Very Easy Music for Guitar

David Raleigh Arnold

Some of the markup may be explained only in the Ten Lessons. Many of them can be played with one finger of the left hand. Teaching time and rhythm is the most important thing in the beginning stage, so a metronome would be very helpful with these. The metronome doesn’t do either time or rhythm, but it helps the student with both. It is in no way a substitute for counting.

At this level every piece is a study piece. All published guitar methods are deficient in pieces at this level.

There are quite advanced musical concepts here considering the level of difficulty, not to say that any of this is on the cutting edge in the greater musical world.

Five Easy Pieces

The first five of the Seven Easy Pieces qualify as very easy.

Assorted Very Easy Pieces

Stone Circle uses all of the notes of the (natural) E minor scale in first position. You may not be able to hear the bass E sustaining, but you can hear when it stops. The four note and six note chords with wavy lines before them are arpeggios, to be strummed downward with the thumb in this case. Usually, the last note of an arpeggio should be on the beat, or accented, depending on the desired effect.

In Morris, when there is a ‘d’ on the second string, the fourth finger always plays it.

Slur Etude I or Carnavalitos can immediately follow the first introduction to slurs.

Bitonale is in more than one key at the same time, or polytonal. It can be played entirely in second position.

This Polka may sound familiar, but I checked with a genuine polka expert, Ed Nalepa, and he assured me that it had not been written before. ☺ Hear the raw midi file.

Tango is very easy, because it could be played with one finger of the left hand, but counting it properly might take some work. The beat, when divided, is divided in one of these ways:

1 and 2 and 1…

1 trip let 2 trip let 1…

1 ka ta ka 2 ka ta ka 1…

This piece is polymodal, which means having notes of different modes at the same time. A key specifies both tonality and mode. Tonality refers to a tone center, and mode refers to the notes or scale used. It is not polytonal because the tone center clearly is D.

Chords Four Ex is an exercise in repeated chords. Working on your playing of repeated chords is essential. There are very few exercises in repeated chords in the literature, in spite of how important they are.

©2007, 2009 David Raleigh Arnold - http://www.openguitar.com