musician/pederson/steve

What do you call 4 virtuosic guitar players from California playing together at the Harper College Community Music Center in Paletine, IL? Other than a powerful trip down memory lane for me, I’d call it the Los Angeles Guitar Quartet performing a benefit concert for the Children’s Guitar Program. Individually they are Scott Tennant, William Kanengiser, Matthew Greif and John Dearman.

Before the concert, in the beautiful sun-lit all-glass atrium, the students of the children’s guitar program performed whilst patrons were treated to fine complimentary hor dourves and deserts.

Tickets for the benefit ran $45. We were told that a “small” portion of the proceeds of the ticket sales went towards the children’s guitar program.

Minimalistic was the stage set up. 4 seats, almost like “mini” piano benches, along with 4 music stands stood lonely on the stage. I met a student, seated on my right, who, I believe, introduced himself to me as “Bob”. I made friends, as I was attending the concert solo, and bored him with stories of my life prior to the show. Great seats – In the middle, in the middle, which was quite amazing as I bought my ticket a mere 25 minutes before the show. The auditorium, which seats a few hundred people, was filled to about 90 percent capacity. There probably wasn’t a bad seat in the house, and I really enjoyed mine.

The acoustics were tremendous. Even the subtlest of sounds emanating from the guitarists was perceived without trouble. No amplification was necessary. As is typical for a classical music concert, the audience sat quietly, aside from a few coughs here and there. Fortunately, nobody’s cell phone went off. But, it was like a water balloon about to break, for, as soon as the ensemble finished each piece or suite, the crowd burst into uproarious applause – giving, at the end, a standing ovation and receiving in return an encore performance.

Of course, the performances were absolutely breath-taking, flawless and virtuosically stunning. What really amazed me was the trading off of parts. The sound was just woven together so exquisitely. You just didn’t know where the next note was going to come from at times.

However, there were about 2 or 3 times in the Pavane of the Capriol Suite that I noticed somebody played a wrong note. I tried to look and see if any of their faces turned red from embarrassment to see who it was, but not a shade of difference. What I did notice was William Kanengiser, who was sitting on the outter right, was looking a little bit perturbed. It seemed almost an uncomfortable moment. I wondered if he was getting upset with the culprit. Maybe it just went with his MO. He seemed to be the most physically expressive of the bunch. This led me to believe that he may have been the conductor as well.

I also noticed that these guys tuned their guitars incessantly throughout the entire performance. I was both inspired by their ability to do this while playing and distracted – taken out of the moment. I think they are probably much more sensitive to tuning issues than the common listener, and could probably ease off a bit on that. Sometimes, when tuning between songs, it left long uncomfortable pauses, and sometimes I just couldn’t tell if they were tuning or starting the piece. I can understand, though. Playing guitar myself. Keeping those classical guitars in tune is a challenge! What was hilarious was that, after the concert, a young boy brought his half-size guitar to them to autograph, and Scott Tennant wrote “Tune Up!” before signing his name!

The performers used a few techniques that I must embarrassingly admit that I’ve never seen before. Though I have seen Jimmy Page play a Les Paul with a violin bow, I’ve never seen a classical guitar player use one. I mean, I’ve seen the Kronos Quartet using them on crystal glasses before, but I hadn’t seen this one yet. What I did see for the first time was the technique of tapping of the fingernails on the sides of the guitar to produce a percussive sound. Very nice. In fact, one of the guitar players – Scott Tennant (sitting on the outter left) – seemed like he had something on the top side of his guitar that he tapped on – something to protect the finish from getting scratched up, I suppose. One other technique I’ve never seen before is that of sliding the picking finger along the string while playing the note. What I liked most about that effect was that they used it very sparingly.

They opened their program with the Overture to Il Barbiere de Siviglia – a safe step, and followed that up with the  six-movement Capriol Suite by Peter Warlock – a bit more adventuresome.  William introduced the next set of pieces, Music from the Time of Cervantes – and gave a little bit of background for each piece. It was quite interesting, but I must say that I’m not really sure if his introduction or explanation had any impact on how I heard the pieces. Of course, this may be because I am not familiar with the story of Don Quixote, which is what the pieces were about. It did make me reconsider taking the offer to play in a local production of The Man of La Mancha, however. I really enjoyed the spanish flavor of those pieces. A lot of rasgueado there, my friend.

After an intermission they began with a more modern suite – ironically named the Antique Suite, by Ian Krause. This was really cool. It was like watching classic movies on a TV that’s on the fritz but not being annoyed by it, rather seeing something new in it. This was where the violin bow was introduced. Bravo! Next, I was very pleasantly surprised. In my senior recital in 1992 at the University of Minnesota, my fellow guitar students and I performed Leo Brouwer’s Cuban Landscape with Rain. I haven’t heard the piece since, but then again, I don’t go to a lot of guitar quartet concerts. I didn’t know it by it’s Spanish name, Paisaje Cubano con Lluvia, as it was listed in the program, so I was delighted when they began to perform it. It nearly brought me to tears it was so beautiful. As one of the current guitar students aptly observed, they performed it much better than we ever had.

Lastly, they finished with the “Carmen Suite” by Georges Bizet. That was just a lot of fun and very beautiful – a great capping off to an already wonderful program. I thought the entire program was a great balance of old and new – very well rounded, and there was obviously nothing too difficult for these guys to play. Like any great concert, it left me feeling inspired and wanting to be more excellent in my pursuit of guitar performance.

After the show I got to get their autographs in my program guide and got to express to them how much I really enjoyed Cuban Landscape with Rain and being taken back to the days of my senior recital. It was a nearly perfect afternoon.

Recently I picked up a CD set that I’ve really been getting into and have been very impressed with. It’s a 3 CD set  called World Acoustic, which claims it is 3 CDs of essential acoustic beats. I had seen it on sale at Half-Price Books a while back, and it piqued my curiosity. Sometimes, however, those obscure collections can be pretty lame, so instead I bought 4 R.E.M. CDs for about $10.

Since I’ve been working on the committee to get the RootsRoom up and running, though, I thought I would check it out and see if it would be something that we could use as background music at this club. I’ve been giving it a listen, and I find that it is very well done and very interesting to listen to.

The strange thing about it, though, is that the music that is on the CDs doesn’t really seem to match what the packaging would lead you to believe would be on there. First of all, you have the title – World Acoustic. Then, on the cover, there is the picture of a sitar and some type of non-Western drum and, as I said, the subtitle stating that it is 3 CDs of essential acoustic beats. All this, to me, sets the stage that I’m about to hear a lot of music that I may not be accustomed to. Certainly I should expect to hear some sitars and other “unusual” sounds – perhaps even some stuff that I might find out of my league and hard to comprehend. I’m expecting to hear cultural music from places like India and other places in the middle or far east. I’m expecting to hear non-traditional, non-Western acoustic sounds and rhythms. Sounds like fun, right? Not only do I expect to hear some “obscure” music, but for some reason I expect that the recording quality to not be that great either. I expect maybe these would be recordings that somebody made with a hand-held, battery-powered MP3 recorder that they brought with on a journey high atop the Himalayas or in the dark jungles of South America.

That’s not really what you hear…at all. First of all, the recording quality is top-notch. It sounds like all the music was recorded and mastered in high-end professional studios by very talented musicians. As for the music, well, it sounds very Western. It sounds just like the kind of stuff you would typically hear on a smooth jazz station in a big city.

As for the instrumentation, it didn’t seem like I was exposed to anything new. Most songs featured steel-string acoustic guitars. I don’t think I heard one sitar on the entire collection. Drums and percussion were standard sounds that I’d heard before. It sounds like at least half of the drumming and beats seem to come from drum loop synthesis as opposed to live musicians. It doesn’t sound bad, but to the trained ear, you can tell the difference. Plus, there was more than just acoustic instruments on there. A couple of songs had electric guitars. Though it is not an electric instrument, the soprano saxophone doesn’t usually come to mind when I think of the world acoustic genre. A couple of songs had vocals, but not your typical verse-chorus type stuff, but a bit more like Pat Metheny, where the vocals were there more for effect.

Both my wife and I, and the folks at the RootsRoom, found the music very enjoyable to listen to. It’s very interesting and even inspired a few new ideas of my own. It’s rich and complex and satisfying – like a cup of coffee. This music will not get you jacked up, and may not be quite as addicting, but I would definitely give it a listen. I’m sure you will enjoy.