Gentle Waves

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I have been composing more lately (as opposed to making arrangements). One way I will compose is by improvising on an idea in order to generate ideas for the piece. I’d like to make a solo guitar arrangement of a piece I improvised using the program Max/MSP. The piece is called, Gentle Waves…

I like the melody and the basic idea but I would like to play it on guitar without using Max/MSP. I just did this improvisation using some of the basic ideas of the piece…

Gentle Waves Improvisation

Scarborough Fair

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Scarborough Fair

Here is my arrangement of Scarborough Fair. Score/tab is available here. I’ve always loved this melody. It’s an old English folk song that uses the dorian mode.

To create the dorian mode, you first begin with the natural minor…

E Natural Minor

and then raise the 6th note in the scale (C becomes C-sharp)….

E Dorian

Like many people, I first heard this song from the Simon and Garfunkel version….

Little Red Riding Hood for Guitar and Narrator

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little-red-cap-scoreDownload

I decided to compose guitar music for the Grimm Fairy Tale, Little Red Riding Hood, because I thought it would be fun. I started this project back in October (2019) and finished writing it about a week ago. I got sidetracked with other projects which is why it took so long.

Throughout this piece I use a lot of different extended techniques for the guitar to try and create various moods. At times I pluck the string to the left of my left hand fingers, I hit the fingerboard with my right hand, I strum notes over the sound hole and so on. I hope you enjoy it. I don’t have the best voice to be a narrator but since I am stuck at home because of the virus, that is really all I’ve got.

-Rob

Amazing Grace/Jesus Loves Me for Erhu and Guitar

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We wanted to do something special for Easter this year. It’s going to be a different kind of Easter with the virus. She lives in Hawaii and I live in Michigan so I recorded my part, sent it to her, she recorded her part and then sent that back to me. I then put the video together. It has been a lot of fun collaborating with her.

The Erhu is a beautiful instrument. You can hear her perform with an orchestra here:

Practicing (04-09-2020)

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I was doing some practicing earlier today and decided to hit record on my video camera. I am running through songs I haven’t played through in awhile. Songs include:

Scarborough Fair (0:51), A Lighter Shade of Blue (3:34), House of the Rising Sun (5:00), A Joyful Noise (9:34) and Lagrima (14:03)

Enjoy the good, bad, and ugly!!

-Rob

Abana in Heaven for Erhu and Guitar

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Abana alathi fi ssama/Abana in Heaven is a beautiful piece of music by Laila Constantine. In this recording I am playing with my friend, Tsun-Hui Hung. She recorded her part in Hawaii and I recorded my part in Michigan and then combined the two performances. Here are the lyrics…

Abana in heaven

Hallowed be Your holy name

Your kingdom come

Your will be done

In all the earth as in heaven

Your kingdom come

Your will be done

In all the earth as in heaven

And give to us give us this day

Our daily bread

O Lord we pray

Forgive our sins as we forgive those

Who have sinned against us

And save us in time of trial

Deliver us from evil

Yours is the kingdom Yours the power

Yours is the glory now and forever

Abana in heaven Amen