Guest Post at Guitarkadia

Updates & Activities

I wrote a guest post for guitarkadia that went up today. Check it out! Chords as Voices

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Breathing While Playing Guitar

Musical Interpretation and Musicianship

Unlike wind players or singers, us string folk don’t have to worry much about breathing while we play–except to survive and all that. However, breathing with the music can make a lot of difference in expressiveness and musicality of an interpretation. The simplest, easiest place to take a breath is before you start playing. Instrumentalists […]

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Monday Motivation: 3/2/09

Monday Motivation

“It’s not as if composers woke up January 1, 1900 with a hangover and the terrible realization that they could no longer write romantic music” –Jeffrey Wood An amusing quote from my analysis class this week. Romantic music didn’t really stop at 1900. The term 20th century music should really just mean “post tonal music”, […]

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[poll id=”2″] What Tension? What do you like about them? Leave it in the comments!

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In one of my first Music Theory Friday posts I explained the chords in a major scale. Today we’re going to tackle the minor scale. As I’ve explained before each major scale has a relative minor. To that end, the chords in a natural minor scale are actually the same as in any major scale, […]

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Descending Slurs

Classical Guitar Technique

In another post I covered ascending slurs, so I figured it would be good to cover the opposite. Descending slurs, or pull offs, can be a bit tricky as well. Unlike ascending slurs, pull offs require control to make sure the second note does not stick out. A good way to think about pull offs […]

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An Interview with Kevin Callahan, part 2

Interviews with Classical Guitarists

Kevin Callahan: [website][part 1] —- Any other big composition projects in the works? My wife is still waiting for her piece 🙂 And several players have asked that I write something for them (soon). Gotta roll up my sleeves and get to work! I’d like to write more for other instruments as well. I’ve studied […]

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An Interview with Kevin Callahan, Part 1

Interviews with Classical Guitarists

Kevin Callahan is a guitarist, composer and teacher based in Seattle, Washington. A few weeks back, I went to a concert given by Odair Assad where I heard a piece by Kevin called The Red Fantasy. I was fascinated by the piece, and looked up and emailed Kevin a few days after the concert. This […]

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Monday Motivation: 2/23/09

Monday Motivation

“Difficulties strengthen the mind, as labor does the body.” -Seneca Today we feature Gabriel Bianco, the 2008 GFA competition winner, playing the Allegro Assai from Bach’s Third Violin Sonata. Gabriel Bianco: [website][Myspace]

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Many people have a lot of problems with correct finger mechanics on the right hand. In yesterday’s post I stated that the big idea behind getting a good sound is to get all the joints moving in the same direction into the hand. Many people have the problem of the fingers moving up and down […]

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