Sciapodus by Shawn Bell

Sciapodus 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 Sciapodus

This piece is published by Les Productions d’OZ under a collection titled Elementary Studies, Vol. 2. The edition I played from was in the Royal Conservatory. They list it at the Preparatory level.

About The Piece

Sciapodus presents a wonderful introduction for students to the 6/8 time signature. The word is actually an English word meaning “to have very large feet.”^[1]Merriam-Webster. (n.d.). Sciapodous. In Merriam-Webster.com dictionary. Retrieved December 15, 2021, from https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/sciapodous This description becomes obvious as the “heavy” bass notes of the open E string ring throughout the piece. It contains two F#s on string ①. Aside from the 6/8 time signature, the beat adds significantly to the feeling of weightiness in the pulse. The piece works well played with rest and free strokes. However, certain points in the music require the thumb and a finger to play simultaneously and could cause trouble for some students.

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.