Classical Guitar

Lessons from my uncle

I was watching several people playing Passacaglia by GF Handel on Tik Tok last week. Several because that’s how TikTok works, right? But they were mostly playing the easy part, some one string at a time, and in an easier key than the Gm it was written in, with lots of open strings. They had the interesting facial expressions that I see a lot of Tik Tok guitarists pulling, perhaps to make it look like they are deep into the music, or playing something that is really difficult. I feel like they are trying to add something that the audience want, but I don’t think will impress other guitarists, who are probably not the target audience. When I see those expressions on the face of someone like Carlos Santana, I get it. That’s called flow. I may even show some expression myself when I am moved by what I am playing, but they are never deliberate.

I really like the movement of those old Baroque pieces, many of which inspired musicians like David Guetta on Dangerous. Although I wonder if he was more inspired by Veridis Quo” by Daft Punk, possibly more likely. Anyway I decided to learn an excellent transcription by JChacecosas from the piece that was originally written for harpsichord, that I found on MuseScore.

It has some great chords in it and lots of different tempos. Being written for harpsichord, it has some of those great fast parts which I think are much easier to play on a keyboard, but sound great on a classical guitar.

I wanted to hear what it would have sounded like when Handel wrote it and found this piece which is very much like the guitar transcription. The part that the musicians on Tik Tok commonly play doesn’t come up until part 40! It’s like Concerto D’Aranjuez which I learned from sheet music. Everyone knows the Adagio and could be forgiven for thinking that was the piece, but it is only about 2 pages of the 58 page piece I bought from Louis Eady many years ago.

Here’s a copy on the harpsichord.

It makes me wish I had the opportunity to play a harpsichord, as in the real one where the keys are struck, not a modern keyboard emulation.

This all takes me back to 1969 and 1970 when I was living with my grandparents in Bakkum. My uncle Nico played classical guitar and taught me a number of pieces, basically by example, so I was learning without using the sheet music.

I have very few photos of that time, but I found this one, which was taken a lot earlier of him playing in the sunroom.

He gave me some sheet music to take home to New Zealand with me, and from time to time would send me more pieces, which I still have and enjoy playing when the mood gets me.

The challenge when I returned to NZ was that I could only read sheet music for recorder, which I learned at primary school. This would be my reference, as the first notes you learn on recorder are B, A, and G. So I knew where to find them and could work the rest out. But it meant I couldn’t play them.

As a teenager, I bought and borrowed a number of TAB books, mostly blues, such as the Mississippi John Hurt book mentioned in this SubStack, many of which were on his Last Sessions Album. I faithfully learned every piece on this album when I was 15.

I inadvertently learned how to play alternate bass picking, without realising it.

I didn’t get a copy of the album for a couple of years, so had never heard him play, while I was learning his style. I was amazed at how good the transcription was, because it sounded the same as I played it. Mine was just a bit cleaner, which is to be expected given he was about 89 when this album came out.

So I needed to learn how to read sheet music for guitar. TAB is good, but when it comes to classical music, I didn’t have any tab. So I bought a pad of blank TAB sheets and faithfully worked out each note or chord, one by one transcribing from the sheet music to TAB. Of course this didn’t help when it came to fingering, because there are multiple positions, even CAGED has 5. I wouldn’t learn those until I went to the Creative School of Musicianship in Ponsonby in the 1980s, founded by Taura Eruera, who I am still in touch with from time to time.

This was a painstaking job, and I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone, but it sure cemented my understanding of reading and writing sheet music, and as soon as I felt confident playing direct from the sheet, I gave up on TAB, other then when it was the only thing available to me for music I wanted to learn; if I didn’t learn by playing with the record, or by watching someone else, which were the most common methods back in the day, especially for the pop and rock music I was playing.

I can’t imagine how many hours I spent with other budding guitarists in my teens and twenties sharing how to play what we knew together. I wish I had photos from those fun days.

When it comes to actual structured learning, it wasn’t until I went to music school in Auckland’s Ponsonby, having played guitar for about 15 years, that I was able to intellectually learn about harmony and arrangement, after going right back to basics. Everyone went through the same syllabus to start with, no matter how long you had been playing, so I went from playing in clubs and pubs, right back to Guitar 101, Single String, learning all the scales and modes from scratch, in all the different positions. That was a bit boring, but I knew it would pay off. And it did.

This study allowed me to learn why the things I did instinctively worked. This sped up my development as a musician, especially composing my own music and creating my own arrangements of music. It was also great fun being in a room of mostly talented musicians with a variety of skills.

Ironically. this took me back to the musicals I grew up watching on our 12” black and white rental TV. When I was around 15, I imagined myself writing songs and scores for these kind of shows one day. Of course by the time I could, there was no longer any demand for that style of music, especially in New Zealand.

Over the years, I have continued to learn new (for me) classical music and create my own jazz/chord-melody versions of songs, many following the style of my favourite old jazz guitarists like Charlie Byrd.

But I am not gigging anymore, and these days it is mostly about the thrill of the chase. I really enjoy the learning, but by the time I have learned it, I want to move to something new, which is pretty much the story of my life, and how I have reinvented my career many times.

Anyway, I am grateful to my uncle for opening that door, which I would probably never have entered without him. I have caught up with him many times over the decades, and had the privilege of playing his beautiful Spanish luthier handbuilt guitars. We had a special relationship, as he was still living at home, when I went to live with my grandparents, so he was more like a big brother, than an uncle. Sadly I haven’t been back for about 8 years, and I don’t know if I will ever make the trip again.

This will probably be my last piece for 2025, given there are only a couple of days left in the year. To you subscribers, my thanks for your interest and support. I hope you had a wonderful Christmas and wish you a very Happy New Year. See you all on the other side.