By Aaron Shearer. Edited by Aaron Stang. Fretted instrument method/supplement (Guitar). 172 pages. Published by Alfred Publishing.

Guitar - Intermediate

SKU: MB.31008M

Perfect binding. Blues. Book and online audio. 160 pages. Mel Bay Publications, Inc #31008M. Published by Mel Bay Publications, Inc (MB.31008M).

ISBN 9781513467016. 8.75x11.75 inches.

Blind Lemon Jefferson was a trail blazer, both as a singer and guitarist, but also as a commercial phenomenon, for he was the first blues musician to establish the tremendous appeal that blues, as played and sung by rural African American folk, had for the record-buying public. It is no exaggeration to say that the sales of Lemon’s records paved the way for a host of other solo rural blues musicians to record in his wake and made the record companies more willing to give other musicians a chance, in the hopes of achieving similar success. 

Lemon ’s record sales weren’t what made him a great musician, though - that could only be attributed to his startlingly virtuosic guitar - playing and soulful singing, developed over years of busking, building on his natural gifts with a great deal of practice and work. In the Guitar of Blind Lemon Jefferson author John Miller presents transcriptions, in standard notation and tablature, of 22 of Lemon’s greatest performances, with an additional essay examining Lemon’s senses of time and phrasing and his picking techniques. Also included is a download link to all the original recordings. 

To present a picture of Lemon the man, noted blues researchers Alan Governar and Kip Lornell have contributed an essay focusing on Lemon’s early life, the origins of his music, and his time spent in a musical partnership with Lead Belly. Links are provided to downloadable performances of the songs in the book from which the transcriptions were made, so that you can have Lemon’s sound in your head as you learn to play his songs.

Blind Lemon Jefferson was remarkable, even in a style that abounded in great musicians, and some measure of his influence can be seen in the fact that musicians recorded in the 1960s, more than thirty years after his death, were still covering his songs and stealing guitar licks from him. The Guitar of Blind Lemon Jefferson gives you the resources needed to learn what was so special about Lemon’s music, and to experience his musical excellence from inside the music itself.

Titles include: One Dime Blues, Got The Blues, Dry Southern Blues, Big Night Blues, Rabbit Foot Blues, Shuckin' Sugar Blues, Where Shall I Be, Wartime Blues, Black Horse Blues, Prison Cell Blues, Piney Woods Money Mama, See That My Grave Is Kept Clean, He Arose From The Dead, Beggin' Back, Broke And Hungry, Bad Luck Blues, Matchbox Blues, Lemon's Worried Blues, That Crawlin' Baby Blues, Easy Rider Blues, Stocking Feet Blues and Right of Way Blues

Level 2/3 • 160 pages • Direct download link to audio files. 

Guitar

SKU: FG.55011-324-4

Composed by Kai Nieminen. Fennica Gehrman #55011-324-4. Published by Fennica Gehrman (FG.55011-324-4).

ISBN 9790550113244.

Quad ri Morandi (2014) ties together two essential themes of Kai Niminen's (b. 1953) compositional style: guitar and a subject inspired by Italy. The strong presence of the guitar in his works is natural since he is in an actively performing guitarist himself, and guitar works indeed play a significant role in his oeuvre. Moreover, he has written plenty of orchestral music; for instance two symphonies, numerous concertos, and chamber music. In the field of Finnish music he is a composer who can be characterized as free from any specific school or style. In his musical language, free tonal in essence, one can detect traces of Impressionism, Neoromanticism and even Expressionism at times, but he is also willing to employ more recent 20th-century stylistic devices. Nieminen has mentioned that he finds himself very similar to Japanese Toru Takemitsu both musically and in thought.

Mediterannean culture and Italy especially have been close to Nieminen's heart ever since he first visited the country and appeared in the jury of the international Fernando Sor guitar competition in 1981. He has composed a great number of works which refer to Italian landscapes or artists. The work Quadri Morandi (Morandi's pictures) is written in four movements. It has at its centre the painter Giorgio Morandi (1890-1964), who is known as a master of still lifes and landscapes painted in a plain manner and is subdued colours. Their atmosphere typically reflects a calm spirit. This is the third guitar work that nieminen has written for Kleemola.

It is easy to find a counterpart for the encaptivating realm of Morandi's art in Nieminen's clear and pure expression. The titles and expression markings also include several references to Morandi. For example, in the opening movement Prelude the words la Natura morta (still life) appear as an additional note on the chord sequence following the freely flowing opening section. At the end of the movement one can hear rhythmic motif coloured with flageolets that repeats the syllables of the painter's name: Gior-gio Moran-di. A similar motif can be heard at the end of the second movement Quasi cadenza. The tranquilly breathing third movement Paesaggio (landscape) creates an illusion of landscape by imitating the echo of monastery bells (come campane del monastero) and at the same time refers to il monaco (the monk), the name by which Morandi was often called. The final movement Ritratto (Portrait) is the most extensive of all the movements and can be seen, with its recurring motifs, as a reflection of the stable yet subtly varying elements of Morandi's art. The work ends with the rhythmic motif that once more echoes Morandi's name, like signature.