Tag: youtube

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.

Approaching a new classical guitar piece for the first time

Nicole Neal7 Comments
A six-part fugue from The Musical Offering, in...
JS Bach Fugue. What a dude. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

This is a topic I’ve had lined up for a couple of weeks now and it has serendipitously coincided with myself starting work on a new piece this week.

So, I thought I’d share with you some thoughts on cracking into a new piece for the very first time.

What’s the score?

Be discerning with the edition of sheet music you use. I reaffirmed this to myself only this week (as my Twitter followers will know!) that just because a particular edition of a score has been published doesn’t necessarily mean it has been thoroughly proofread, well-edited or is in fact realistically and musically playable. In the example I had this week there were just some ridiculous fingerings applied, very basic editorial oversights and slightly bizarre sounding chord arrangements. So, do your homework, check around and ask others about good editions to use.

If you’re playing a piece from a graded examination list then they will usually recommend a good edition to use. It certainly does no harm, however, to explore what else is out there though.

You might be interested in how your version compares to an urtext edition (i.e. original score), especially so if the piece is a transcription from another instrument, such as violin or cello perhaps for Bach, or piano for Albeniz and Granados.

Listen up!

One of the things that I do when first adding a new piece to my repertoire is listen to a number of recordings of the same piece by different guitarists. I also think there’s excellent value in listening to the same piece in its original instrumentation if it has been transcribed for guitar, and other instrumentation too for an alternative perspective. This is super easy and cheap to do these days with legions of freely available videos on YouTube. Yay YouTube! OK, there’s some questionable material on there, but there are also a lot of great contributions from very talented amateur and professional musicians alike.

Listening to various interpretations of the same piece can first of all help you pick out certain nuances which may not be immediately clear – maybe it pricks your ears up in a “ooh I like how she plays that bit” kind of way. Secondly, it can help feed some ideas into your own eventual interpretation of the music. It’s all good fuel for the fire.

Once you’ve listened to those alternate interpretations and you’ve started on really learning the piece, I’d be wary of listening too intently to recorded versions. Well, that’s what I do anyway. I think you have to let all that visual and aural information you’ve collected just percolate through you and coalesce, helping form your own unique approach.

What else should I think about?

OK, now you’ve taken a good look at the score, listened to innumerable recordings and watched oodles of YouTube clips, some questions to ponder on when you’re approaching the piece are:

  • What is the style of the piece? Does it have a particular theme or mood in mind? Is it a kind of dance form?
  • Where is the melody? Where is the harmony? How do they relate to one another?
  • Are the bits that you think are harmony bits really harmony bits or are they also melody?
  • How do you want to play it – tone and shape?
  • What’s your end goal for the piece? How do you want it to sound?

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Podcast

Before I forget, I have another podcast for you:Practice and Perception – Do you hear what I hear?

I’ll stick this one over on the podcast page too.