Easy?<\/span><\/h2>\nMany guitarists classify these pieces as “easy” or even “beginner” pieces of music. But in truth they are only deceptively easy. It is true that Tarrega’s miniatures remain simple in their harmony, in the balance of voicing, and in the rhythms and textures. However, managing voices and allowing the melody to truly sing without allowing technical difficulties to disrupt the music make these very challenging pieces and not at all “beginner” music.<\/span><\/p>\nAll about the Details<\/span><\/h2>\nFor instance, in L\u00e1grima to allow the upper voice to sing you have to be careful about right-hand balance to ensure the thumb does not overpower the line and that the middle voice (a repeated drone B on the second string) is also sufficiently quiet. While in Adelita it is important to allow all of the little grace notes and glissandos to be nice and light and not distract from the melody line — even when those grace notes are attached to tricky barre chords and the use of the pinky in the left hand.
At the end of the day, even the simplest pieces can be the most challenging to play. Not only are you more exposed with simple textures and harmonies and polyphony, but as a result you are also more responsible for quality of sound, balance of voices, maintaining evenness of notes in a line, phrasing…and more.
That is why these gems of the repertoire may seem fairly easy at first glance, but in truth they can be some of the most challenging pieces to play well. I’ve added my own performances below for you to listen to. I hope you enjoy my performances of these two giants of the classical guitar repertoire: both equally easy to learn, but difficult to truly master.<\/span><\/p>\n\n