Overwhelmed By Guitar Music

This past week flew by faster than a Paco de Lucia scale! I was hoping to have a supporter sign up last week but I had no such luck. But that’s okay, number one is out there somewhere (be my first supporter by the way). Now, let’s get into my week and how overwhelmed I felt at the sheer volume of guitar music.

Recap Of Last Week’s Practice

Like the week before, I continued to focus a large portion of my time on the basics and technical shortcomings. I am staying with coordination and string crossing exercises. To this, I added several arpeggios from Giuliani Revisited. The slurs using fingers 3 and 4 are still a challenge and they get attention daily. Scales are still being reviewed in the open position at 80 Bpm playing the sixteenth note for clarity with the cadential chords following.

After returning to a solid routine for technique, I turned my attention to the repertoire. This where my heart began to speed up. The last piece Christopher Berg assigned me was Fandanguillo by Turina. I have it memorized and enjoy working on it as a challenge and musically. However, I can only practice it for an unknown amount of time before it needs to rest until the following day. Naturally, I began to look at my old repertoire and the guitar literature to begin or re-begin another piece.

So Much Guitar Music

Anxiety crept in like a flood! There is so much music out there. I’m not sure why, but I almost gave up this dream of mine at that very moment. The vastness just overwhelmed me. Was it worth it? Who listens to classical music these days anyway? And some months it just barely pays the rent. I had to get up and walk away from the guitar.

On my walk around the parking lot, I began to express gratitude for this instrument and the gift of making music. I know I’ll never be a John Williams or Manuel Barrueco. I know many who, for better or worse, have left music for other fields that pay better. I am thankful that I am still here and sharing this music. I am thankful that I am still trying to get better and better, little by little. I returned to the studio and promptly began working on the English Suite: Prelude by John Duarte. I hope a day like this past Wednesday doesn’t visit me again soon.

Upcoming This Week

This week, the above will continue. I also am still playing the three études mentioned last Monday daily. I have a couple of reference videos to record and publish for students. I did not get them up last week and hope that time does not run out again this week. Above all, I’ll remain thankful.

Thanks for reading!

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.