Leo Brouwer's Estudios Sencillios!

Barney This is a very interesting question, Barney. I think many different possible answers. Here's mine:

For starters let me tell you an anecdote that I always like to tell. My father was until recently 1st second violinist in the Argentine National Symphony Orchestra, a great musician and a great teacher. Every year he calls me early in the morning the day of my birthday to greet me. Some years ago it was already near midday and he hadn't called and it was strange but I was not worried and sure enough a couple of minutes later he called and said: "I wanted to play Happy Birthday for you with the violin on the phone so I started studying early to do a nice version and got caught up in it but I am still not happy with how it sounds, so Happy Birthday!!" 

Following this anecdote, let me say that I think pieces are like friends. You develop a relation through time that allows you to talk about deeper matters and ask more complex favors. The fact that many institutional pedagogies are built on the "One program per Year" idea without any sistematic revisiting of old materials is, IMO, one of the most easyly trackable reasons for frustrated musicians.  

Based on this two premises, I'd tell you that I teach my youngest students (7 to 12) these Estudios Sencillos as soon as possible. Even before Carulli or Carcassi. At least the first one. And I try to do as much music as possible even with the first approach. I use them also with graduated students, to teach them many things I often find they lack even after becoming colleagues. These studies are very versatile, because they are very well structured and because they are good music. What you can teach on them depends of who is teaching and who is learning. But they are as nice a playfield as they come. As it happened to my father, I find things to work on myself over them, too. And, at the same time, they also give me a free pass to have some kind of fun and carelessness that brings out a playfull creativity in me.  I don't think you can teach technical stuff separatedly from musical stuff. I was always confused by the idea that you need to have something technically resolved before you "put music into it", so i try to avoid that approach with my youngests from the beginning. 

Regarding your second part of the question: you'll have to forgive me again for the sacrilege (as in my post of #2) but I don't think Brouwer intended the first 10 as a sequence or with specific content pedagogically oriented. No matter what he may say, I think he wrote small micro-pieces (which are a germ for a lot of his following more complex compositions) and just named them Studies. I do believe that after the success of the first ten he revisited his idea and then composed the other 30 thinking more specifically about them being more "content oriented compositions". And If I wanted to really misbehave I could even say I think that may have been also a kind of marketing issue. But I won't. 

Ariel Elijovich That's a beautiful story about your father, and it is a perfect illustration of the value of these kinds of works. Borbola Seres did a couple of sessions on Tonebase a while ago and she told me that I don't need to play longer more challenging pieces to be creative and expressive. She said to write out stories and make every note matter. It's better for me to play simpler works well than mediocre versions of pieces well out of my range. I'm still working on bringing those things out more in my recordings, but I really do enjoy playing and studying music more.  

I have a different take on the intent of these first ten studies though. With the exception of harmonics, I think they do a good job of featuring pretty much every technique in very few pieces. They also introduce musical concepts like canon, complex rhythms, odd meters, etc. To get something in a handful of pieces this comprehensive by Sor, Giuliani, or Sagreras, I'd have to mix and match from all of their different sets. This is just a layman's take though.

Thanks again for what you bring to the discussion here. This whole community has made this an extremely valuable session.

Ariel Elijovich This is so interesting --from your anecdote to your informed explanation and opinion.  It makes a great deal of sense!  You are a wonderful teacher and I always learn important things from your contributions to this community.  I appreciate your valued advice!  Thank you!!

Blaise Laflamme  Thanks Blaise.  I appreciate your insight about this.  There is so much pedogogical material out there, so it's great to identify the valuable ones.  I've never worked with these pieces  as a young student, but only when involved with Tonebase.  

Have  you also ever worked the next group 11-20?

Blaise Laflamme Got it!  Thanks Blaise!

Steve Price Barney Blaise Laflamme I'm happy to contribute and you can be sure I'm getting my share of learning from you too. For example, yesterday, I arrived thanks to your profile, Barney, to the hairpin post made by don ! I have heard similar approaches to legato phrase ties as marks of diminuendo instead of phrasing, in Beethoven mostly. But this was a very interesting new information and I'll be commenting on it asap. 

Regarding your comment, Steve, of course, this 10 first approach a very wide range of guitar possibilities but I don't see them as a "guitar pedagogy study" but more, maybe as a composition study. And more as pieces than actual exercises like you would say of Sor's method or Carcassi's or Sagreras's. I think this parallels in a very reduced form (cause they are miniatures) to Chopin's studies in the sence that yes, they propose almost all you can produce on the instrument in a sort of condensed fashion, but very much outside of a pedagogic straight learning process. Plus, from the romanticism on I don't see the word Study as a reference to an actual exercise to present some specific technical matter (though of course those will end up be present, after all music is composed of rythms, arpeggios, scales and instrumental technicalities). It happends the same, for me with Villa-lobos etudes. Of course, some of them contain arpeggios or scales but I hardly see them as intended to teach. They are compositions, pieces of music -art if you will -  on their own terms.     

Blaise, right you are.

Blaise Laflamme Ariel ElijovichBarney That's a brilliant question to ask, Barney and some great responses from Ariel and Blaise.

Blaise's MDT approach is wonderful. When I started out with classical guitar about 3 years or so, all I could think of was technique (things like how can I reach this fret, why are my fingers failing me). In short, getting bogged down by technical challenges. As my technique has improved over time, I'm trying to grow as a 'musician', as I try to understand harmony and other  musical aspects.

I think there are many professional guitarists who don't practice technique much in the way amateurs do. It might vary from one person to another, of course and, it's somewhat understandable because they've achieved technical proficiency at the highest level.

By the way, as Steve said, it's a beautiful father-son story you shared with us, Ariel. You're lucky to have a father who's also a musician. I wish I had something similar. My father has no interest in music whatsoever 🙂.

Short story of my own, if you'll kindly indulge me and a bit of divergence from the topic. Me and one of my brothers rebelled against his non interest in music by trying to become musicians! My brother is quite a successful singer/song writer/musician with a 100k followers on YouTube while I'm here!

Back to topic, do you use any piece/etude as part of your everyday routine? I myself have been using pieces like Brouwer etude 6 and villa lobos etude 1 to practice arpeggios. Any other suggestions to practice scales, arpeggios or to improve musicality?

Ariel Elijovich Thanks for the reply. I really appreciate your input. 

Steve Price well, It's my opinion, anyway :-) 

Everybody is welcomed to have their own view. Certainly, they are very useful and musical material to work on! 

Jane Anderson That's great work, Jane!! the slurs sound great! And the "demonic pattern" (last bars) is coming along very nicely!! (confirm the very last notes, though, I think there's a DGB chord and an E missing over there). I'm glad that what I have can be of use to you, fellow players. Keep it up! It's already a great result!

Ariel Elijovich Thank you, Ariel -- I appreciate your support!  At the end in m16, my teacher drew in ties on the DGB chord, so I'm used to playing it just once (on the "and" of beat 1).  I like the way you play it though, playing the chord twice, as it makes for a more dramatic ending. And yes, thanks, I see that I played the F#/G instead an E/F# at the end of m16.  Oops. 😊 

Jane Anderson yes,... I see that Patrik Kleemola, for example, does as you do. There must be an edition with the ties, somewhere... I have this: 

But it sounds great as you do too! Looking forward to hearing more! 

Jane Anderson Nicely played, Jane. You took great care of the rhythm and the slurs sound great.👌

Jane Anderson Very nice, Jane. It's sounding very clean, which is something I'm working on now. 

Jane Anderson Sounds very controlled  and clean, Jane!  You've established a great foundation on this piece to build upon with your own interpretation.  Excellent!

Ariel Elijovich Thanks, my working copy looks exactly the same (except with the tie lines that my teacher drew in).  However, in my Eschig edition (2006) there are tie lines.  I like Patrik Kleemola's interpretation of the ending, too (saving the drama for the final 6 notes). 

Nijwm Bwiswmuthiary Thank you, Nijwm! 

Steve Price Thank you, Steve!

Barney Thank you, Barney!  This study group has been great.  I'm excited now to develop my playing of this piece further.