CHIESA - Guitar Gradus: Elementary Method For Guitar

RUGGERO CHIESA - Guitar Gradus: Elementary Method For Guitar

Preface

The great number and variety of guitar study methods available today, ranging from the nineteenth-century classics to works of the present day, might make yet another such method seem redundant, at first glance. I think, therefore.that it might be useful to explain why I decided to add one more work to a field which has already been so thoroughly explored, and to illustrate the principles by which I have been guided.

All teachers will certainly have noticed that, although they may have very high quality teaching tools at their disposal all the études by the masters of the nineteenth-century for instance - our teaching literature has never succeeded in covering satisfactorily the preliminary period of study. This deficiency makes itself felt the moment the student picks up the instrument, and grows more and more glaring as be advances through the elementary stages to the first repertoire he is called upon to perform.
Guitar Gradus therefore consists of an elementary section in which the basics of guitar technique are succinctly treated, in such a manner as to avoid overly rigid or complex dogmas. Even though the basic exercises are generally covered in the natural course of the teacher-student relationship.it seems clear to me that a text which purports to treat such a specific subject cannot very well avoid dealing with this delicate aspect of it. Obviously the rules set down bere are the result of my personal experience, and do not pretend to represent an irrefutable "truth". We know that there are many different ways of undertaking the study of an instrument, and my statements make no pretense to being the best, and certainly not the only ones. They are simply the result of many years of teaching experience and may prove useful to teachers who do not yet possess their own views on teaching.

Part Two is entirely devoted to the traditional technical exercises and to repertoire. As regards the latter, the most important problem was to provide the student with materials which would fulfil two specific requisites: technical facility and musical interest. Because the classical repertoire is not sufficient in itself to satisfy these demands, as it contains few very simply constructed pieces, I have adapted for the guitar a very small portion of the vast musical literature based on folk music, which encompasses these two required features. The monodic execution of numerous folk tunes poses limitations to technical development; on the contrary, I am convinced that in the elementary stages of guitar study it constitutes the only way of preventing the student from forming many dangerous habits. By avoiding from the start, a kind of study too often based on keeping the left hand immobile, blocked in one position on chords too difficult for the beginner, a more rational development of left-hand technique will be possible. At the same time the right hand will no longer be limited to the execution of simple arpeggios, as so often happens in the early stages of study.

If these principles are correct, I trust that Guitar Gradus will prove helpful to the student preparing to scale the challenging peaks of music through the study of the guitar.

Ruggero Chiesa