World Music for Fingerstyle Guitar

Review

Two excellent new instructional DVDs, taught by versatile, globe-trotting Spanish musician Fernando Perez. World Music For Fingerstyle Guitar introduces a truly diverse selection of styles across its two hours and six compositions – Into The Balkans, Samba Para Ti (Brazil), Ame (Japan) Malawi Dance, Kalani (Hawaii) and Tango/ Habanera (Argentina/Cuba). Each tune is taught one phrase at a time, with split screen enabling close inspection of what both hands are doing. Being a guitar player in the farfrom-advanced category, I found the Malawian lesson with its sixth string up one-step to F tuning the most immediately accessible, but a bit of serious practice should reward any player with a whole new guitar vocabulary. On West African Music Perez goes much deeper into musical tradition, with tunes directly learned from griots alongside his own compositions. The main scales and grooves used in West African music are explained, along with the application of specific techniques such as thumb and forefinger picking styles, to imitate kora scale runs and balafon breaks. Starting in open D tuning, Perez explores the connections between West African music and the blues, and demonstrates how the styles can be effectively combined, making this an invaluable tool for blues-based singersongwriters as well as dedicated guitarists. Both titles include a detailed tablature and musical notation booklet as a PDF file on the DVD. –Steve Hunt/fRootsWait, wait! Don’t turn away just because your frets never chordlessly brooded over Japanese minimalism or, conversely, danced to jump-up Malawian giddiness. Globetrotter Fernando Perez, having eyed up this planet of ours as one massive spool of the coolest guitar licks and tricks, tucks all sorts of must-see secret techniques into mysterious melodies and mystical rhythms. Daring, madcap stuff, too. Like plucking notes from behind a roaming slide, dusting strings with an open-palmed maneuver, zapping finger tremolos atop string bends, pinging assorted species of harmonics, and bottlenecking hammer-ons. Perez has got the guts to even go as far as tangoing with that slide. Samba para Ti seductively bathes in the warmest of Rio’s sunset tones whereas Ame casts its imitation of the 13-string koto in fractured sunlight. Then there is Kalani, an Hawaiian Frankenstein of sorts, stylistically stitched together from distinct slack key and slide traditions. That’s not the really dumbfounding part, though. Pulling off a wind-chime effect – by jingling a sewing needle, dangled on a thread held between the teeth, against the strings – is. Via six exotic instrumentals with distinctive personalities, Perez instructively unravels World Music for Fingerstyle Guitar: nation by nation, culture by culture, string by string, shocking surprise after shocking surprise. Try not being wowed. –Dennis Rozanski/BluesRag

Product Description

In this lesson, Fernando Perez teaches several evocative instrumentals from different world music styles. The tunes are performed in standard as well as alternative tunings. Fingerstyle techniques are used throughout the lesson. Two tunes are arranged for slide guitar.Fernando takes you on a globetrotting voyage where you will explore:- How to understand the sound and techniques found in the music of the Balkans,Japan, Brazil, Hawaii, Malawi and Argentina and how to apply thesesto the guitar.- Cool and unusual rhythms applied to the guitar in a way that goes furtherthan just strumming chords,but also how to make guitar arrangements with these rhythms.- Origins and relations between world music styles in order to better understandand perform them.- Many interesting fingerstyle guitar tricks and techniques.- Main scales used in these instrumentals.- Understanding grooves, how to feel and apply them as you play the music.- How to further develop these tunes as well as creating new ones.- New musical approaches coming from other cultures which will open upyour vision as a player.- New