It looked like a guitar, it felt like a guitar, and it certainly sounded like a guitar, but this instrument had a hidden talent. A couple of months ago, I got the opportunity to test a very interesting instrument. I had heard chatter around the guitar department about a “smart guitar” being developed in house, but I had only heard rumors about this mysterious instrument. It seemed inevitable that the ironic “smart” adjective would begin sticking itself to the musical world. Smartphones, smartwatches, smart-refrigerators, and all the other smart counterparts are the norm. My imagination could only conceive of a smart guitar that had a built in touchscreen on the…
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Mrs. Robinson for Guitar Duo
Coo coo ca choo. I found myself walking down the street the other day and absentmindedly whistling this classic tune. To be fair, I had been considering different hit pop songs to arrange for my new guitar duo, Un/Strung, to add to our concerts. Some of our repertoire gets quite heavy and modern, so this piece seemed like it would be a nice refresher for the audience after we pelted them with the sonic burdens of Satie and the likes. My favorite part of this song and arrangement is that whoever plays the Guitar 2 part will enjoy the cathartic technique of tambora, or beating the strings of the guitar…
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Four Colors
Paint me a picture. All our senses work in concert to bring us a complete experience of the surrounding world. Sometimes, one sense can have tremendous affect on another; that is the inspiration for this piece. Occasionally when I would be learning new repertoire, I would subconsciously associate colors with sections of a piece or its entirety. Perhaps a brush with synesthesia, not every sound evoked a specific palette. In my experience it has been rather spontaneous, but once the association is made, it is impossible to separate. The four pieces included in this set all started as small ideas that formed through thoughtless improvisation on the guitar. Sometimes the…
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Premiere of “Flower Duet for Guitar Duo” (Sort of)
To get the obvious out of the way, I apologize for video and audio quality. I actually had no idea this was being recorded and, judging by the quality, this seemed to be a spur of the moment production. Nevertheless, this cell phone video captured the first public performance of Leo Delibes’ “Flower Duet” that I had arranged for guitar duo over the summer. To give a bit of context to this performance, it took place at a Leadership Donor banquet during Frostburg State University’s 2017 Homecoming week. I was largely ignorant of the gig before stepping foot in the theater, all I knew was that myself and my duo…
