Guitar tips: slur exercises on groups of two notes
Left hand slurs are an essential part of a good technical practice.
In this first post i will share one of my own slur exercises, involving two fingers.
Abel Carlevaro: his technique, his guitar, his Microstudies
Sometimes, Youtube suggest me guitar related videos, and in most cases are very interesting contents.
Yesterday, the first suggestion is a long video lesson by Abel Carlevaro: i believe is a good idea share it.
Classical Guitar without fingernails: the value of the left hand
For several year i’ve played classical guitar in the traditional way…but some year ago i’ve fallen in love with the sonority of nylon guitar played with only the fingertips.
Guitar technique: the right hand role during scales practice
Scales are a valuable tool to improve the coordination between both hands and develop a fluent phrasing.
Kaki King: two short videos recorded at TED conferences
“A musical escape into a world of light and color”
Today I want to share two videos from TED.com featuring Kaki King (born Katherine Elizabeth King), a guitarist and composer known for her percussive technique applied on multiple tunings on acoustic and lap steel guitar, and on diverse range in different genres.
The first video was recorder in 2008, soon after the release of her famous single “Playing with Pink Noise”:
Kaki King, the first female on Rolling Stone’s “guitar god” list, rocks out to a full live set at TED2008, including her breakout single, “Playing with Pink Noise.” Jaw-dropping virtuosity meets a guitar technique that truly stands out.
The second video is more recent, recorder at TEDWomen on May 2015:
A genre unto herself, Kaki King fuses the ancient tradition of working with one’s hands with digital technology, projection-mapping imagery onto her guitar in her groundbreaking multimedia work “The Neck Is a Bridge to the Body.” Using her guitar’s neck like a keyboard, she plays an intricate melody as she takes the audience on a musical journey of light and sound. She calls it “guitar as paintbrush.”
About the artist
From her website:
Hailed by Rolling Stone as “a genre unto herself,” composer and guitarist Kaki King is a true iconoclast. Over the past 10 years the Brooklyn-based artist has released six extraordinarily diverse and distinctive albums (from which B-sides & Rarities has been largely culled), performed with such icons as Foo Fighters, Timbaland, and The Mountain Goats, contributed to a variety of film and TV soundtracks including Golden Globe-nominated work on Sean Penn’s Into The Wild, and played to an increasingly fervent following of music lovers on innumerable world tours.
In addition to her own solo work, Kaki sometimes performs accompanied by NYC-based string quartet ETHEL. She also recently performed a Carnegie Hall premiere of a classical piece commissioned by Pulitzer Prize-winning composer David Lang.
Guitar tips: my own daily warm-up exercises
Every morning a guitarist wakes up … and doing the warm-up!
The warm-up is a very important step of a musician’s daily routine: a simple set of progressive exercises useful to predispose muscles and articulation for more complex movements and stretching.
Today I propose my own set of warm-up exercises.
Usually i use this exercises also with beginner students: it are useful also for becoming familiar with the fretboard and fingerstyle.
All exercises need to be performed with the metronome and each pattern must be repeated on all the fretboard.
Simple chromatic scale
This exercise need to be performed holding all four fingers on the string after the corresponding note was played.
The right hand fingering is different between ascending (p-i-m-a) and descending (p-a-m-i).
Chromatic scale with ‘string skipping’
Same suggestions of previous exercise (hold all fingers on string), but a bit more complex with a big jump from a string to another.
The ‘Spider’
A well-known exercise, useful for finger independence and coordination between the two hands.
I suggest to start the exercise very slow, in order to correctly memorize the pattern.
The ‘sweep’
Inherited from electric guitar technique, the ‘sweep’ is an exercise opposite to the ‘chromatic scales’: the final purpose is playing all notes as an arpeggio, but ‘staccato’, without holding any previous note.
The right hand fingering is a simple p-i-m-a-m-a-m-i pattern.
All exercises on a single PDF
“Light of the Seven” from Game Of Thrones soundtrack: my guitar transcription
A simple piece, good for novice students
Andres Segovia concert on Italian television
A valuable historical document
In the 1960s, the Italian TV broadcaster RAI broadcast a fascinating concert by Andres Segovia.
I’ve found a copy on Youtube, the sound is slightly distorted, but the program very respectable:
1:27 — “Da un Codice Lautenbuch”, Six lute pieces of the renaissance, transcribed by Oscar Chilesotti:
1. Vaghe belleze et bionde treccie d’oro vedi che per ti moro
2. Bianco fiore
3. Danza
4. Gagliarda
5. Se io m’accorgo
6. Saltarello
8:36 — Johann Sebastian Bach: Gavotte
13:02 — Heitor Villa-lobos: Prelude nº 3
17:44 — Heitor Villa-lobos: Study nº 1
20:12 — Federico Moreno Torroba: Allegretto(from “Sonatina”)
23:26 — Isaac Albéniz: Sevilla
Enjoy!
A note for guitar fetishists
the guitar seems to be a Ramirez, you can tell by the shape of the head:
How to spot a fake guitar in seconds
Keep your eyes (and ears) open!
Is it really possible to buy a non-original guitar?
Yes! Furthermore it can happens in unexpected places like a used instruments store, as shown by these two videos made by Kennis Russell:
In the videos are analyzed two incredible fake of the most famous guitars of all time: a Fender Stratocaster and a Gibson Les Paul.
Kennis also provides valuable tips to recognize a non-original guitar.
Emanuele Segre: a really interesting documentary
A very talented italian guitarist
Today I want to offer a documentary dedicated to Emanuele Segre, one of my favorite performers.
The documentary is produced by SKY TV Classica, I found it on youtube divided into three parts.
For non italian readers, the video has English subtitles.
Who is Emanuele Segre?
Some information from his website:
Emanuele Segre, the Italian guitarist, whom The Washington Post noted early as “a musician of immense promise” at his American debut, performs internationally in cities including New York, Los Angeles, Boston, San Francisco, London, Paris, Amsterdam, Vienna, Prague, Berlin, Salzburg, Tel Aviv, Istanbul, Rio de Janeiro, Madrid, Rome, Warsaw, Seoul, Tokyo, etc.
As a soloist he has appeared with Yuri Bashmet and the Moscow Soloists, the English Chamber Orchestra conducted by Salvatore Accardo, the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra, the Zagreb’s Soloists, the European Community Chamber Orchestra, the Slovakian Chamber Orchestra and the Süddeutsches Kammerorchester. He has also given his cooperation to the Orchestra of Teatro alla Scala. His chamber music activities include duo performances with Patrick Gallois.
He has participated in international festivals such as the Marlboro Festival (USA), the Bratislava Festival (Czechoslovakia), the “Semaines Musicales de Tours”, the “Festival de Radio France et Montpellier” (France), the Bregenz Festival (Austria), the “MITO SettembreMusica” International Festival, and the “Settimane Musicali Internazionali di Stresa” (Italy).
Segre has won numerous competitions, including the East & West Artists Prize in New York in 1987, which allowed him to make his debut at the Carnegie Recital Hall, and, in the same year, the Pro Musicis International Award in New York. In 1989 he was selected for the UNESCO International Rostrum of Young Performers.
Jean Françaix dedicated his concerto for guitar and orchestra to Segre, which he subsequently recorded for WERGO.
He has recorded various other CDs with DELOS, CLAVES, AMADEUS and other record companies.
Born in 1965, Segre studied under Ruggero Chiesa at the Milan Conservatory, and took his diploma with great distinction, “summa cum laude”. He has attended Master Classes by Julian Bream and John Williams, as well as pursued studies in composition and violin.
Emanuele Segre is currently teaching at the Conservatory of music in Terni, Italy.
In the last part, Emanuele performs Fuoco by Roland Dyens and Canto de Ossanha by Baden Powell.
Enjoy!