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
📫 Sign-Up
421 replies
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I'm plugging along on V, but it will be a while until I have anything post-worthy. I rate myself as around a Level 7 on the tonebase scale-- I came to classical guitar playing during the pandemic after being a sort of folky player. I'm learning to better read sheet music; the rhythms are still hard for me to read, so I often rely on recordings to better "feel" the rhythms.
I chose V because I thought is was cool rhythmically, yet had a familiar "Landslide" pattern for the first 4 bars. (At least I could get started on a familiar foot!)
I thought I'd share this YouTube video with the group-- in case anyone else is looking into V, as I found it to be a rendition of V that helped me to "get under" bars 5-9, which were mystifying me for a bit as I tried to read it off the page. I also really like the pace and the dynamics of this player's interpretation; that is, for my ears, this interpretation is expressive in a way I dig (in my limited investigation)-- even if it is just meant for students.
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I've been working on III since this was announced, since it's so much fun. I need to balance the voices better, but I'm happy with where it's at. The breakthrough for me was treating it like a scalar exercise instead of a chordal one. I kept getting tripped up trying to fret two notes at once, so when I started fretting one at a time, it got better. IV is one of my favorites, and there's definitely more that I think can be added. Like said, there is so much to these "simple" exercises I think.
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Since my left hand injury is not yet ready to record, here is a prior recording on Tonebase of Etude No. VII. Sorry for the poor recording quality.
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In Etude #20, does anyone know how to interpret the wavy lines between each rapid sixteenth notes box pattern sections; some type of repetition pattern?? Thanks!
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You have to wave the sound of the pattern by bending the strings... 😂 No joke it's to indicate to repeat the box pattern.
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I can do the string bending on my electric guitar, haha.
Do you mean that Leo wants "one repeat" of each box pattern?
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I think it means to repeat as we see fit, if it was just once he would have just wrote it as standard notation IMHO.
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here’s a video I found: https://youtu.be/gLvQODmn1bw?si=lWJOvth0WYlvOET2
And this one follows the score:
https://youtu.be/UtQ1b4zohhA?si=Qc8wpagFycnWbEs_
also, Buono has a nice recording of the studies: https://music.apple.com/us/album/brouwer-estudios-sencillos-preludios-epigram%C3%A1ticos/633676665
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I was gonna say it's for the whammy bar, but sadly my guitar doesn't have one, lol.
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I got fooled! Now I have to ask my luthier to add one! 😆
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