American fingerstyle guitar had its true beginnings with parlor room guitarists in the 19th century who cultivated a written musical tradition modeled after that of European guitarists. Polite society of the time enjoyed stylized society ballroom dances including marches, polkas, and waltzes. the works selected for this anthology represent the best of American parlor-salon guitar music. Several of the composers presented here, such as William Foden, Charles DeJanon, and William O. Bateman, are gradually becoming familiar to a new generation of fingerstyle guitarists interested in the classic guitar's American past. Written in notation and tablature. Audio available online.
The guitar's entrance into American culture began in the early 1800s, introduced primarily by visiting and immigrant Spanish guitarists. Many of these newly arrived Spaniards exerted great influence on the guitar's development in 19th century America. the works in this book contain the compositions and arrangements of eight noted 19th century Hispanic American guitarist/composers with an emphasis on their works that reflect Latin themes or rhythms. Rounding out this anthology are dance forms such as the Habanera, Jota, Cachucha, Sevillaño, Spanish Mazurka, and other Spanish dance related works along with extended concert pieces such as Theme and Variations, Serenades, Polonaises and a delightful arrangement of the Celebrated Spanish Retreat, a programmatic work with an unusual "C" tuning and novel harmonic effects crafted to imitate the bugles, horns and drums as heard on the battlefield. the book features twenty-one solos and two duets which range in difficulty from easy to advanced. an extensive and well researched text along with photos and a companion recording by acclaimed guitarist/scholar Douglas Back help to make this a landmark book.
The Guitar in America offers a history of the instrument from America\'s late Victorian period to the Jazz Age. The narrative traces America\'s BMG (banjo, mandolin, and guitar) community, a late nineteenth-century musical and com-mercial movement dedicated to introducing these instru-ments into America\'s elite musical establishments. Using surviving BMG magazines, the author details an almost unknown history of the guitar during the movement\'s heyday, tracing the guitar\'s transformation from a refined parlor instrument to a mainstay in jazz and popular music. In the process, he not only introduces musicians (including numerous women guitarists) who led the movement, but also examines new techniques and instruments. Chapters consider the BMG movement\'s impact on jazz and popular music, the use of the guitar to promote attitudes towards women and minorities, and the challenges foreign guitarists such as Miguel Llobet and Andres Segovia presented to America\'s musicians. This volume opens a new chapter on the guitar in America, considering its cultivated past and documenting how banjoists and mandolinists aligned their instruments to it in an effort to raise social and cultural standing. At the same time, the book considers the BMG community within America\'s larger musical scene, examining its efforts as manifestations of this country\'s uneasy coupling of musical art and commerce. Jeffrey J. Noonan, associate professor of music at Southeast Missouri State University, has performed professionally on classical guitar, Renaissance lute, Baroque guitar, and theorbo for over twenty-five years. His articles have appeared in Soundboard and NYlon Review .
Choro is a popular instrumental-music tradition flourishing in Brazil and around the world. It preceded, influenced, and in turn was influenced by samba and bossa nova. Its repertory is vast, including thousands of choros composed by all manner of string, wind, keyboard, and percussion players—in addition to the guitar classics by João Pernambuco and Heitor Villa-Lobos. This landmark publication gives guitarists access to this seemingly endless repertory, empowering its readers to turn a choro written for any instrument into a convincing and idiomatic solo guitar arrangement. This process is taught through examples provided by Dr. Stephen Guerra, a versatile guitarist/composer intimately familiar with both classical and Brazilian guitar (violão brasileiro) as well as the choro idiom. This book is intended for both students of Brazilian guitar and classical guitarists seeking to add choros to their repertory and play them authentically. It includes: • Original solo arrangements plus lead sheets and online recordings of 10 choros for the intermediate to advanced classic guitarist. • Biographical and performance notes regarding the selected composers and compositions. • Insightful suggestions for further reading, listening, and study. • Extensive endnotes explaining arrangement choices, notation practice and influences. Dr. Guerra focuses on classics from the pioneering generation of choro composers culminating in the artistry of João Pernambuco, Pixinguinha, and Heitor Villa-Lobos; among others, these include compositions by choro pianists Chiquinha Gonzaga and Ernesto Nazareth, samba singer-composer Noel Rosa, choro bandleaders Joaquim Calado and Anacleto de Medeiros, and Brazil’s early flute virtuoso, Patápio Silva. Includes access to online audio.
This collection of 47 favorite guitar picking tunes includes reels, jigs, waltzes, fiddle tunes and more, each arranged for classical guitar in standard notation. As these melodies lend themselves well to jamming, this collection is sure to bring any guitarist many hours of picking pleasure. Includes access to an online audio recording of the arranger performing each piece on classical guitar.
An exciting collection of Balkan music featuring songs from Bosnia, Croatia, Greece, Macedonia, Romania and Serbia. Enjoy captivating sounds and compelling rhythms on this exhilarating musical journey through the Balkan Peninsula. Fully fingered for an enjoyable sight-reading experience.
One might think that it would be impossible to arrange the music of Georges Bizet’s opera, Carmen, for solo classic guitar, but Néstor Ausqui has done it! While the guitar is an intimate and sweet-sounding instrument, it does not have a broad dynamic range; yet, as Dionisio Aguado proclaimed in his Nuevo Método para Guitarra of 1843, the classic guitar’s expansive palette of tone color gives it the ability to emulate “a miniature orchestra”. These characteristics make the guitar the ideal instrument to reflect both the character and sensuality of the dances that occur throughout Bizet’s Carmen—Aragonaise, Habanera, Seguidillas, and Danse Bohéme—as well as Carmen’s sober “Chant de la Mort”. Recommended for the advanced guitarist, Carmen Suite is written in standard notation with extensive digitation and occasional drop-D tuning. In Néstor Ausqui’s Carmen Suite, “…the guitar both sings like a human voice and accompanies itself, giving the work an irrefutable guitar identity. The characteristic feeling manifested in Spanish dance is now expressed through the guitar with a full and defined instrumental singularity.” — Guillermo René Alvarez Musicologist, Professor at the Instituto Superior de Música, Universidad Nacional del Litoral-Argentina
In this book, guitarist and music historian David Grimes presents 20 “small sonatas” or sonatinas, complete with detailed performance notes and bio sketches of each of the contributing composers: Leonhard von Call, Matteo Carcassi, Ferdinando Carulli, Mauro Giuliani, Francesco Molino, and Antonio Nava. While flexible, the early 19th-century sonatina form usually consists of 2 - 4 contrasting movements, here in guitar-friendly keys, making these pieces ideal for performance by intermediate-level students. In all but the most challenging passages, Grimes has intentionally kept fingering to a minimum to allow students to form their own concept of this critical skill. Then, as many bass notes in these pieces are played on open strings, the player must develop a sense of when to selectively damp dissonant tones or observe a rest— exposing and overcoming yet another shortcoming in the education of many guitarists. Most classic guitar teachers are familiar with the easy didactic studies by Carcassi, Carulli and Giuliani; Favorite Sonatinas offers more highly developed, but not yet virtuoso pieces by the same Italian triumvirate— plus three more composers in a similar vein— promoting confident, enjoyable sight-reading by guitarists of all levels.
In the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the parlor was a room set aside for particular functions. Before the advent of the radio, it was the place where formal presentations were staged, including amateur and semi-professional concerts. This classical guitar solo collection for the intermediate to advanced player offers nine engaging and lyrical European and North American favorites of this bygone era. All of the solos are presented in standard notation only and played on authentic reproductions of period instruments on the book’s online companion recording. Author Joseph Mayes plays works by well-known guitarist-composers Carulli, Coste and Giuliani as well as the lesser-known but deserving “Kathleen Mavoureen—Romanza” by Frederick N. Crouch arranged by Charles de Janon, and Felix Arndt’s “Nola,” one of the era’s most popular ragtime piano themes, here transcribed and arranged by William Foden and the author. Includes access to online audio.
O’Carolan for Classical Guitar is the fourth and final volume of Guido Böger’s classical guitar arrangements of the 214 compositions of the itinerant blind Irish harper, Turlough O'Carolan (1670–1738). This last collection includes 58 solo pieces, including O’Carolan’s variations on two Scottish airs. These settings are generally intermediate in difficulty and reflect the beauty and lyricism of the original melodies, most of which are tribute tunes named for O’Carolan’s patrons: Colonel O’Hara, John O’Connor, Mrs. O’Connor, Lady Wrixon, General Wynne, Captain O’Neil, The Landlady, etc. The works are meticulously written in standard notation and are ideal for sight-reading practice, personal enjoyment, or concert performance. Moderate left-hand fingering and string numbering are provided in these well-crafted arrangements. Along with his previous Mel Bay editions, Turlough O'Carolan Irish Harp Pieces for Classical Guitar, O'Carolan Favorites and O'Carolan Airs, this book completes Guido Böger's comprehensive O'Carolan series. The set of four books would make a great gift, particularly for an Irish guitarist.
