Thank you soooo much for making the Pro-Arté EJ46′s. It feels as though my life is now complete.
Love always,
Rob
I finally found a set of strings that sound great on my Ramirez. It only took me about 10 different brands and about $120 to find them, but at least I found them.
For many years my favorite guitar strings were the D’Addario J-31′s.
The problem with the J-31′s is that the treble strings are noisy when recording. Since I’ve been making my CDs, I have not been using these strings. I was unable to find strings I liked until the EJ46′s. Thankfully, the EJ46′s have a clear nylon and are not noisy. I will probably keep the J-31′s on my Alverez because I do love their sound.
Here is a video of me playing my arrangement of House of the Rising Sun using the Pro-Arté EJ46′s.
Ok, so I am a bit fatigued from listening to too much Ewan Dobson. I think I watched just about every one of his videos on youtube and now I am fine with not listening to him for a while.
Now on to Kazuhito Yamashita. He is, at least for me, just about the best guitarist out there. He has been somewhat of a controversial character (in the small world of classical guitar music). People complain that he plays too fast and he shouldn’t make the transcriptions (Mussorgski’s Pictures at an Exhibition, Stravinsky’s Firebird, Rimsky-Korsakov’s Scherezade and Dvořák’s Symphony of the New World) he makes. I don’t know, I haven’t heard the Firebird or the New World Symphony but his Pictures at an Exhibition is just about the best thing I’ve seen this week. Matanya Ophee gives an entertaining review of a performance (1984) at http://www.guitarandluteissues.com/rmcg/ophee.html
Here is a portion of the Pictures:
There are a couple of reasons why I like this guy.
1. I love his interpretations. He doesn’t just “play the notes.”
2. I love watching him perform. I couldn’t hit half the notes moving around like he does ( I have a hard enough time sitting still.)
3. He plays with passion. There is a lot of fire in his playing and that is what I like about him the most.
Every year the Guitar Foundation of America crowns a new hot shot guitarist in their guitar competition. Every single one of them are impressive from a technical point of view (they can all play circles around me with one finger tied behind their back) but most of them I find boring to listen to. What I want from a performer is some serious passion, even if that means there are wrong notes from time to time. Yamashita gives me that.
Yamashita has recorded about 80 albums, all of which, apparently, were not released in the United States. Luckily there are a few videos on youtube. Here is one of my favorites:
Nikita Koshkin is one of my favorite guitarist/composers. Lately, he has been working on a set of preludes and fugues for the guitar. There are a variety of these pieces on youtube, this one in F sharp minor is my personal favorite. Props should be given to the filmmaker as well, Roman Gurochkin. You can learn more about him at his website. Finally, the performer, Asya Selyutina, does a wonderful job.
I recently purchased a Zoom H2 handy recorder and I wanted to test it out. I recorded the audio using both the video camera (Sony) and the H2. I then split them up. The first time is the audio from the video camera, the second is from the Zoom H2.
The zoom recorder is about 18 inches away and about a foot off the ground.
The piece is something I am currently composing now.
