I want to sell my soul at the cross roads

December 17, 2008 2:42 PM

I'v been playing guitar for a number of years, and in the last couple i've started learning classical pieces to push myself. Although i'm no john williams yet learning pieces such as canarios and asturias has really improved my playing. So do any of you out there have a piece or pieces that you loved learning or that took your playing to a new level? I'm mostly looking for classical pieces but things along the lines of bert janch would also be appreciated. No shredding please.
posted by chelegonian to Media & Arts (6 answers total)

Everybody loves Bach. The cool thing about Bach is that it's basically just practice exercises, which means they sound great slow or fast.
posted by Civil_Disobedient at 4:47 PM on December 17, 2008

Sorry 'bout that. Here are the tabs (respectively). Just take them nice and slow. Watch the videos to see the best positions, then take it a measure at a time. You'll really be surprised how fast you'll pick them up with practice.
posted by Civil_Disobedient at 4:54 PM on December 17, 2008

I took several years of classical guitar. Two beautiful, classic pieces that stood out for me were Recuerdos de la Alhambra by Tarrega and Chaconne in Dm by Bach (part 1, part 2). They're definitely challenging to play, but probably on the same level as Asturias.
posted by driveler at 8:17 PM on December 17, 2008

An accessible suggestion from Bach (nice tab site, C_D!) I recall from days of yore when I was so much more willing to invest time in the guitar is Bach's Bouree in Em.
posted by nanojath at 8:32 PM on December 17, 2008

A friend of mine said to recommend Eythorsson's Guitar School website for some free sheet music (but also to watch out for the 'arranged' stuff - dodgy fingering).

If you want to improve your technique then lessons might be the way to go. Scales - all sorts of 'em - are good for technique. A good method book can do wonders, but a bit of real-life-teacher can do a world of good. Other than that, Leo Brower's etudes are awesome, sound beautiful, and are actually written for guitar! Problem with Bach is that he did not write for guitar, and some of the arrangements can be quite wrist-shredding (his lute pieces are supposedly awesome, but very advanced). I love playing classical guitar, but man is it a demanding mistress...
posted by tamarack at 10:04 PM on December 17, 2008

Response by poster: I looked into bach a while back when i heard of segovia but i don't know his music that well, i'll have to get hold of some and give it a try. Recuerdos de la Alhambra is one of the other pieces i'm working on at the minute but i'm not quite there with the tremolo on that one. Glad someone else has heard of classictab.org, i stumbled on that a while back and its been my main source of classical tabs since, thankfully it seems to be free of the fuckwits that usually tab songs on the net. thanks for the recommendations
posted by chelegonian at 4:06 PM on December 18, 2008