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Sketch No. 1 for classical guitar


Gustav Johnson

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My work for an afternoon quick sketch. I liked the idea that occurs at 9, so I played around with an idea: how much does it really matter what I compose in the "middle" if I always bring it back to a common idea the listener can grasp hold of? I'm going to try a few more in this vein, we'll see if it pans out for me.

Comments welcome - especially if I did something wrong in my writing for guitar.

Thanks,

Gustav

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Gustav, the melody and the phrasing sound undefined throughout, and trying to understand it is made more difficult because the meter itself is unclear because the bass notes are syncopated. I didn't catch it until bar 4. Maybe put this bar first? I think you might flesh this out to completion and repost it, and the best thing you could do to address all of the above is to place chords on some of the strong beats throughout, which would help establish a better sense of harmonic context as well as meter. At this early stage you're pretty much on your own. I hope this helps you.

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Writing for the guitar is quite hard... You need to know the instrumend profoundly.

I used to play this instrument many years ago and I think there are some parts pretty difficult, if possible. For example in the beginning, is it possible to keep one finger (the index?) in the 4th fret of the 5th string and move around in the 1st string until fret 2?

The guitar uses a transposition:

215856967_Capturadepantalla2018-09-03alas17_10_47.png.2288e1ae725e545d65a68ce6e0bd8cea.png

I believe any instrument is unique, and writing for it requires to study how to do it. The best thing is seeing and listening to works from others.

 

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The first bar is playable but it's awkward. One thing you might consider is transposing it so that the longest bass notes are on open strings, and keep this in mind as you go forward. That would make it more idiomatic for the guitar, and it would also free up the fingers for writing more complex melodies, if that's what you want to do.

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Thanks for the tips, all!

I've done a couple more, it's an interesting concept I think can bear fruit if I stick with it - I got the idea from modern "top 40 hits music" which isn't necessarily crafted to be high quality, but is crafted to get stuck in your head. I think I need to start by making each part more distinct and then, as suggested, make sure it works for the instrument itself.

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