Some articles articles and exercises are available on my Free Downloads page. The materials here, however, are things I wanted to make available as soon as they were ready rather than offer them to a published.
In 1923, pianist and composer Sergei Rachmaninoff outlined a method of scale practice that didn’t rely on rôte learning and which he thought contributed to the world-wide success of Russian pianists in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. This fifty-page booklet (6500 words, over twenty examples and illustrations, and thirty pages of scales) explores Rachmaninoff's ideas in the context of guitar study. Also included is an in-depth look at modifications to string-crossing technique required by high speeds.
Although "The Virtuoso Teacher" (also known as "The Re-Imagination of Guitar Pedagogy") can be read here and a free version is available through Gumroad (see the "Free Downloads" page), an extended version is available on LeanPub for $7.99.
Go to this page on LeanPub. In addition to a nicely typeset PDF, LeanPub customers also receive MOBI or EPUB versions to read on your Kindle or other e-reader app.
This material was part of my original conception of The Classical Guitar Companion, but I removed it once I saw the length of the book as a whole. Here you will find a collection of accessible pieces in remote keys by Giuliani, Sor, Legnani, and Paganini. It's instructive to see how legendary guitarists approached writing music in keys guitarists usually avoid, and there's much to be gained by playing this music.
This material was part of my original conception of The Classical Guitar Companion, but I removed it once I saw the length of the book as a whole. Here you will find material that explores thirds, sixths, octaves, and tenths by legendary guitarists.
Does the guitar world need another Urtext for facsimile edition of this famous piece? No, it doesn't. But guitar editions are rarely interpretive editions, and that's what the edition is.
This edition includes phrase markings and other interpretive indications. It is not an Urtext edition and is intended to stimulate the musical imaginations and interpretive creativity of guitarists, even if they disagree with things in this edition. Also included are extensive performance notes.
This performance edition strives to place this famous work in a context more nuanced than that of a virtuoso show piece.
Performance editions of guitar music are rarely of an interpretive nature. Instead, they are usually accounts of an editor's fingerings and modifications, which are often contemporary practices and ideals projected backwards and are as anachronistic as playing Takemitsu on a nineteenth-century guitar.
This edition also contains extensive performance and interpretive notes.
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