Contentment by Shawn Bell

Contentment comes to us from an eclectic Canadian musician, Shawn Bell. His works are published by Doberman-Yppan Editions. A number of them appear in the Royal Conservatory series both past and present. His interests seem to currently lie in the field of media and electronic music rather than straight ahead classical. He currently co-designed, and is presently the coordinator and faculty of, the Interactive Media Arts profile at Dawson College in Montreal.

Publications of Contentment

This piece originally appeared in a book titled, Elementary Studies 2, published by Les Éditions Doberman-Yppan. My copy comes from the Royal Conservatory Guitar Series 3rd Edition. However, the song still appears in the current Bridges Preparatory Guitar Series.

About The Piece

This piece falls in the Royal Conservatory level of Preparatory (Introductory in 2004). The key remains in A major throughout. This is a nice change for beginning students that are now able to read three sharps in the key signature. I play it with free strokes but many beginners might find playing with rest strokes more appealing. The fingers and thumb never play together. This works well if you or a student is not yet putting intervals or chords together yet with the thumb and fingers simultaneously.

heck out some of our other articles:

• 3 Things I Am Learning From Beginner Guitar Scales in Open Position
• Mastering the Art: Better Judging of Yourself While Practicing Guitar
• Bransle de Poitou by Adrian Le Roy
• Exercise 13 by Elías Barreiro
• Petit Poney By Yvon Demillac

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Chadwick Becks

I have two degrees in guitar performance and was privileged to study under Aaron Shearer, Tom Kikta, David Skantar, Ken Karsh, Tim Bedner, and currently Christopher Berg. Outside my editorial work on this blog, I teach full-time across many genres including classical, jazz, blues, rock, funk, and metal.