Life in Silico

I’ve always wanted to be a pianist. Back in Moscow, my grandma had a piano in her apartment, and I used to play on it like only a 5 year old without any musical training can. After we immigrated to Israel, various attempts at learning the piano didn’t work - we couldn’t get an instrument, couldn’t find a teacher, or whatever happened back then. Studying guitar for a year during Middle School didn’t help either. What’s a guitar next to a piano, right?

My daydreams of grandeur were replaced by the realization that I wasn’t getting any younger, and that I had a perfectly good guitar lying around the house since my Middle School years. Still, the impetus behind my real interest in the instrument came only about half a year ago, when my mom dragged me to a tiny concert where my now-teacher performed. Perhaps it was a time when any live performance would do. Still, his effortless playing which suited so well the classical guitar - ethnic music, including flamenco - got me hooked.

Now, classical guitar is something people usually play before they get their US$10,000 Ibanez or Gibson to keep the neighbors from sleeping, not something you perform with. Nerds don’t play it, either - they play the violin, flute, or whatever. It’s an instrument that in the popular imagination is reserved for teaching or campfires, being neither cool nor particularly artistic (or at least boringly generic). If this is true for you, I hope it changes after the following video showcase.

To start, imagine a Slavic grandpa, with glasses, red shirt, black trousers and black vest, always smiling, telling stories to little kids while they sit on his lap playing with his gray beard. A bit like Farther Frost (keep your stinking Santa Claus to yourselves, Western imperialists…). Oh, and he’s a god on the guitar:

There are a bunch of videos of Stepan Rak’s compositions on youtube, but only one other video of him performing. Another piece is called “The Mountain”, performed by Dimitris Kotronakis. Besides being a virtuoso, he plays the first minute and a half with only one hand on the fretboard. How’s that for pull-offs and hammer-ons?

Another grandpa, this time a Spaniard. Carlos Montoya did a lot to popularize the solo flamenco guitar, as opposed to just part of an ensemble or an accompaniment to flamenco dancers and singers.

And Paco de Lucia, of whom you probably heard, possibly through his collaboration on Mediterranean Sundance (he even gave a concert in Israel!):

Classical, but still Spanish music. The following piece is called Leyenda (”Legend”, although owing to an historical accident it is now best known as Asturias) and was originally written for the piano by Isaac Albéniz in the end of the 19th century. His contemporary, guitar virtuoso Francisco Tárrega, transcribed it to guitar and it is said that Albéniz liked the transcription better than the original. Played by John Williams, the English (well, he was born in Australia, but resides in England) god of classical guitar (Shai suggested another interpretation, of Ana Vidovic, but being a chauvinistic pig I won’t embed it):

One of my favorite pieces, La Catedral by Agustín Barrios. This performance is by a Turkish student, and even though there are videos of more professional guitarists playing this piece, I liked his interpretation best:

A more energetic piece, Zapateado, written by Joaquín Rodrigo and performed by Jerome Ducharme, a Canadian guitarist who won the Guitar Foundation of America’s Competition, not hard to see why:

Back to contemporary land, first, a piece by American composer Andrew York (thanks, Shai!) It clocks 5:14 minutes, but for some reason the video jumps to bits of other, unrelated performances. Go figure…

And a curious composition by Nikita Koshkin, with some strange guitar effects I didn’t even think possible:

Wrapping up, two performances by Japanese guitarist Kazuhito Yamashita. First, a rant: I think that if there’s any nation that is justified in being racist it’s the Japanese. They have the frightening ability of taking pieces of another culture and remaking it into something different, at times bizarre and screwed up, and at times much better. Mr. Yamashita is a case in point. He is a virtuoso and a genius, although many would say that his talent is misapplied. He can retune his guitar while playing - and some of the things he plays actually demand he do that. He transcribed orchestra pieces for solo guitar - Dvorak’s New World Symphony and Stravinsky’s Firebird Suite, for example (The Infernal Dance of Kastchei the Immortal is great, it just oozes Slavic evil). And that goes to prove my point about the Japanese.

The following video is Yamashita’s transcription of Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition, written for the piano. More specifically, it’s the last two movements,The Hut of Baba Yaga (first minute) and The Bahatyr Gate of Kiev. These are actually shortened versions: on his CD, The Hut is 3 minutes, and The Bahatyr Gate is 7 minutes. Still, you see him playing, and it’s… it’s talent, that’s what it is. How many guitarists, classical or not, can play like that?

And that’s classical guitar for you, folks. Hope you enjoyed it.