Tag: classical

Get excited! It’s the Adelaide International Guitar Festival!! Woop!

Nicole Neal5 Comments
Australian International Guitar Festival
Get yourself over to Radelaide!                           Photo credit: badjonni

Good morning! Firstly, before I launch into today’s post I have uploaded a new podcast for you: Do you really know what you know?

As always you can find these over on the Podcasts page.

Right. On with today’s post and it’s time to get excited people! Well, it is if you’re a music lover and general guitar nut and you happen to be in the capital of South Australia next weekend. Yes, that’s right it’s time for the Adelaide International Guitar Festival. Woop woop!

The Adelaide International Guitar Festival (or AIGF for short, because those are long words to keep typing. Or not. Just me being lazy…..) runs over four days from Thursday 9th to Sunday 12th August, and is a veritable smorgasbord of guitaristic adventures.

If your passion involves things with six strings (or even four, or seven or more) then it sounds as if this will be the event for you. The event caters not just for the classical guitar crowd, but will feature a plethora of exciting Australian and international talent in jazz, blues, folk, swing, bluegrass, flamenco and rock. How could you not get excited!

This will be the fourth running of the AIGF, and features for the second time our very own Slava Grigoryan as Artistic Director for the festival. Slava has managed to use his considerable influence to pull together an amazing line-up of musicians, including:

You can experience these artists across a number of formats too, ranging from full-on concerts to more intimate late night sessions, from masterclasses to workshops.

If that weren’t enough there will also be opportunities to meet some of the finest guitar makers Australia has to offer (including Redgate and Caldersmith) and opportunities to test out the credit card limit with guitars and goodies galore on offer on the trade stands.

The Classical Guitar Society of Victoria, I’m also very pleased and excited to say, will be presenting its “Segovia on Toast” concert-cum-presentation session to the Adelaide audience, featuring performance from Slava himself. Lucky you Adelaide!

And of course, no discerning festival is complete without a bit of a competition is it? The AIGF is no different, with initial selection rounds having been carried out several months ago. The top prize in this year’s competition will see the winner scoop $10,000 and a Jim Redgate guitar valued at $16,000. Ooooh!

This year will be particularly exciting with some very hot, upcoming talent being represented, including none other than Melbourne’s Dan Nistico, Evan Hopkins and Ziggy Johnston. As is the nature of these things there can only be one real winner of the competition, but I am sure that these three lads will do fantastically well whatever the competition outcome. Good luck!

If you want to head along, or want to find out a bit more about the event go to: www.adelaideguitarfestival.com.au

For those of you unable to head along here are some videos of some of the featured artists to keep you entertained…..

Have fun in Adelaide everyone and good luck to all the performers!

Approaching a new classical guitar piece – A closer look at style

Nicole NealLeave a comment

Pinch, punch first of the month!

Gibson Classic
Photo credit: Lamerie

As I’m sure you, my learned readers, are more than well aware the classical guitar repertoire runs the full gamut of styles – baroque to blues, minuet to maxixe, classical period to contemporary and everything in-between. OK, not all of it may have been directly written for our instrument for one reason or another, but you get the idea. Plenty to pick from and lots of styles!

As such, when learning a classical guitar piece it can help us to remember this and reflect mindfully on the style of the piece we’re getting to grips with.

We may use the same or very similar techniques whichever piece we’re playing. The approach, however, the feel, the vibe of it (to misquote The Castle – look it up non-Aussies it’s a crackup… Anyway, I digress as per usual…), the intention of the music itself varies considerably depending on what we’re playing. This is one of the reasons why, for example, that examination boards ask candidates to play three or four pieces from different eras or styles – to see how you respond to changes in approach and style, testing out your versatility as a player and see if you can get under the skin of the music and convey the intention of differing styles.

I find that when learning a new piece, taking a few moments to look at its style and it’s impulsion, can help in getting to grips with it much faster. It’s not a magical method that will have you dashing off a brilliant barcarolle or stunning sarabande in five minutes of looking at the music (well, then again it might! I’ve not heard you play!). It will, however, provided you with some good sturdy starting points of a foundation from which to build an edifice of musical awesomeness.

You don’t generally start out on a journey (usually) without some idea of how you’re going to arrive at your destination do you? Doing a bit of research into the style of music you’re learning can act a bit like your roadmap, guidebook and phrasebook all in one, guiding you to the precise musical destination that you intended and helping with those idiomatic local expressions along the way.

How do I do this?

My first tip would be to take a close look at the title of the piece.

  • Is it something quite formal? Is it of a particular era?
  • For example, is it say a gigue or a sarabande, or perhaps some other stylised dance form, typical of the Baroque era? Each movement in a Baroque suite has its own particular idiosyncrasies and feel.
  • What else does the title convey? This question is more appropriate  if the piece in question is written in perhaps a less formalist style.
  • Is the piece intended to reflect a certain place, region or country? If so, have a think about the style and musical approach intended or that may work best to invoke that musical imagery.Is this piece influenced by folk styles? Examples might be such as a choro, fado or tango. When approaching some of these styles be sure to do a wee bit of homework around them as there can be styles within styles within styles!
Baroque guitar made by Tielke
Baroque guitar made by Tielke (Photo credit: D W S)

This process is where Google and YouTube can come in very handy. What did we do before their time?! Pray and hope that the Dewey Decimal system would lead us to the right spot in the library and that there might be something there awaiting the light of day?! Agreed, Google and YouTube are perhaps not very scholarly approaches to research, but they are undeniably more than a great starting place, particularly for listening to and watching new or musical styles previously unknown to oneself. Brill!

Here you go, case in point – a video for you today on the history of fado:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=on9lKHZc5jA

Obviously, there are more styles than I could go into one blog post, or you’d be here reading until August 2013 (or you’d probably just switch off)! So today’s key take away message is to get some background on the piece you’re learning. If you understand even a little of where it is coming from, you can then build on that to take it forwards with greater direction and depth to its intended destination.

If you’d like me to go into more depth on anything else style related, just drop me a comment in the box below and I’ll be happy to help.