This lesson comes from my new book Classical Guitar Repertoire Lessons Grade 1 – Eight pieces at the grade one level with dedicated lessons preparing you for each piece. Check it out at Werner Guitar Editions!
Écossaise, Op.33, No.2 (Allegretto) by Mauro Giuliani (1781-1829). This piece introduces slurs (also called hammer-ons and pull-offs) as well as bass string muting on rests. Slurs facilitate legato phrasing and reduce the amount of right hand fingering. Bass string muting stops the bass from sustaining when the harmony doesn’t match or for articulation reasons. I have the removed the staccato marks from the original to focus on maintaining a legato line during the first half of the piece. – Only mute the bass note rests in the first half of the piece. The upper voice should be played legato regardless of notation.
Would I be able to purchase Écossaise, Op.33, No.2 by Giuliani separately? Thanks!
Not at this time, it is only part of this book. Sorry!
I’m having some trouble with bar 16. After the descending slur, my left-hand fourth finger tends to follow my third finger, so it sometimes ends up landing between the first and second strings, which produces a bad sound.
If I practice the whole bar without playing the bass note (as if finger 3 weren’t there), everything is fine. But when I have to coordinate the movements of fingers 3 and 4 at the same time, I tend to make mistakes.
Do you have any advice? Thanks!
Sounds like you could use some practice with both string clearance but also tight finger independence exercises. What are you working on in your technique routine?