Leo Brouwer's Estudios Sencillios!
Welcome to our next Study Group — a collaborative, peer-led dive into a beautiful piece of music over the course of two weeks.
This time, we’re diving into the methodical riches of Brouwer’s Estudios Sencillos 1–10!
This is not a course or a class — it’s a space for mutual exploration, discussion, and shared progress. I’ll be learning the piece alongside you (again — it’s been a while!), and I’m excited to discover new things together.
🗓️ What to expect:
Over the next two weeks, we’ll focus on:
🎯 Fingerings and technique
🎯 Methodical background
🎯 Interpretation and expressive choices
🎯 Your own questions and perspectives!
We’ll also meet for two live Zoom sessions to share progress, chat about challenges, and nerd out over all things Brouwer.
✅ How to participate:
Sign up through the Forum
Grab your score of the Estudios Sencillos
Introduce yourself below!
Join the prompts and discussion
Share your thoughts, ideas, or a clip of your playing
📅 Live Zoom Calls:
🗓️ Dates: July 28th – August 8th
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149 replies
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Hey Tonebuddies, as we're already on day two and the discussion about Estudio #1 seems to slowdown a bit, here's a quick take for Estudio #2 for sharing technical and interpretation ideas! In this one, like the scores says, I think about it as a choral writing and also as voices, I could easily imagine a Gregorian-like chant with men's voices. My main focus is about homogeneity and legato of sound for the upper voices, that act as a block, and a supporting bass, a little further back. Although not yet perfect, to achieve this effect I had to use the technique of "swigging freely" as opposed to planting, an amusing reference in a recent Tonebase reel! 😅Let me know your ideas!
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Hi , and All following this interesting thread! Nice rendering, Blaise! I was following course and this estudio came up and I, as sometimes happends, diverge a little bit from some fingerings in a sort of interesting way, so i posted a video on the General Discussion part of the forum. You are welcomed to watch it if you are interested (link below)
My fingerings were motivated by my desire to keep the basses all the same duration and later on I followed my desire to eliminate the open strings in that GBE chord in the development.
I understand how these fingerings may make things a little harder but I am always under the impression that the pieces we have known for a long time are the most fun playgrounds to take chances and fool around a little so that we may find something new and beautiful in between the things that we already know. This Choral, as Rene says, is one of the most beautiful studies. So I'd go to any lengths to make something special of it.
I think the basses are a very special sound material (I think of them as bells and hence my right hand goes always to the middle of the string to play them). I think the legato is extremely difficult to achive and deserves a very careful right and left hand synchronization work. What Blaise mentions about not being able to "plant" and prepare the right hand is something to work on too!
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(and other participants) An interesting post, and a fun title! My approach to fingerings is always about them to serve the musical idea I have to propose and express, hardly the opposite. You made different choices and they serve well your ideas, kudos for this approach to the musical text. Also, as a side note, I strongly think (my personal point of view) that not planting and «swigging freely» is also skill to develop, for music and sound, for legato and colors.
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Hi!
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My approach to fingerings is always about them to serve the musical idea I have to propose and express, hardly the oppositeI'm sorry if anything I said gave the impression that I thought differently. I was talking in general, and not at all refering to your version, in particular. Sorry! Your approach is the rule and the correct one, of course!
This thing about "free swingging vs. planting"....it's something very interesting and not just related to this Estudio Sencillo, at all. I think I'd like to write a post about this soon to have a place to discuss with all of you further. I see that all Tonebase is a reflection of current world technique development in this aspect and that this has turned in the last 20 years to planting as a major resource for security and virtuosity in the right hand. And certainly "planting" has a lot of "pros". But the "cons" of planting are very seldomly discussed. And there are quite a few. On the contrary, "Free swinging" has it's own complexities but has many pros that have been put a little aside and that we could reconsider.
I'll write the post and paste the link asap.
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Ariel- I agree with your treatment of the bass notes. It provides a more complete harmony and nicer sound while maintaining the choral character of the piece.
Perhaps Leo's fingerings in this case ( #2) were considered more accessible for the beginner guitarist. Thanks for sharing your alternative fingering.
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Also to expand a bit more about the way I articulate the phrase and the harmony, the motive starts on the third beat of a mesure and ends up on the second beat of the next one with the bass note, and the phrase combines two motives, basically.
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Hi, Barney! yes, of course. I agree with you about the firngerings laid by Brouwer. But i always like to rant a littlle against the obedience to written fingerings
You are welcome!
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yes,... i see what you do. You chose the opposite way. That's the other possibility. Instead of making every base equally long you do them equally short. That's certainly an option. What I found hard to swallow in the score was the written admission that open string basses and G note basses were not going to sound equally long. hahaha... like saying: yeah, well,... it's not possible so, don't even worry about it.
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The score is horrible in my opinion, in this style of writing the basses should have been better balanced (as you mention) and there's also a missing line between bar 8 and 9 to separate them in my edition.. Could also be mistakes from the engraver or even choices made by the editor when he did his own revision.
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Are you using the old Eschig edition? I've considered buying the Zigante edition, but since it still says Eschig, I'm not sure if things like this and the incorrect bass notes in X are fixed.
You both mentioned using the Zigante edition. Can you tell me if that edition fixes things like the issues Blaise and I mentioned?
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I bought the whole set (divided in 4 booklets of 5 studies) in the '90, so yes that's the Max Eschig edition, I've never seen the Zigante edition, I hope they fixed a few things across the whole set, I would very like to see a digital version by Brouwer's editions but it looks like nothing's there.
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said:
I'm sorry if anything I said gave the impression that I thought differently. I was talking in general, and not at all refering to your version, in particular. Sorry! Your approach is the rule and the correct one, of course!No in any case and I'm sorry if my answer sounded like I supposed you were not doing the same, your version is coherent with the choices you made and you explained it very well, and me too I was referring to a general approach of technique first and then music. I'm not saying my approach is the right one, I think «it is» for myself as I play «music» on a guitar, then music is what drives what I'm doing on the instrument. I like to think about this as MDT «Music Driven Technique» similar to TDD «Test Driven Development» in programming where you code use case tests before implementing the real code, then outline musical ideas before fingering and technically plan everything out upfront.
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"planting" has a lot of "pros". But the "cons" of planting are very seldomly discussed. And there are quite a few. On the contrary, "Free swinging" has it's own complexities but has many pros that have been put a little aside and that we could reconsider.I hear you, I come from a school where the concept that each note must resonate through to the next and that music is legato by default unless otherwise indicated. In this approach, "planting" cannot be applied by default as a basic premise for sound production since it cancels out the default legato that the music underlies. I'm not saying not to do "planting" or that I never do it myself, it's part of my toolbox and I use it where it serves music, technique and sound.
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Right and left hand muting is not an area I'm strong in, so I'm using #1 as a chance to work on that and try to keep the melody notes to their given values. For #2, I change some of the fingering to hold the bass notes longer, and I agree with Ariel that the open notes in mm6 don't quite work, especially since that's the high point of the piece. In my playing, balancing the sound of the fretted and open strings is not too tough at lower volumes, but in louder passages, I can't pull it off. I always used a different solution that lets me keep my hand in the same spot.
