Author: Dissguitar

Hands up anyone if you like to hear the sound of your own voice played back to you? If like me, you’re not recording and uploading onto Instagram or TikTok on a regular basis, hearing your voice as others hear us never seems quite right. In effect, this is because we hear ourselves differently from how others hear us. For those with hearing, sound travels to our brain via two sources. Firstly through our auditory canal and secondarily through bone conduction. It’s this combination that accounts for the difference.

Playing the guitar presents not dissimilar problems. When playing we are behind the instrument with the sound being projected outwards from the soundbox. In addition, your ears are receiving the reflected sound from any surfaces in front of you. The result is that what you hear will be different to what any audience will hear.

Just like hearing a playback of your voice, recordings of your playing may well sound different from what you heard or thought you were conveying. In the absence of a teacher or listener, recording yourself allows you to listen to your playing from an audience perspective. Did that phrasing, emphasis or intonation really come across as you thought it had? In addition, unconscious bias in our playing is hard to avoid but listening back to recordings can help pick them up. Think of it like standing back from a painting to get a different perspective. Is this why so many teachers and online sources tell us to make it part of your daily routine? Absolutely.

There are other benefits worth listing;

· Easier to spot when phrasing or intonation is not what you thought it was.

· Helps mark the progress you are making over time.

· Regularly recording yourself playing can help overcome recording and performance anxiety.

Recording can be simply done by using your smart phone requiring no additional financial costs. I’d recommend listening through earphones or ear buds which will give you a better audio frequency range a truer reflection of your playing.

Go on. Why not give it a try?

With Christmas fast approaching we’ve been dusting off some of our festive favourites during rehearsals. One we sourced last year is the popular Carol of the Bells based on a traditional Ukrainian New Year’s song “Schedryk”.

The carol was composed by the Ukrainian composer Mykola Leontovych in 1914 as a commission for the conductor of the Ukrainian Republic Capella, Oleksander Koshyts. In subsequent years it quickly established itself as a firm favourite around the world.

The arrangement we play was arranged for guitar quartet by Lou Warde and generously made available at the Guitar Ensemble Music – The Guitar Classroom. Click on the following link for our recording of the piece. Repertoire – Diss Guitar Ensemble

Concert for Edwin Peck 01/11/2024

It’s not often one gets the opportunity to participate in an event celebrating multiple achievements, but yesterday’s fourth DGE Concert of the year proved to be just that.

Our Musical Director Rod Faulkner organised the event to celebrate the work of luthier and long-term friend Edwin Peck. Edwin is a retired cabinet maker in the region who turned his hand to making an extended series of highly sought after guitars.

Rod organised for four of Edwin’s guitars and their owners to perform during the concert. From left to right. Bryan Claybrook, Gillian Dodd, Edwin Peck, Rod Faulkner and Dave Butcher.

The concert opened with a DGE set which included the ensembles first full performance of the Norwich Suite by John Gibbs (1995). We were then delighted to share the stage with Gillian Dodds, one of Rod Faulkner’s pupils who plays one of Edwin’s guitars, followed by Rod Faulkner and Dave Butcher.

The full concert line up from left to right. Mike Ambrose (DGE), Sarah Sweet (DGE), Maria Wallis (DGE), Edwin Peck, Rod Faulkner and Dave Butcher.

The concert was well received and was followed by very animated conversations with Edwin and his friends at Catton Court.

Thanks to the staff at Catton Court Retirement Housing for hosting the event and refreshments.

Special thanks to Rod for organising the event and for playing on stage with us all again. As Rod mentioned in his post-concert text “Onwards and Upwards!”.

Guitarists are fortunate to have two written music formats in current use, chords aside. To any student just starting out, this can seem like double the work. When juggling the demands of life today, who’s got time to learn both? Which one should one choose? Often this will depend on the type of music you want to play, your teacher’s preference or any other musical experience you might have.

To ‘seasoned ensemble players’ the additional complexities of key signature, rhythm and expression that can be conveyed in staff notation wins out over TABS hand down. Game over? Not quite!

Now and again, you come across a piece of music that can stop you in your tracks. One such piece for me is Espejismos (Mirage) by Quique Sinesi from his 14 Estudios para Guitarra Fusión (2020). Interestingly the score provides both notation and TABS and on examination one can quickly see why. The piece details the following tuning; 1st Eb, 5th G, 6th C. As if the mental gymnastics of this unusual tuning isn’t enough, no key signature is given and the notation is liberally littered with accidentals. This is definitely a case of ‘TABS to the rescue’. The visual structure of the piece becomes immediately apparent. The printed RH fingers of the first bar is also helpful.

Let’s face it, we need all the help we can get so if the help is there, take it. Investing time in learning both systems will be time well spent. A good recording of the piece played by Prof. Virginia Pagola () (Tutorial – Quique Sinesi: Espejismos de 14 Estudios para Guitarra Fusión (youtube.com)). An extended version of the same piece (central section) with a saxophone extemporisation over top that’s worth a listen can be found on the following link (Espejismos (youtube.com)).

OMG! 08:30am on the morning of an important gig and an email comes through that one of our players has gone down with COVID during the night so cannot make it. It’s the sort of scenario we’ve talked though but with just four players, not one we dwell on. What do we do? What else but keep focused and carry on of course.

Fortunately, we negotiated a good lead in time for setting up and sound checks (we were playing in a big marquee). This allowed us to review where the losing one part was critical and make the necessary changes to our programme. In the event everything went well and we were well received.

Are there lessons to be learnt from the experience? Plan as much as you like, it’s impossible to mitigate against all that could go wrong in a live performance. Aside from managing the extra adrenaline rush, it did serve to underline the importance of being well prepared at both individual and group levels and the importance of self-confidence and belief that ‘We’ve got this ’.

Oh, and just to say, our fourth member has since made a good recovery and is back playing with us again.

Nathan was spotted having set up his office in front of Norwich Market a few days ago. What could he conjure up with the prompt of ‘Guitar Ensemble’?

Classical guitars come in a range of sizes. At the larger end is the bass guitar. As an ensemble, all the music we’ve played to date has only required the occasional dropped D on the sixth string. Looking for new pieces to expand our repertoire we came across a 4 part score for the ‘Pink Panther theme’ which included a score for bass guitar. Our Musical Director happened to have one and, always up for a challenge I volunteered to give it a go.

So, what’s it been like to play? Like wrestling with a bear, very physically demanding and with lots of deep growling. Think humpbacked whale song! You actually feel the vibrations of the guitar body the lower you go.

Let’s start with the strings. All six are wire wound and are more akin to piano strings so forget about gliding smoothly up the strings so different solutions are needed. The 6th string is twice the thickness (2mm vs 1mm) of that of a standard guitar. The thicker strings need a lot more pressure when pushing and holding down. They are also very unforgiving on the buzzing front so accurate finger placement is needed on the back edge of the fret to get a clean note.

The string length from nut to bridge is 8cm longer than my standard guitar so the lower frets are slightly longer and the fret board meets the guitar body at fret 13 rather than 12 so a whole lot of adjustments needed where longer fingers are a definite advantage.

The sound is ‘Simply Awesome’. The additional resonance the lower octave brings with it warmth and changes the whole soundscape and dynamic of the ensemble. As it’s name implies, it’s a base so can offer an anchor for the other parts.

All in all, the bass guitar is big all round and demands respect and practise time to get the best out of it. It’s a good way to get a physical workout and great fun. Can’t wait for some audience feedback when we play the piece in concert.

So, what other pieces might it be useful for? While I’m writing this ‘Bare Necessities’ from the ‘Jungle Book’ comes to mind. Think I’ll nickname it Baloo…!

What a treat to be playing to a packed village hall in Darsham again and help with fund raising. We performed for just over an hour and were more than ready to join the audience for light refreshments at the end. Sakura drew a lot of comments for it’s Japanese sound. The concerto in D major by Telemann with the contrast between the four movements also proved popular. We all enjoy playing this piece with the main themes in each of the two allegros moving around the stage between the four parts. Bravo to Maria and Mike for their two duets!

Thanks to the village hall committee for the invite and refreshments and Dave Butcher for the banners.

The general levels of uncertainty associated with social gatherings and audiences is such that we are still to schedule our next concert. To help us continue to develop our ensemble playing we are currently using our rehearsal time as recording sessions focusing on fine tuning of new repertoire. While not a substitute for playing to a live audience it does call for a different level of concentration and consistency. Hopefully some of these will be good enough to add to our recordings page so watch this space!

Mike