My Venture Into The Classical Guitar...

My Classical Acoustic/Electric Guitar - Takamine EC128

The three on going chord progression you hear on "...And Vampires Made Made Love" was recorded with this guitar. It's gotta be those nylon strings.

Not many people know this but during my early years of playing guitar I studied classical music. Way before the shred/rock and now blues thing, it's been about a good twenty years. Every now and then I'll play a few classical pieces that I manage keep with me and memorized. Classical music has always remained with me and it's a very soothing feeling to play "Greensleeves" or "Minuet" which is not a common number for me to play or practice when I pickup a guitar.

But the hardest for me was to re-learn to read music were it made musically sense and it took me every bit of a week. I'm still nowhere near to considered myself a sight reader. I still stumble and pull my hair on almost every classical number I try to play. I won't ever be a Andres Segovia, or a Flamenco master, Paco De Lucia and I'm not trying to be either. But I love the disciplined it brings, which is a total opposite of what I usually do. So with that being said, meet the other side of my playing that I really enjoy venturing into.

I play easy compositions. Some with allot of confidence and some without...lol Either way it's all good and classical guitar players out there... Try not to be too hard on me... I'm still a novice classical guitarist that will never claim to be a virtuoso and plus the blues still rules majority of my heart. ~JCM

Here are some simple compositions that I can read/play and enjoy.

"Greensleeves" (Anonymous 16th Century)
"Minute" J.S. Bach - (1685 - 1750)
"Andante II" Ferdinando Sor - (1778 - 1839)
"Minute" G.P. Telemann - (1681 - 1767)
"Rondo" Jean Phillippe Rameau - (1683 - 1764)
"Allegretto II" Ferdinando Sor - (1778 - 1839)
"Adagio in E Minor" Dionisio Aguado (1789 - 1849)
"Waltz" Ferdinand Carulli (1770 - 1841)
"Andantino" Matteo Carassi (1732 - 1853)