Classical Guitar Sheet Music - Works Arranged for Guitar | Perfect for Solo Performances, Music Lessons & Home Practice
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Product Description
Cameron Greider is a guitarist, producer and composer who has worked with Joan Baez, Chris Cornell, Natalie Merchant, Sean Lennon, Freedy Johnston, Rufus Wainwright, P.M. Dawn and many others. He started on classical guitar at age 12, but soon figured out that by putting a microphone inside the instrument and hooking it up to the family stereo, he could rattle the windows of their Washington D.C. house. In 1988 he moved to New York to study at the New School Jazz and Contemporary Music program, and soon found himself playing gigs with local singer-songwriters. In 1993 he auditioned for his first tour, with alternative hip-hop group P.M. Dawn, and the next week he was playing with them on the Tonight Show. He would go on to play and co-write on their next few records. Writing for strings led to an interest in classical music, which soon became an obsession. He went back to school at the Mannes conservatory to study music theory, piano, composition, and conducting. He enjoys writing for groups from string quartets to full orchestra and has contributed arrangements to film scores as well as pop songs. He also arranges classical pieces for his electric guitar duo with Jack Petruzzelli, High Low Duo. Jack Petruzzelli is a seasoned touring and recording musician. As a multi-instrumental performer, producer and songwriter, he has had the privilege of working with artists like Patti Smith, Ian Hunter, Joan Osborne, Rufus Wainwright and Sara Bareilles, to name a few. In the studio, Jack has collaborated with everyone from platinum artists to unknown sensations. He co-produced Joan Osborne's album Bring It On Home, which was nominated for Best Blues album of the year at the 2012 Grammy Awards.
Customer Reviews
While this album is not likely to cause as much of a stir as Bob Dylan did when he went electric in 1965 at the Newport Folk Festival it is revelatory in its own way. Of course Ravel and Bartok did not write for even acoustic guitar but they, like all western classical musicians, were very familiar with the art of transcription. Functional electric instruments wouldn’t come into use until the late 1940s. But the art of transcription (essentially a synonym for “Covers” as used in pop music) can be applied to any instrument and, at its best, transcription brings out perspectives in the music that were not obvious in its original incarnation. That is what is achieved here.There are no liner notes but it appears that these musicians have done the transcribing themselves. And their backgrounds include having played guitar with the likes of Chris Cornell, Natalie Merchant, Rufus Wainwright, Joan Baez, Patti Smith, Ian Hunter, and others. Their facility with their guitar playing comes from (the more traditional role of the guitar) in rock/pop genres and here they apply this knowledge to playing classical repertoire which they came to love. Why can’t they have both?A more pedestrian choice of repertoire for a debut might have been Bach inventions or Scarlatti sonatas (which worked remarkably well for Wendy Carlos) but these guys made what, on first look, seems very unusual choices. Ravel’s Mother Goose Suite (hardly that composer’s best known work) and 6 (of the 44) duos for violins by Bela Bartok (among the composer’s least known compositions). So I approached this release with a great deal of skepticism.Well, the sounds they create, recorded so lucidly too, instantly won me over. This is a spectacular release and makes a very enjoyable listening experience. Their transcriptions provided a perspective that sent this listener back to the original compositions for another listen. I had a minimal familiarity with the Ravel and even less familiarity with the Bartok but the sheer energy of their performances combined with a real feel for the jazz roots that underlie the Ravel as well as a curious set of sounds chosen for the Hungarian folk derived Bartok effectively recasts these pieces in a very different perspective.Like Bob Dylan, they thrust the modern electric guitar center stage and provide what will be for some, a jarring or disturbing experience. Purists may find these transcriptions sacrilegious but I suspect that many will be charmed and (perhaps their endgame) may find electric guitars to be anywhere from acceptable to revelatory as instruments which can do justice in the classical world.Electric guitars are now pretty common in folk as well as rock and blues. Dylan gets significant credit for this and these guys seem to be aiming at a similar goal, that of bringing electric guitars into legitimacy in the performance of classical music. Whether this eventually happens remains to be seen but this is a mighty well conceived and executed effort and, in the end, it is a very fine piece of sonic art. Kudos to Jack Petruzzelli and Cameron Greider as well as to Sono Luminus.
