Roland Dyens' Vingt Lettres - The Three Axes (June 11th) Questions / Suggestions
Hey y'all, today we will explore Dyens' pedagogical works "Vingt Lettres, his wonderfully intimate set of composition aimed for combining good quality music with relative ease of play! 
With the first three lettres, we will unravel "the three axes": Correct Tuning, an efficient and effective method of daming and a signifcant reduction in squeaks! Bon Voyage! 
Find the start time in your time zone by clicking the photo or following this event link:
https://app.tonebase.co/guitar/live/player/roland-dyens-vingt-lettres
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?
Forum questions will be answered first!
Join us today to take a closer look at Dyen's cycle "Vingt lettres"! Dyens' intention was to give music to players who had three to six years of tuition behind as he felt that a large number of guitarists have been somewhat excluded from the majority of his work due to obvious technical reasons. With the first three lettres, we will unravel "the three axes": Correct Tuning, an efficient and effective method of daming and a signifcant reduction in squeaks! Bon Voyage!
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Hey Martin. I am visiting my new 3-wk old grandson and his 3-yr old brother is taking care of us tomorrow, so will have to miss your class. I will definitely catch up later.
These pieces seem to all be homages of some sort and I am missing many of the references. 1) Sydney - Australia? The music somehow seems right for that, but why? Does it evoke something specific like 11) Nordestine refers to the region in Brazil and the Baião trio that we learned about a few days ago? Sydney also comes up as a person in 18) Saudade…? How does 2) the Seine evoke the Seine? Dyens tended to be very … not quite literal, but both specific and precise in his musical references: Not any old tango, but one in skaï. He also liked word-play, 6) mi-longue is a milonga.
Thanks, very much looking forward to the class.
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Hi Martin. Just watched and enjoyed the presentation on Roland Dyens Vingt Lettres.
I raised a similar (I guess) question in the Tarrega challenge forum earlier, but here goes - You mentioned at the start that these studies were appropriate for students after 3 to 6 years.
I started to play almost 3 years ago, and focused on Trinity London's grades with my teacher, reaching grade 4 after 2 years. However, at first sight I would consider the Dyens Lettres considerably more difficult than the first 4 grades in the Trinity programme, and I imagine I would need quite some more time before being able to take them on.
In your view are the graded pieces and exams the correct way to progress or is there a better pathway to testing a student's capacity to improve to the best of their ability?
As I have an option to return to the graded programme now that the pandemic lockdowns are ending (we hope!!), but I have been frustrated with my inability to tackle pieces that are considered easy for beginners & novices by better players, so I would really appreciate your thoughts.
Many thanks,
C
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Colin O'Regan Hi Colin! My knowledge of the several grades in the Trinity Programm is very limited, so I might not of very much help, but let me try to give general advice!
First on the topic of the letters: The pieces vary greatly in difficulty, Dyens himself groups them from beginner pieces up to recital repertoire, so I wouldn't worry too much about individual pieces being too difficult.
I don't know what the philosophy of the Trinity Grade System is, I reckon that it might be intended to push you via the individual pieces within a grade up to the next level. It is maybe fundamentally designed that way that you are not 100% comfortable with all the pieces within a grade, so that you only move onward and upward once you mastered a specific grade (this is highly speculative and my opinion without deeper knowledge, though).
Generally, you should always assess what it is specifically about a piece that doesn't work as you want! Is a certain technique too difficult? Is the tempo to high? Are the chords uncomfortable? By asking the right questions, you will find exactly the topics you'd need to continue to work on and and those question will lead you to a new set of etudes and exercises!
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Thanks Martin! Watching this at a reasonable time for an Australian! Fantastic and I would love any more tutorials from the lettres or even songe Capricorn! Appreciate all your hard work!
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Chris Coghill That's a GREAT idea, I love that piece! What specific topics would interest you about this composition?
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The tricky harmonics section would be good to look into. I’m a fan of just about anything Dyens wrote- I find his pieces super- motivating to learn. I really love all of the subtle bits, like how you showed that playing the single chord staccato in the letter a Sydney made the whole piece swing like a jazz song! One thing I’ve found hard in his pieces are how to make all the percussive effects in his pieces sound effective- that would make a great lesson
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Chris Coghill awesome, I'll look into that!
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martin Hello Martin! I love this livestream so much that I bought the 20 Lettres book. These should be added to our Level System. At least, the Lettre a Sydney since you covered it in this very wonderful livestream. I love Roland Dyens so anything you can do to have more of his content would be brilliant. I also have his two volumes of Les 100. They are fantastic and would make for a great community challenge. Thanks Martin!
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Debbie
Hi Debbie! Thank you very much for your kind words! I absolutely adore Roland Dyens' music, and I'm thrilled that some of my students recently received first prizes in a regional competition for their performance of the first three letters !
I think running a community challenge centered around Dyens is an excellent idea, but I'm a bit hesitant to pursue it. Unfortunately, the material is not freely available, and in the case of the "Vingt Lettres," it can be quite expensive as well (although they got back in stock for 36,55€ which is not too bad).
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martin congratulations on the success of your students! I understand what you mean about the cost. I forked out a bit more than I’d like to buy the two volumes of 100, the 20 letters, and a volume of the Chansons Française. I found some on Amazon and some on Stretta music. Well…I will be waiting for more Dyens whenever it comes. I am so glad you love his music too!
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