Tarrega 'Prelude No. 1 in D Minor'

Description

Tarrega (1852-1909) was a classical composer-guitarist that wrote for the guitar, making him a fairly unique historical musician. Some of his compositions are fairly short pieces called preludes. In this tutorial we will learn Tarrega's 'Prelude No. 1 in D Minor'.

Familiarity with the entire fretboard is mandatory in order to play this piece. And that also means it can be used to learn the entire fretboard. Tarrega was a master of using the physical layout of the guitar to his advantage in orchestrating multiple parts. It is very characteristic of Tarrega's work: Romantic, rich-sounding harmonies, wonderful melodic arc and quite beautiful. This piece requires tuning the bottom E string down a whole step to D; otherwise known as drop D tuning.

As in all classical pieces, be careful to note the use of multiple voices or parts. There is always a distinct upper melody part and a lower bass part. Frequently, there are also many inner voices to flesh out the sound.

We will learn 4 or 5 measures at a time. Then we'll put them all together at the end. Take it slowly and learn each hand position, then how to move from position to position. This piece is in the key of D minor, and occasionally the relative key of F major. The time signature is 2/4 so we'll count 1 and 2 an. The piece is meant to played very slowly and dramatically with rubato but in general we'll aim for a tempo of 60 BPM.