can learn through listening to that two (or more) part playing.

The Secret To Super Sight Reading

Nicole Neal1 Comment

I was personally reminded this week of one of the keys reasons of the importance of learning and getting really familiar with your scales and arpeggios on the guitar – sight-reading.

As regular readers may know I play in a guitar orchestra here in Melbourne, and at our last rehearsal last week it was decided to play through a new piece of music (that had been given out to us at the previous rehearsal, but I’d failed to look it – naughty me!). Enter supreme powers of concentration and super sigh-reading skill! Hah hah! Well, normally that might be close to the case, but I was feeling less than sparkling at rehearsal, just a bit tired and really not feeling mentally that sharp. This should be interesting, I thought.

And actually it was interesting. Almost without me thinking my hands seemingly took over in terms of playing the phrases and runs. After a couple of minutes of getting into the groove of the piece I wasn’t thinking too hard about the rhythm either. Let’s be clear here though, I’m not saying I was playing everything note perfectly or rhythmically perfectly as was written on the page (I’m sure there were a few “funky” notes in there for good measure!), but for a first play through it served pretty well.

John Price Guitar

I guess the interesting thing is that given I knew the key we were playing in, and that I could recognise the chord progressions as we moved through them, all that learning and practice of scales, arpeggios, and theoretical knowledge came into its own really without me thinking too much about it. Thank goodness! It wasn’t 100% perfect, but was enough to potentially be convincing or at least sounded like it could have been written in that way! All that drilled practice has provided me with a pretty strong foundation that my normally attentive and “active” concentration sits upon. Stripping that back on the weekend to the “passive” level of playing allowed me to see, feel and experience that foundation. It’s something I don’t normally experience, usually being switched on and active in playing. I was secretly (or not so now!) quite chuffed with myself.

And that foundation stone of my playing is not something that I built at one time and left. Far from it. It’s something that was started many years ago and gets built upon, added to and reinforced on a very regular basis. Pretty much every time I sit down with the guitar I undertake some kind of technical exercise. And usually at least I will run through a two or three octave scale for each and every major and minor diatonic key. The Segovia scales are definitely a cornerstone of the foundation. If I’ve been away from the guitar for a period, like last week for example when I was away travelling with work, the first things I played when I got to the guitar on the weekend was a full set of scales. You can get some really good exercises from simply playing your scales and arpeggios – right hand touch exercises, right hand finger return exercises, speed exercises, shaping and phrasing exercises, free stroke and rest stroke exercises, multiple right hand finger exercises, fretboard geography, improving and reinforcing knowledge of your keys and their relationships, left hand movement exercises, legato and staccato playing….. the list goes on!

So, the moral of the story is don’t forget about your humble scales and arpeggios – they will serve you well!