When I was a toddler, my mother would go to a fortune teller in Lakewood, Washington. The fortune teller was an old, bed-ridden woman who would use several combined decks of playing cards to read the future. I have very vague memories of this, since I was about three or four. Anyway, this fortune teller told my mother I would grow up to be a professional musician. The word “genius” might have been thrown around too. So, my mother made sure that I always had access to music. When we went to a movie that I liked, she would get me the soundtrack. When the walkman become a thing, she bought me one.
Though I never went in the direction of a professional musician, I have played several instruments through my time: flute, oboe, violin, and ukulele. But, of all the instruments I’ve messed around with, I’ve spent most of my time focused on the classical guitar. When I was fifteen, I made a very conscious decision to focus on this instrument and on music from the Renaissance up to the the 19th century. I have a particular fascination for Renaissance music because it is such an alien aesthetic when compared to modern musical tastes.
I started with fifteen and took lessons off and on at the University of Puget Sound. I also taught myself a lot, and worked on guitar as a hobby up through 20. At several points in my life, I’ve taken year long breaks where I didn’t play at all and focused on other stuff. When I moved to Berlin in 2012, I had to leave my guitar in Seattle, and, between September 2012 and September 2015, I touched a guitar maybe twice. In 2015, I had some money and decided that I wanted to buy a new guitar and start playing again. In April of 2015, I found a guitar instructor in my neighborhood and started going. Since then, I started making videos on youtube. And here they are. I hope you enjoy them.
If you would like to watch all the videos as a single play list, scroll to the bottom of the page.
Video 1
Francesco da Milano is a well known Renaissance composer who lived between 1497 and 1543. This piece is called “Pescatore Che Va Cantando” which means ‘the fishermen go singing’. You probably wouldn’t pick that up from the tune itself. Like most Renaissance pieces, the subject isn’t particularly sad, but the piece sounds like it should be. This was the first piece I learned at Gitarrenschule Berlin Pankow
Video 2
The guitar school I attend is about to close down for the summer. So,the students got together this evening to play pieces that they’ve been working on and these are the ones that I played.
video 3
This Allegretto from Ferdinando Carulli (1770-1841) is a jaunty little tune from the time of the French Revolution. I think it was intended as a beginner exercise. My guitar teacher gave me the piece from a book of classical guitar studies that was in Russian.
video 4
Here is a Fantasia by Francesco Canova da Milano (18 August 1497 – 2 January 1543) piece that I played at our Winter Recital. It’s a piece I’ve been working on for a few months now.
video 5
This is my standard 10 minute set. I know all these pieces by heart and can play them with little warm up. The first two pieces are Irish — “Bannish Misfortune”, and “Kathleen Trill” — followed by some Renaissance pieces, then a couple Spanish traditional songs, followed by a Gaspar Sanz piece from the Baroque period.
Video 6
A piece from Spain. Written by Bartolomé Calatuyud. It starts out in A minor and then changes its mind at the end and flies into major. A fun little piece that I’ve been working on for a while.
Play List
Here is a play list of all the above videos, if you’d like to watch them all back-to-back, or just put them on as background music, then look no further: