http://youtu.be/r0KOzrMUt10 - the embed version is not available for the video….-

Jazzguitar plus Band (Drums, Sax, Keyboard, Bass)
George Benson played that piece in e minor and during his improvisation he played - as usual - the blues scale in e minor, but with all extensions. He played a lot of sequenced riffs as it is usual to practice scales. Amazing is the speed he can do that! But the ground speed in this interpretation is very slow. Much slower as the Dave Brubeck Quartett played.

Chet Atkins arrangement obviously is influenced by the version of George Benson (or is it the opposite?) . Anyway this both versions have a lot of common in colour, rhythm and speed. And the key of the Atkins Version is e minor like George Benson played. I show you the interpretation of Mr.Spencer`s Chet Atkins version.

And now to the Version of Giuseppe Torrisi: this version is a technical difficult version for classical guitar. Its very near the original version of Dave Brubeck in tempo, harmonisation and feeling, but for guitar transposed into a - minor. The original is in eb minor, which is a big difference. But most of you can not hear that. Because it is for classical solo guitar, all the notes which are normally played by the band, came into the guitar version, which makes that piece more difficult. Even the improvisation part, which is not inside the arrangement, has to keep the Bassline all the time. You can find this arrangement for free on http://www.guitarfreescores.com

For my improvisation I ve got some inspiration from Igor Presnyakov, who played “Take Five” for Solo Guitar first and with his own arrangement.

the poor people, who are living in countries without youtube access can try to listen the version of George Benson and me on Tudou.com. The version of Igor Presnyakov and Chet Atkins you can not find there, really pitty for you!

This beautiful mazurka is a composition of the italian guitarist and composer Giuseppe Torrisi. You can find a lot of his compositions und arrangements on his website
http://www.guitarfreescores.com

Giuseppe Torrisi is a self taught classical guitarist from Catania, Italia. He made his diplom as a guitar teacher at the conservatory “Tita Schipa” in Leece. He attended several postgraduate studies with world famous teachers like Diaz, Chiesa or Minelli

Since 1983 he is working as a guitar player on the Massimo Bellini Theatre and works together with different musical groups in order to bring out Sicilian musical popular traditions. In 1999 he released a solo CD “Dalla Sicilia al Sud America”. He writes a lot of transcriptions and arrangements for classical guitar.

I ve played this mazurka in my living room and then i used a trial edition of Adobe After Efekts to change the background.

And the name`s promiss will not dissapoint you. This colourful piece has the darkness of a blues. It is using the blues scale in e-minor (e - g - g sharp - a - b flat - b - d) most of the time. But in spite of that scale this piece sounds of something else, but not a blues. Only the scale in the almost last bar sounds like a blues scale. But “Echo of a Blues” remembers on a blues in different ways: you can find the melancholy of a turbulent love story. The turbulence comes from the different rhythm parts - many of these rhythm originally were found in the American and Southamerican dancemusic. But here they are transformed into something like “modern classical guitarmusic”. That remembers me on the music from Stravinsky, which also has a lot of jazz influences.
And on the other side - as a contrast - the harmonic Monotonousness. The Harmonic is like a jazz minor blues, but the form is open. So i think, it is useless to count the bars. Just enjoy the music!

for China:

But instead of going to the music fair, I want to introduce Antonio Lauro to you:

Antonio Lauro was born on the 3th of August 1917 in Ciudad Bolivar, Venezulenas. With the age of nine years his family moved to Caracas, where A.Lauro studied music. At that time he mostly played the piano and violin. But later Augustin Barrios Magnore recovered A. Lauro and persuaded him to study guitar. So he studied with Raoul Borges and was introduced in the typical classical guitar repertoire.

As a member of Trio Cantores et Tropico, where Lauro sang the Bass and played the guitar he composed a lot of Valses for that Trio. Later mostly Alirio Diaz, who also was a student of Borges was responsible for making the unrecognized but wonderful pieces wellknown to a bigger audience.

In 1951/52 the militaery junta imprisoned A.Lauro because of his belief in democracy. Shortly before his death in 1986 he received the Premio National de Música, his country’s highest artistic award. (For more information please look at Wikipedia.org!)

Here is the Vals Venezulano Nr.1:

and again on Tudou for my friends in China:

This piece of Dole Dyke is a typical Fingerstyle guitar piece. You can play it on a western guitar or on an acoustic guitar.

There are at least three very important countries for the guitar music: Spain, Latin America and America.

I personally prefer the Latin American Music, but that doesn`t mean that I never want to play Fingerstyle or Blues. Every Style has his special beauty!

And here as a Tudou Video for those who have no access to Youtube:

From tomorrow Monday the 10th of Oktober till Saturday the 15th of Oktober every evening from 18.30 to 20.30 o`clock our guitarist Julia Scheuffele will play Spanish and Latinamerikan music for classical guitar in the Spanish restaurant la Finca in Shanghai, Xin Tian Di.

She will make the backround music for people who wants to eat in a high level enviroment. Good food needs good music, because the people who are coming to this place, mostly have a cultural backround and want to hear high level music during their dinner time.

I asked Julia why she agreed to play in a restaurant and she told me her philosophy:
It is very important which kind of music you have in your backround. Even if you eating and talking beside, the music will influence your mind and your feeling. Julia believes that her music can people make more peaceful and happy. So she decide to work as a backround musician.

As i didn’t bring my computer to Germany there is only some old video i can post today. Please keep on practice your guitar and enjoy your life! Best Regards…..

But working as a teacher I have a big problem: most of my students are not willing to practice like that. If I try to convince them to memorize their pieces, they often tell me, that they can not do that. And if they try, they often need a lot of time to finish one piece. And if they have memorized one piece, they start to forget another one. Why?

Most important reason for that difficulty is the fact, that my students are too busy with school and a lot of other activities. Often they even don`t have time to meet their friends or to play something during the week. Till ten o`clock at the evening they are still busy doing homework. And if they have a little free space, they like to watch TV or play with the computer.

The more busy a child, the worse the ability to imagine music and memorize the guitar pieces. That is really pity. Sometimes I think, it would be better for some of my students to do less at school and to spend more time with “nothing”, till the naturally ability comes back. Because it is “naturally” to remember a song that you ve played severall times. If you can not do this, means, that your brain is over stressed.

To play by heart helps you to develop your imagination and everything your right site of your brain is responsible for. It is evident, that people, who plays by heart have a better feeling as people who needs to watch the sheet.