50 Easy Classical Guitar Pieces

Pros:
Approachable material

Cons:
I don’t like tablature! It produces large amounts of clutter resulting in too many page turns while playing.

This is a great little book for early intermediate level musicians. Very beautif. ul music at good price. This book is a good value.

Muy buen artículo, pero claro, según tu nivel puede ser adecuado o no. Es de nivel básico.

Fantastic Book. Perfect material for both the experienced and novice guitar player.

I’ve been a guitar player for over 30 years and have had formal classical lessons in the past. For the last 10 years or so, I’ve been playing only sporadically, and have not looked at sheet music in over 15 years. Recently I decided to take up classical guitar again and was horrified to discover almost all of my reading and a good portion of my classical technique had gone away. After looking online for some material to help me on my way, I stumbled upon this and picked it up. I have been extremely impressed since doing so.

As someone who worked through many of the old instructional books (Mel Bay, Noad, etc), I really wish I had started with something like this. One of the lessons I’ve learned in my journey as a guitarist is that practicing is most useful and most fun when it involves actually playing music. This book begins with very, very simple guitar pieces, but ones that are very musical. I find myself starting most of my practice sessions now with the first four pieces in this book, both to get my hands ready, but also to get myself in a musical mood.

My only caution for the very new player is that there is no guidance on technique or form. I don’t think this should stop you, but if you don’t have some idea of where you should be headed with such topics, I’d spend a little time poking around on YouTube to get some guidance on the fundamentals. On this note, make sure to get multiple opinions on this. My experience is that there is a lot of gospel about what one should and shouldn’t do, but in the end you just need to find something that works for you.

Un buen libro para uno que es principiante, además de autodidacta, genial el poder escuchar la grabación de las piezas

Fifty pieces, indeed easy, anyone having studied for about six months will be able to handle these short works. They include Sor studies, a study by Napoleon Coste, anonymous Renaissance works–the usual suspects for beginning classical guitar. A few of them are quite charming; there is a “Andantino” by Carulli, with his usual graceful Italian charm that I sight-read right off the bat but has value as a warm-up piece to work on dynamics (because you aren’t struggling with the notes.) That’s the value, I think, here. You have a variety of decent works that you can use to improve sight reading or fluidity because they aren’t annoyingly difficult.

The one star off is sort of a quibble: the notation is supplemented by tablature below. If you want to become good at sight-reading, tablature is something you don’t want to use as a crutch. And there it is, right below the notation. I’m going to have to paste paper strips over it. It’s just too easy to say, where IS that note and see it on the string, when you really want to develop the brain-hand connection of see note-play note. For the same reason, my piano teacher years ago would never allow parents to paste stickers onto the piano keys or put those cards behind the keyboard with the name of the note. Learn it cold. You’ll be happier later on when your hand almost has an eye in each fingertip.

The CD is nice if you can’t sight-read and play by ear–again, a crutch, but good to listen to hear dynamics and ideas for adding that to the musical interpretation.