Tirando Blues – Joep Wanders Preliminary List C No. 6
Dutch guitarist and composer Joep Wanders studied classical guitar at the Sweelinck Conservatory in Amsterdam with Wim Pfister, graduating in 1981. He is perhaps best know for the huge amount of educational material he began composing very early on in his career. In addition to the numerous studies for guitar he has also composer similar works for Flute, Saxophone, Clarinet and Piano. Tirando Blues is taken from his collection Guitarra Tirando.
- The piece is a 12 bar blues and is based on the E minor Pentatonic scale. It is worth looking up with these terms first if you aren’t already familiar with them
- Play the whole piece free stroke. Tirando does of course mean free stroke after all.
- If you are having trouble getting the appropriate “swing” feel of the work listen to my youtube recording while reading along with the score.
- The slur in the last bar may take some additional work and it is recommended to ask your teacher for some additional slur exercises. I recommend Aaron Shearer’s Slur, Ornament and Reach Development Exercises which contains enough supplemental material to last a student many years. It’s certainly a worthwhile investment.