Around The Neck

It is always rewarding to see a student go beyond where they thought or intended to go while taking lessons. I believe Alan Masinter is one of those students. I do not think that when we began working together that he thought he’d be arranging music for his own playing. But, that’s where we ended up. This is his arrangement of the famed Summertime by Gershwin. I think you’ll greatly enjoy playing it and hearing a new take on a classic.

Masinter Summertime

Other resources:

George Gershwin – Summertime Solo Guitar Sheet Music (Digital Download)

George Gershwin – Summertime Lead Sheet Music (Digital Download)

Often I am asked about books to help someone that wants to begin on their own before studying with a private teacher. I am always reluctant to give any answers to this question. Not because I am a private teacher but because I truly believe that studying with someone that can give you feedback is extremely important. It is essential for a beginner to begin good habits of playing from the beginning in order to prevent having to return to basic technique later on in their playing.

In some cases, people just have to adventure on their own until they discover the above truth. Therefore, I am currently happy to suggest the book by Greg Horne published by Alfred Publishing and associated with the National Guitar Workshop. Horne has a firm foundation in American roots music but also finds time to power in some bluesy rock. This diversity and a clear way of presenting ideas finds its way into every aspect of the book. He takes the student through the basics with clear explanations and builds on playing songs from the beginning. Each chapter reveals a new technique and eventually leads to blues playing after walking a bit through some fundamentals including American roots music basics. The book ends with the infamous barre chord. By then, the student should be ready to take on the barre without reservations. With Horne’s advice and teaching, moving from chapter to chapter is very rewarding for the “self-studying beginning guitarist.”

I will, once again, say that a student runs a chance of developing bad habits in their playing when studying on their own. However, if a student wants to go for it, then beginning with Horne’s series of books will help them to move efficiently through the basics with good instruction.

Suggested Resources:

La Leona: Stefano Grandona Plays Julián Arcas

Vísperas sicilianas. [By F. G. F. Verdi.] Melodia y bolero. [Arranged for the guitar.]

It has been 28 years since the death of Randy Rhodes in a plane crash (March 18, 1982). Therefore, as tribute to this rocker who loved and was greatly influenced by classical music, enjoy the video below. His guitar work is fantastic. Thank you “Mr. Crowley.”

Anton Diabelli, born 5 September 1781, in Mattsee near Salzburg (Austria). While living, he was best known as a editor and publisher. However, he also composed and his most familiar composition today is the waltz on which Ludwig van Beethoven wrote his set of thirty-three Diabelli Variations.

Initially, he thought his calling was to enter the priesthood. While studying to enter the priesthood, he also took music lessons with Michael Haydn. He moved to Vienna to teach the piano and guitar before becoming partners with Pietro Cappi to set up a music publishing firm in 1818. Eventually, the firm became known as Diabelli & Co. in 1824.

The firm became well known to the general public by arranging popular pieces that could be played by amateurs at home. The more serious musican became familiar with them through their publications of works by Franz Schubert.

Diabelli produced many works as a composer, including an operetta called Adam in der Klemme, several masses and songs and numerous piano and classical guitar pieces. Among these are pieces for four hands (two pianists playing at one piano), which are popular among amateur pianists.

The composition for which Diabelli is now best known was actually written as part of a publishing venture. In 1819, he decided to try to publish a volume of variations on a waltz he had penned expressly for this purpose, with one variation by every important Austrian composer living at the time, as well as several significant non-Austrians. The combined contributions would be published in an anthology called Vaterländischer Künstlerverein. Fifty-one composers responded with pieces, including Beethoven, Schubert, Carl Czerny, Johann Nepomuk Hummel, Ignaz Moscheles, and the eight-year-old Franz Liszt. Czerny was also enlisted to write a coda. Beethoven, however, instead of providing just one variation, provided 33. They constitute what is generally regarded as one of the greatest of Beethoven’s piano pieces and as the greatest set of variations of their time, and are generally known simply as the Diabelli Variations, Op. 120.

Diabelli’s publishing house expanded throughout his life, before he retired in 1851, leaving it under the control of Carl Anton Spina. When Diabelli died in 1858, Spina continued to run the firm, and published music by Johann Strauss II and Josef Strauss. In 1872, the firm was taken over by Friedrich Schreiber, and in 1876 it merged with the firm of August Cranz, who bought the company in 1879 and ran it under his name.

He died in Vienna at the age of 76 on 8 April 1858.

We as guitarists are constantly looking for new music to play. However, many of our findings lead us to the past. Leopold Weiss is one such composer that those who find can never forget. He was one of the most important and prolific composers of lute music in history. He, unlike most lutenists of the day, was very well known and extremely proficient in his technique.

Weiss hails from Grottkau, Poland. In his time period, Weiss was destined to be a lutenist or maybe it should be said he was expected. Sons grew up and took over the family business. In Leopold’s case, it was to be a lutenist like his father, Johann Jacob Weiss. Leopold took his playing on the road and ended up in the courts of Brelsau, Rome, and Dresden (those are cities with courts to pay for music, if you didn’t know). Eventually he played his last in Dresden.

Before his passing, he left us with around 600 pieces for lute. Most are group into sonatas or suites, which consist mostly of baroque dance pieces. Weiss also wrote chamber pieces and concertos, but only the solo parts have survived.

In later life, Weiss became a friend of Wilhelm Friedemann Bach and met J.S. Bach through him. J.S.Bach and Weiss were said to have competed in improvisation, as the following account by Johann Friedrich Reichardt describes:

“Anyone who knows how difficult it is to play harmonic modulations and good counterpoint on the lute will be surprised and full of disbelief to hear from eyewitnesses that Weiss, the great lutenist, challenged J. S. Bach, the great harpsichordist and organist, at playing fantasies and fugues.”

So there you have it. If you’ve never played Weiss, then it is by far time to locate some of his works. No matter what type of instrument you play (electric, acoustic, nylon) you will be taken to new heights by learning the works of this old master.