Guitaresque Expressions @ Singapore Art Museum (26th Sept 2009)

Gutiaresque took part in 2 performances in the last 2 weeks - the first being a guest appearance at the Singapore Management University (SMU) Guitar ensemble, Guitarissimo's annual showpiece Strings Blended; and the other was our annual recital held at Singapore Art Museum (SAM).

Strings Blended featured SMU undergraduate and alumni members performances, on both classical guitars as well as some acoustic and electric guitar items. Guitaresque was there as guest performers and we delivered 2 songs related to the folk theme of that evening's concert (aptly titled "That's All Folk!"). They were Haruyo Koi, a Japanese folk song and Folksong Trilogy, a 3 part medley comprising of Wayfaring Stranger, Jimmy Crack Corn and When Johnny comes Marching home.

The quartet's annual recital, titled Guitaresque Expressions was held at SAM, which is becoming our favourite performing venue since we've developed a wonderful relationship and partnership with the museum's administrators, and also for the amazing acoustics and ambience of the Glass Hall. We've also had the opportunity to test the Samson condenser microphones that I'd bought last year, and it really lived up to our expectations. With our dear friend Raj's professional assistance in setting up the microphones positioning and volume settings, the guitars sounded that much sweeter and produced much less of the rather "harsh" metallic sounds usually produced by the vocal (dynamic) microphones that we've had to deal with in previous outings.

The recital opened with 2 of Debussy's masterpieces - Golliwog's Cakewalk and Clair de Lune. Based on our previous experiences, the first 1-2 pieces of any concert would suffer the "Nerves effect", which typically sets in after the initial round of audience applause dies down. This time round, I thought we made a pretty good choice in selecting these 2 pieces to start the concert, as they were decidedly not as technically demanding as some of our other selections, and yet provided a good indication of the type of music we liked as well as a glimpse of the quartet's abilities on the instrument (read: they certainly aren't simple melody+chord+bass type of songs!).

Eine Kleine Nachtmusik was the "Main Course" for the day. It was almost 20 min long for all 4 movements, and though there were the usual bumps and mis-hits here and there, I believe we just about did justice to the work. Afterall, anyone who has attempted Mozart on the classical guitar knows how tricky it is to play all those darn mordents and turns, and slurs, and what-have-you's... :P

We'd also included some easy-listening pieces, not only for the audience's pleasure (you simply cant have an hour of classical or heavy stuff in Singapore guitar scene context, without the audience going zzzzzzzzzz...) but also to balance the technically demanding songs with some lighter works for 'recovery' purposes. These included Pearl Fisher - a popular Tango number, as well as Princess Mononoke, an arrangement of the popular anime theme song for 4 guitars.

Variations on a theme Shabondama would also probably fall into this category.

La Tierra is becoming one of the quartet's favourite performing song, as it is a perfect example of a highly "guitaristic" work, composed FOR the classical guitar quartet, by a classical guitarist (Francis Kleynjans). This is the first part of a collection known as Los Quatro Elementos, or the Four Elements. Not only is the song interesting in terms of techniques demonstrated and the layerings involved, it also make highly exciting workout for the guitarist playing it. Funnily, LS once remarked that it was like going through a Sor Etude! ( Ed's note: After finishing with La Tierra (Earth), we should likely be progressing to the next element - water. A song called El Agua. Equally remarkable and demanding to play, I should add!)

Hungarian Dance #5 came through pretty ok, although I've always thought of this song as something we played without giving too much ownership to it. Meaning to say - it felt a little as if we were pretty much going through the motion of playing this piece as we have heard it played so many times before. There wasn't a whole lot of ideas going into this, and we simply reproduced what we've all been accustomed to hearing on numerous recordings.

Ponticello Tango is a "Carnaval"-like song composed by Patrick Roux (of Canadian Guitar Quartet), and had the expected thrills and spills of weird-sounding chords and fast, inter-weaving runs on all 4 guitars. Much of the success of this piece depended on creating the 'atmosphere' more than the actual notes produced, and I felt we did bring out that bit rather well.

We ended the recital with Folksong Trilogy, which was well-received given the fact that the tunes are pretty catchy, and most people could easily recognise the melody of When Johnny Comes Marching Home.

At the end of the 80 minute recital, Singapore guitar maestro and the Guitaresque's long-time mentor and advisor, Mr Alex Abisheganaden came forward to congratulate the quartet on a successful performance and for providing what he called "educational" guitar repertoire for the audience. We were highly encouraged by his words, and will certainly strive toward achieving greater heights in our future endeavors!

Guitaresque Expressions

Interesting encounter outside Redhill MRT station

Encountered something really quite interesting on my way to work this morning....

You know, sometimes there are these street musicians playing around the MRT areas? Usually, they play on an acoustic guitar (plugged in to an amp), and have a small microphone clipped to their shirts, and they'll sing some oldies/pop songs while their plucked their chords or strum along. Well, the guy whom I came across today (at the Red Hill MRT vicinity) was also playing a guitar which was plugged into an amp. But it was an classical guitar, and guess what he was playing - when I was walking past him -?

Bach's Prelude from the fourth lute suite (sometimes referred to as "Preludium" or "Praludium"). I think it's BWV 1006.

Perhaps this is not uncommon in other parts of the world, where classical guitar is a more commonly studied instrument, not unlike the piano or violin. But here in Singapore, the percentage of music students who take classical guitar as a instrument for performance and study is probably minute compared to the ever popular piano, and with the violin coming a close second. To many lay person here, the guitar is mostly viewed as an instrument for pubs and church groups, where it is used as a main tool for strumming out chords to accompany singing/vocals.

Anyway, back to the busker playing the Bach's Prelude.

I stopped long enough to hear a good part of his playing, and though it certainly wasn't like listening to Parkening or Segovia (on CD, of course!), I have to say he was pretty good. A couple of missed notes here and there, some parts weren't well executed, but generally the tempo was not that slow, and it came through. Pity nobody, besides me, was in a mood to listen to him - we are talking about rush hour in the morning, at 8:00am.

Somehow, I feel encouraged to practise my solo scores after this experience. Afterall, I've just changed a new set of strings for my beloved Kohno yesterday, in preparation for Gutiaresque performances in the upcoming weeks!