Antonio Lauro: Song and Dance
Dear fellow guitarists,
The Latin-American journey continues! This time, we look at the music of Antonio Lauro in two contrasting pieces from his vast output. Each one of these pieces explores ideas about song and dance in the Latin-American style. We'll explore everything from specific fingerings to broad musical ideas and, most importantly, how both of these go hand in hand.
See you there!
Emmanuel
The Venezuelan Antonio Lauro was one of the most important South American composers of the past century. On a mission to honour his country’s national musical heritage, he amalgamated the rich traditional music of Venezuela with the craft of a classical composer.
Join Emmanuel Sowicz as he presents two contrasting compositions by Lauro: Ana Florencia (Lullaby) and La Negra (Venezuelan Waltz). Inspired in song and dance, both pieces present a rich and varied expression of the Latin-American musical style.
Find the start time in your time zone by clicking the photo or following this event link:
https://app.tonebase.co/guitar/live/player/antonio-lauro-song-and-dance
We are going to be using this thread to gather suggestions and questions!
- What questions do you have on this topic?
- Any particular area you would like me to focus on?
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I practiced Ana Florencia for about one hour today, and here is a video of my progress. I had never played the piece, or anything by Lauro, previously.
I have a couple questions for Emmanuel or anybody:
- From the end of measure 1 to the start of measure 2, I have a lot of glissando sound. Should that be toned down? If so, how can I while keeping the melody line legato?
- In measures 7 and 9 (at the beginning of the B section) I am finding it necessary to adjust my barre halfway through each measure. I'm switching between 5/6 barre and full barre. I do it in order to get the notes to ring clearly as well as stop the bass notes from bleeding into the next chord. Is this the best way to do that, or is there another way?
Any input would be greatly appreciated. Thank you again, Emmanuel, for such a great lesson!
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Emmanuel Thank you so much, Emmanuel! Those suggestions are all very clear and give me great things to practice. I really appreciate all the guidance you give me.
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Eric Phillips It's my pleasure, Eric! Really glad to be of help. I've also sent you a little email with a few thoughts in case it happens to be useful. See you around soon!
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Emmanuel Thank you again. I just checked it out and responded.
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Eric Phillips wonderfull! Great job.
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Daniel Beltrán Thank you, Daniel. Emmanuel gave me many great suggestions to keep working on.
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Eric Phillips and congratulations
you really impress me with how fast you can learn new pieces, Eric! You're a piece-learning-beast haha. -
Daniel Beltrán Yes, I learn how to play a lot of pieces, but I struggle with taking pieces to that next level of musicality. It also helps that I'm a teacher and right now it's summer! Fairly soon, I'm going to have to start preparing for September and I won't be able to play guitar as much.
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Hi Emmanuel,
I was comparing the score that you shared with us and the one that I played for Maestro Lauro and there is one note that is different. In measure 11, Alirio Diaz has an E# where in my score it is an E natural. I do not recall Lauro correcting me on that note, although I also recognize that Alirio Diaz was very close to Lauro and may have the correct score. What are your thoughts on this?
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Hi Dale !
I would go with an E# there, based purely on analysing the harmonic context in the score.
The piece is in E major and bar 11 modulates towards F#m, where it lands in bar 12 before returning to E major again. If we place ourselves in that context (F#m) in bar 11, it's easy to see the first beat is a pre-dominant harmony (B minor chord) which leads to a dominant harmony, in this case, a C#7 (hence the E# sharp). By playing an E natural, you'd end up with something a bit modal which doesn't have the same pull or tension towards F#m.
Additionally, if you look at bar 12 you see that the E# is being used there, as well as some further chromatic harmonies which give lots of tensions and releases. This all leads me to think the E# makes more sense in bar 11.
I would certainly take into account if Lauro specifically stated he wanted an E natural, though if I'm honest I would still find it slightly out of place. So on this occasion, I'm inclined to follow Alirio Diaz' edition.
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Hi Emmanuel,
Thanks for your detailed reply. Makes sense. Best, Dale
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Hi Emmanuel, hope you're doing great. One question, did you delete the scores with your fingerings from this thread? I can't find them here...
