Early Jazz For Fingerstyle Guitar

Product Description The ragtime and early jazz music pioneers during the first decades of the last century didn't know that the sounds they created would echo in the music that people loved for years to come. They started an American music tradition that is alive to this day. Many of the early jazz songs and of course classical ragtime often is played as piano music, with a steady left hand playing bass notes and chords together with the right hand playing a syncopated melody on top. This style of playing is very similar to the alternating bass style on the guitar. So these tunes easily lend themselves to a fingerstyle arrangement. With classical ragtime I approach arranging by transcribing the original piano sheet-music. The important thing is to find keys that suit the guitar and then decide what notes not to play since it is not technically possible to play all the notes in a piano score on the guitar. I like to play in keys that will give me the opportunity to use open strings in the bass while the melody moves up and down the neck. This is especially important since my aim is to make my arrangements not too difficult to play, so that the player can concentrate on the music instead of being too concerned with the technical aspects of his/her playing. The most important challenge though, is to make the tune sound like guitar music, not piano music played on the guitar. A detailed tab/music instructional booklet is included as a PDF file on the DVD. DVD is region 0, playable worldwide. About the Actor Born in 1949 in Stockholm, Sweden, Lasse Johansson began playing the guitar in the mid 60s. His main early influences were Doc Watson and Merle Travis. Lasse recorded his first fingerpicking arrangement, Maple Leaf Rag, in 1969. A meeting with Stefan Grossman in 1970 inspired Lasse to continue arranging classic ragtime pieces for the guitar, and in 1974 he recorded his first album, March and Two Step consisting of ragtime guitar solos and particularly duets which defined his guitar style during this period. March and Two Step was re-released on Kicking Mule Records and Lasse and duet partner Claes Palmqvist continued to record music derived from classic nineteenth century piano rags. King Porter Stomp (1980), an album featuring arrangements of Jelly Roll Morton's music, was also issued as a book by Mel Bay Publications.