By Tim Sparks. For Guitar (Fingerpicking). Jewish. 160 pages. Published by Mel Bay Publications - Digital Sheet Music ISBN 9781609740993.
Transcriptions from Neshamah, Tim Sparks's ground-breaking recording for Tzadik Records of traditional Jewish melodies arranged for solo guitar. Neshamah is a Hebrew word meaning "soul," and in these soulful pieces, Sparks explores the music of the Jewish Diaspora, from the Caucasus to the Carpathians, from the Black Sea to Bosnia, from Jerusalem, Istanbul, Sarajevo, to New York's Lower East Side. Using a unique blend of bluesy string bends, jazz harmony and middle-eastern scales, he sheds new light on these tunes through the prism of fingerstyle guitar. Neshamah received wide critical acclaim in many publications around the world, including Fingerstyle Guitar, Acoustic Guitar, Guitar Player, Akustik Gitarre, Acoustic Guitar Japan, Dirty Linen, The Wall Street Journal, CDNOW, All Music Guide and the Amazon.com Editor's Top 100 CDs of 1999. The entire recording has been transcribed here, including an appendix with the complete solos. Several of the arrangements are accessible to intermediate level players while some are better suited to the advanced player. Some of these transcriptions are slightly different than the CD recorded versions and reflect how the composition is currently played by Tim and are notated as such in the Performance Notes.
