Second, unlike most other instruments, a lot of guitarists don’t learn to sight-read.  You could argue that piano is also a visually oriented instrument, but piano players (like many other instrumentalists) have to learn to break the habit of looking down at their fingers.  Otherwise, sight-reading becomes very cumbersome.

Depending on your personality, another factor could be shyness.  I know it is for me.

But I think the main cause is a certain fear that we’re going to mess up if we’re not looking.  However, I find that the opposite happens…I mess up a lot less when I’m not looking! 

Not only that, but by looking at our fingers when we play, we are focusing on the physical part of playing instead of the aural part.  We’re looking instead of HEARING! In the end this hurts the music.

So my proposal to all you guitarists is, just for today (or whenever you happen to read this) force yourself to practice whatever it is your practicing without looking at your fingers or the fretboard.  You might be surprised at how much you can do without looking.

What I noticed was that my fingers could feel were I was at the fretboard, even when making large position shifts. So in essence I was "looking" with my fingers.  And not using my eyes allowed me to focus much more on the sound of what I was playing, noticing details (or lack thereof) that I hadn’t noticed before.

Of course I’m not advocating never to look at your hands when playing.  When practicing it’s important to analyze how you’re playing to solve technical issues.  But when it comes to actually playing music…just close your eyes and let it rip.

minorblues.pdf

Visit my channel to see the rest of my videos. Hope you like…

Bluebossa.pdf

Anyway, here’s a sheet of the basic arrangement.

And a recording.  I’m still working on it, but it’s getting there:

Anyway, I recently started re-discovering his music and I have to say, I am still impressed.  If anything, I appreciate it even more now than when I was a fanboy.  There are a lot of great fingerstyle guitarists out there right now with terrifying technique, but as far as composition goes, none of them come even close to Michael.

He truly had a unique language.  Somewhere between Renaissance, Modal, Contemporary Classical and Americana.  The detail in his compositions is amazing.  The textures, the transitions, the harmonies, I could go on…

To be honest, I was never crazy about his vocal music or his more new-agey sounding arrangements.  But when it came down to solo acoustic guitar, no ones comes close, as far as I’m concerned.  This guy was DEEP.

If you’re interested in Michael’s music, there’s a great book of transcriptions called "Rhythm, Sonority, Silence" by John Stropes with a lot of information on Michael’s technique, sound, and composition process; a lot of it written by the man himself.  And it wouldn’t hurt to listen to Aerial Boundaries.

I find this exciting on many levels: not only because it brings improvisation to a mainstream classical audience, but also because of the audience participation involved at her concerts.  It really creates an atmosphere of a shared experience between audience and performer.

However, I sometimes get a bit peeved at how she talks about her ability.  From her website:  "I cannot stress enough how the process that these improvisations go through (and myself!) are as much a puzzle to me as they are to everyone who asks me, ‘How do you do it?’ Where does it come from? What am I connected to? I do not know, and I think I prefer it that way. This way I keep that innocence that trusts and gives itself to the process."

Ok, fair enough.  My problem with that is that, first of all, it furthers the idea that improvising is some sort of unique ability that only a talented few possess, when it is in fact a natural ability which any music-making person is capable of.

Also, the whole idea of not wanting to know where it comes from sounds a bit naive to me.  Improvising is no mystery.  It is a serious discipline studied in various musical styles, jazz being the one closest to us.

That being said, Ms. Montero’s comments do remind us that no matter how much you study or analyze improvisation, when the moment comes, you have to let go and be totally connected to your inner self.

But just letting go can only get you so far.  It is a lot easier when you’re not worrying about anything and just playing whatever comes to your head…but how about when you’re playing over a set of changes like in jazz?  Or playing a raga? Or for that matter, a fugue?  All these require much more thought and practice.  But I think the results can be much more powerful when they are mastered.

All that aside, I’m not trying invalidate Montero.  She’s an amazing pianist and I’m currently enjoying her Bach & Beyond CD (I really dig how she re-harmonizes Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring, BTW).  But I think that if she took the time to analyze what she’s doing she could take her artistry to a whole new level.  And while she’s at it, she could check out Derek Bailey’s Improvisation: Its Nature And Practice In Music.

But then again, she’s probably too busy playing to sell-out crowds to worry about that right now…

The only catch is that the two voices cross each other at times.  Here’s the first four bars:

In the fourth bar we already run into trouble; The bottom voice jumps up to a B while the top voice has just played a G below it.  However, here it doesn’t bother me.  To my ears, the lines still maintain their independence.

Later on there some parts where the lines do get confused.  Still trying to decide what’s the best way to fix it: phrasing? Octave displacement? Or what the hell, maybe I’ll just leave it.  It still sounds good…

I hope to have the full arrangement in the next few days.

allthethings.pdf

And now with some melodic activity added:

allthethings2.pdf

And here’s a rather clumsy rendition of it:

Of course, the idea is to use that as a foundation and to play around with it. You can really bring it to life by adding some rythmic variety to it…if done right, it can also help in giving each line it’s own identity.