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'm not very familiar with Lauro or these pieces, but your live lessons have been so spectacular that I would not miss this!
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Thank you, Eric – that's very kind! I look forward to sharing these with you on Tuesday. See you there!!
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I agree with Eric Phillips your live stream and your other Tonebase lessons are very informative and extremely helpful ... I'll be watching but probably after the live event time ...
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Thank you, margaret ! Hope you find it useful.
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Hello guys, really looking forward for this one! Thanks Emmanuel for doing this!
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My pleasure, Daniel ! Wonderful to have you in the audience. Todos mis mejores deseos para tus estudios en Mérida! Un fuerte abrazo, Emmanuel
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Daniel Beltrán Hola, Loved seeing that you are from Merida, Venezuela. Visited your lovely city in 1990. You might want to check out the Venezuelan guitarist, Bartolome Diaz. He is the Director de Cultura de Universidad Metropolitana UNMET and the Director de El Taller de Los Juglares in Caracas. He is an amazing guitarist who studied with both Antonio Lauro and Abel Carlevaro. Maestro Diaz play is doing some very interesting things with the classical and electric guitar.
Dale
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Dale Needles Hello! Thanks for your comment, Dale!
And congratulations for your experiences with maestro Lauro, it's amazing that you had two private lessons with him! Actually I´m not from Mérida, I´m from Lechería, Anzoategui, that is at the other side of the country, but I currently study in the Universidad de Los Andes, there in the occidental and beautiful city of Mérida. Yes, I've researched a little about maestro Bartolomé Díaz but not found to many recordings of him playing classical guitar unfortunately, mostly electric guitar, but yes, it´s great what I´ve heard from him! Mircea told us in the first community hangout that you suggested inviting him to a livestream, that´s a great idea! I would also love to invite my current professor, Ender Vielma, he is based in Germany and has won some International composition competitions, he´s pretty good and studied as well in the Universidad de Los Andes.
Dale, it would be great to see you in an upcomming Community Hangout, and to have the oportunity to meet you in person one day would be amazing.
Goodbye Dale, thanks!
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Emmanuel Muchas gracias Emmanuel! Saludos y un abrazo!
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Daniel Beltrán
Hola Daniel,
Just wanted to let you know that I plan to zoom attend the next Community Hangout on Tuesday and share with the group my experience studying with and working for Abel Carlevaro. Hope to meet you there.
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Dale Needles Hello Dale, great. I'll be there
It will be awesome to meet you there and to hear about your experience with maestro Carlevaro! It would be great to hear a little of that experience with Antonio Lauro as well if there's a bit of time left -
Daniel Beltrán Here you find all the information for the Zoom Virtual Hangout!
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Hi everyone, thanks for joining! Wishing all of you who have picked up these pieces many happy hours. All best, Emmanuel
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Emmanuel Thank you, Emmanuel, for another great lesson! There is so much to enjoy in your lessons, but I think I most enjoy your insights on fingering and how it impacts the music. I plan to start working on Ana Florencia tomorrow!
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Thanks Emmanuel - looking forward to working through these pieces. Thanks for another great live stream and some great insights
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Eric Phillips Glad to hear you find the connection between fingerings and phrasing as fascinating as I do. I still find it amazing to explore how much expression can be unlocked in a piece when you have the right fingerings!
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Ron Really glad to have shared these with you. How you are enjoying learning them! All best, Emmanuel
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Emmanuel I've not spent much time on them yet as I'm working on the Sergio Assad community challenge at the moment but I'm continuing to practice a lot of the techniques for chosing fingerings, phrasing, achivieng legato etc. that I've learnt from your livestreams. I find them a really valuable resource - thnak you!
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Congratulations Emmanuel, even if you don't understand English much, you can make me understand how to play the piece, with very good fingerings,Thanks
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Giuseppe Gasparini Very glad it was useful. All best wishes! Emmanuel
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Thanks for sharing the scores.
Dale
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Found them….thx for posting. Another great lesson Emmanuel!
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Paul Kennedy Pleasure! Glad you enjoyed it (and found the scores!).
All best, Emmanuel
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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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Hi Eric ,
Thank you for your kind message and for another great video! Fantastic job on learning this within an hour and really glad to hear you enjoyed discovering Lauro's music.
To answer your first question, you can decrease the sound of the glissando while keeping the technical benefit of the guide finger by decreasing the amount of pressure on the string as you slide. Alternatively, you can also stop the resonance of that string with your right hand a finger for the duration of the slide (that is, not very long!), though I don't prefer this as it can easily chop the legato. An alternative case could be made for keeping the glissando as it is and basically consider that top B as a second melody worth emphasising a little bit (and maybe letting ring a tad longer). If so, I'd take care to still giving attention to the F#-E-C# line, just as you're already doing.
Barres – I know what you mean. I used to adjust my barres quite a bit too. However, I found that if I could keep a single bar position I could then clean up the resonance of the unwanted basses with my right-hand thumb (Martin will be doing a livestream on dampening on 27 July). The other point you mention on getting clear notes under the bar can be a bit trickier. You might be able to solve it with a slightly stronger bar. Or, if you have an uneven finger surface (mine is a bit bumpy), you might find that playing any buzzing notes a bit softer, before they start buzzing, could help. Otherwise, if all fails, adjusting the bar as you are doing is a legitimate solution.
Thanks again for your music and see you soon!
Emmanuel
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