Etudes, Book 1

The initial inspiration for my ongoing series of guitar etudes was the Piano Etudes of Gyorgy Ligeti. Especially in this first book of studies, I have attempted to employ many of the technical, rhythmic and formal ideas embodied in Ligeti's beautiful and astonishingly inventive piano music: generative construction from simple elements, polyrhythmic layering based on an often extremely fast underlying pulse, and fiendishly difficult though idiomatic music arising from the nature of the instrument itself. Perhaps above all, I have attempted to use the guitar in a broadly "polyphonic" sense--simultaneously conveying different layers of melody, rhythm and texture within the context (and restrictions!) of the solo guitar.

Etude 1: Milonga del diablo

The title Milonga del diablo is a wordplay on Astor Piazzolla's "Milonga del angel". The milonga dance form is based on the common Latin American rhythmic grouping of 3+3+2 quavers. Throughout the course of this study, which focusses on the technique of left hand slurs ("hammer-ons" and "pull- offs"), the insistent quaver movement is grouped into constantly changing patterns of different ways of grouping 3s and 2s. About half-way through the piece a brief modal melody appears, which is reprised in a gentle coda.

Etude 2: Kleptomaniac

Kleptomaniac is essentially a minimalist piece, built from rhythms arising from different groupings of a constant quaver pulse to create more complex cross-rhythms. This study makes extensive use of cross-string right hand trill techniques.

Etude 3: Canon for Ella

Canon for Ella was written for my daughter Ella. The piece is constructed entirely from a single diatonic melody in even note values, played in simple canon at different intervals and speeds. The speed of the melody's presentation gradually accelerates throughout the piece until it suddenly starts to multiply and grow out of control (like cancerous cells) before finally subsiding into a final canonic statement. From the guitarist's point of view, the primary technical challenge is in the art of fingering and left hand mobility to capture the legato flow of the various canonic statements.

Etude 4: Gears (Tricycle)

Gears is a two-part invention, constructed from two pitch series of slightly different lengths combined with a fixed rhythmic series (hence the subtitle "tricycle"). Once the three "gears" are set in motion, the music is spun out of the pitch combinations that result from the two series working at different ratios against each other, kept together by a common rhythmic series,concluding when the gears re-align to their initial position.

Etude 5: Indigo Wave Box

Indigo Wave Box is based on a process of gradually expanding a simple melody set against a flowing scalar pattern using the lute technique of campanella ("bell-ringing" effect of notes ringing over each other). The title refers to the "executive desk toy" cuboid filled with undulating blue liquid which adorned many an office desk in the 70s.

6. Ascending and Descending [work in progress]