{"id":12992,"date":"2019-05-31T09:36:32","date_gmt":"2019-05-31T16:36:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/classicalguitarmagazine.com\/?p=12992"},"modified":"2019-06-01T11:09:50","modified_gmt":"2019-06-01T18:09:50","slug":"music-to-play-a-pretty-and-moving-farewell-from-ben-schenstead","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/classicalguitarmagazine.com\/music-to-play-a-pretty-and-moving-farewell-from-ben-schenstead\/","title":{"rendered":"Music to Play: A Pretty and Moving \u2018Farewell\u2019 from Ben Schenstead"},"content":{"rendered":"
This \u2019Music to Play\u2018 originally appeared in the Sumer 2019 issue of Classical Guitar<\/em><\/h6>\n

Click here to download a PDF of \u2018Farewell\u2018<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

The Saskatchewan, Canada\u2013based guitarist, composer, and teacher fills us in a bit on his career and this issue\u2019s piece:\u00a0<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

I love classical music, but I also have a background in popular music, as many guitar players do. For that reason, I enjoy playing and arranging popular, jazz, and world music, both as a soloist and in collaboration with other musicians, including my daughter, Melanie, who plays hand percussion.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

After playing in a rock band during my teen years, I began practicing classical guitar in earnest, and eventually obtained a bachelor\u2019s degree from the University of Saskatchewan and an ARCT (Associate of the Royal Conservatory of Toronto) in classical guitar. I went on to teach guitar in my own studio and in the University of Saskatchewan music department (1982\u20132001) before branching out to other types of teaching in arts education. I\u2019ve played concertos with the Prairie Virtuosi Orchestra and the Amati String Quartet, who play 17th century instruments crafted by the Amati family in Cremona, Italy. I\u2019ve arranged some of the pieces I\u2019ve played with these groups.<\/p>\n

Farewell<\/i> was included on my first album, Sunburst, <\/i>and has also appeared in a short film documentary. The piece has been described as having \u201ctrue spirit and form,\u201d and expresses feelings of empathy, longing, comfort, and hope. It is three minutes long, follows a standard song structure, and is in G major, which is a great key for guitar\u2014not only for its sonority but for its use of the open 2nd, 3rd, and 4th strings. There are some left-hand fingerings that may challenge the player, along with stretches, but these are necessary for the correct voicing of the melody. The middle section has a series of calls and responses that echo the melody and evoke a sense of distance.<\/p>\n

The piece also has a number of leggero<\/i> arpeggios raked with i<\/i> and p<\/i> that require a very light and relaxed touch; the thumbnail must be shaped in such a way that it can glide over the strings without resistance. There are also quite a few ornaments, including single and double grace notes, portamenti, and a turn that appears twice in the verse, which along with the raked glissandi lends the piece a bit of sophistication and expressive nuance.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

A video of this piece and tips for playing it, as well as a tabbed version and additional pieces and arrangements, can be found above and on my website: benschenstead.com<\/strong><\/a>.<\/p>\n

Guidelines for submitting pieces for \u201cMusic to Play\u201d can be found here.<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This \u2019Music to Play\u2018 originally appeared in the Sumer 2019 issue of Classical Guitar Click here to download a PDF of \u2018Farewell\u2018 The Saskatchewan, Canada\u2013based guitarist, composer, and teacher fills us in a bit on his career and this issue\u2019s piece:\u00a0 I love classical music, but I also have a background in popular music, as many guitar players do. For that reason, I enjoy playing and arranging popular, jazz, and world music, both as a soloist and in collaboration with […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":13048,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"video","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[5],"tags":[46],"class_list":["post-12992","post","type-post","status-publish","format-video","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-stories","tag-musictoplay","post_format-post-format-video"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/classicalguitarmagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/BenS-e1559412534120.jpg?fit=800%2C450&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/classicalguitarmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12992","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/classicalguitarmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/classicalguitarmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/classicalguitarmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/classicalguitarmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12992"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/classicalguitarmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12992\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/classicalguitarmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13048"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/classicalguitarmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12992"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/classicalguitarmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12992"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/classicalguitarmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12992"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}