Blues Degree?

I know. You're preaching to the choir. Got a stack of the lit. Including lute - transcribed for guitar. You missed Mexican guitar - that's a separate and beautiful thing. There's a guy on YouTube - Stefan Schyga. He teaches guitar in a US college and knows and plays a lot of Mexican music - and Mexican style pieces he's composed. I've dabbled in it. Downloaded some sheet music he offered.

I get around.

 

Great! Do you have a good malaguena?

 

Are there any bad ones? Keith Richards said anybody who can't play Malagueña is not a guitarist. I tend to follow his advice.

I have sheet music to Ernesto Lecuona's composition somewhere. Packed away for a potential move. My own living-room version is grossly inaccurate, but built on the same chord structure, with the riffs a bit jumbled, but comfortably so, I think. Nobody has thrown anything. Sounds OK to me but what do I know?

And playing rasgueados must be extremely difficult on your piano...

 

Oh, the Lecuona malaguena is not something I'm nearly ready to take on yet.

 

I wasn't either -- but there was nobody to tell me that, and so many people were playing it on guitar. If they could, I thought I probably could too. And Keith Richards said I ought to. Like most of those I heard, my version is none-too-faithful to what the composer actually wrote. I heard it played so many ways, with so much improvisation, that I "did it my way". Most interesting take I heard was by Jose Feliciano, now 78, a popular Latin and soft-rock guitarist / singer, who had a string of hits starting in the mid 60s. He played with a flatpick, rather than right-hand fingers. You can find several of his versions on YouTube, Just put in "jose feliciano malaguena" in the YT search bar.

Picks are unusual in nylon-string guitar playing. Classical players - not at all. Another person using that technique is a 'new flamenco' player, Canadian Jesse Cook. He's dazzling-fast, usually plays all the falsetas with a pick and has an accompanying guitarist handling a lot of the rhythm. He's nothing short of electrifying.

Another genre I like to hear, on nylon-string guitar, is "Gipsy Rumba." Many Roma (Gypsy) guitarists and some Gadje (non-Gypsies) play this style. You've probably heard the "Gipsy Kings," popular from 2-3-4 decades ago. Another player I really like is Stochelo Rosenberg, a Rom who excels at playing both "Gipsy Rumba'"and "Gypsy Jazz." The basic rhythm of "Gipsy Rumba" is not hard to master. It's 16 bars with these chords, two bars each. Am, Dm, E7, Am, Cmaj 7, F maj 7, E7 Am. Mastering the melody lines is harder. WAY harder. I'm a beginner here - probably always will be.
,

 

So - yes, I like a lot of kinds of music. But my first love is the Blues - and happily, always will be.
Ever heard the Bluesman's Epitaph? "Didn't wake up this Morning."

 

Maybe you could find another version or arrangement then.

 

"Arrangement" is something my teacher discourages. Either play it as written or not at all. If you lack the skill, stick with the program and you will get there in due time.

This isn't as draconian as it may sound. At any given time I have more music in the works than I have time to prepare properly and there's a definite succession of ever more complex pieces to master. I'm sure that for some, perhaps yourself, learning is effortless but for me it's plain hard work and as much of that as I can manage.

I derive much pleasure from playing but for now I think I should stick to the schedule. I am a mere student at this point after all and I'm playing at a level far beyond what I had thought possible.

More info than you needed! Sorry.

 

No - I found it very interesting. Your learning is very orderly and your teacher is obviously well- experienced in managing the process. And there are very good reasons why that is necessary.I'm sure this method produces the best results for students of classical piano. Bravo!

My earlier learning experience was different. I'l spare you the small details. Suffice it to say I was learning a different kind of music. Many of the famed talents in blues do not read music. Even B.B. King did not read music when he started his career. He
learned to read the dots, not for performance skills, (he already had a full set), but to write arrangements for his band. He did those, so he wouldn't have to pay others. Bluesonomics 101.

Back in 1963 I could find ZERO books on blues harmonica - lots a very few years later. A friend told me what key to use - starting on the 5th note of the harmonica's major scale - to get a major scale with a flatted 7th, very good for blues. I knew notes had to be 'bent' and I experimented, along with records. Bending, use of tremolo and maintaining a rhythm. The core skills are not rocket science. There are many good players -- "perfect" is the enemy of "good" here. Unlike classical piano and that's only right. It sounds different.
To my ear, the small, 10-hole harmonica is the most "American" sound in the whole of music.

After all these years, I'm still learning guitar by haphazard, undisciplined methods: books, friends, local performers - and the privilege of seeing and hearing a few of the greats. I claim no particular degree of proficiency; I just enjoy it. If I didn't - I'd stop playing. I think...

 

For me it's a question of efficient use of time and effort. I tried playing without a teacher for about a year. I didn’t get nowhere, I was able to play some things, but I picked up bad habits in the process that I've had to unlearn in order to advance. Right now I'm somewhere in the middle of the "intermediate" level.

 

I admire your discipline. If I'd had that, I might have been Keith Richards. I don't think Keith would have liked that.

Or maybe Lightnin' Hopkins. I think if I had to listen to only one Bluesman, it would be Lightnin', who left us in 1982. Lightnin' was unique - and part of that was his idiosyncratic timing. Unpredictably, he'd shrink a 12-bar blues to 11 bars, or stretch it out to 13 1/2. Drove studio musicians crazy. One day the bass player and drummer - two professionals - complained that his chord changes were all over the map.

Lightnin's answer: "Lightnin' change, when Lightnin' WANT to change." I loved him for that - and of course, his music. I always will.

 

Disciplined maybe but talented? Not so much. Piano training for me is mostly bullheaded determination. Flows like cement.

 

I don't waste good bullheaded determination on music. I save it all for DI.
Seriously, I hope the 'slog' doesn't dull your love for, or your pleasure in music. Hopefully, it gets easier by dint of that constant practice.