# Classical music for guitar



## Ainsley

Hey! Do you guys know any good classical pieces to play on guitar? I play fingerstyle and am an intermediate player.


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## Kjetil Heggelund

You can try Fernando Sor, Francisco Tarrega and Leo Brouwer for starters


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## Pugg

Ainsley said:


> Hey! Do you guys know any good classical pieces to play on guitar? I play fingerstyle and am an intermediate player.





Kjetil Heggelund said:


> You can try Fernando Sor, Francisco Tarrega and Leo Brouwer for starters


Here's your answer.:tiphat:


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## Guest

No, that's why I eventually gave it up and started playing the piano!


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## Ainsley

Do you like piano? I currently play guitar and electric bass but am interested in piano.


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## tdc

I think there are a lot of excellent 20th century pieces composed for guitar by composers such as: Rodrigo, Brouwer, Takemitsu, Dyens, Koshkin, Walton and many more. Most of that stuff is pretty challenging but Brouwer wrote some fantastic studies for intermediate level players, as did Koshkin. 

As far as pre 20th century there are some transcriptions of pieces by J.S. Bach and Albeniz (great pieces but difficult). Aside from that (with some exceptions) I find pre 20th century guitar music not very good for the most part. One notable exception is the Baroque composer Gaspar Sanz, who wrote a number of fine studies for the guitar.


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## fajfall

I play Asturias on guitar, it's my favourite song for the instrument. I don't know if that counts as classical though.


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## Pugg

fajfall said:


> I play Asturias on guitar, it's my favourite song for the instrument. I don't know if that counts as classical though.


Doesn't matter, it's in the strings section.


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## Guest

Kontrapunctus said:


> No, that's why I eventually gave it up and started playing the piano!


OK, that was harsh! I recently decided that I miss many pieces and aspects of the guitar, so I'm returning to it and will also continue piano studies.

To less sarcastically answer your questions, definitely try some Sor Etudes and some easier Giuliani pieces, such as his "Harmonious Blacksmith Variations." The Prelude to Bach's Cello Suite No.1 might be manageable, too.


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## Nate Miller

Kontrapunctus said:


> OK, that was harsh! I recently decided that I miss many pieces and aspects of the guitar, so I'm returning to it and will also continue piano studies.
> 
> To less sarcastically answer your questions, definitely try some Sor Etudes and some easier Giuliani pieces, such as his "Harmonious Blacksmith Variations." The Prelude to Bach's Cello Suite No.1 might be manageable, too.


I play guitar and perform classical music. Giuliani's "Harmonious Blacksmith" opus 107 may be a little ambitious for a starter piece, but the theme is definitely worth having a go at. Even if you can't manage all the variations, it is a fun piece

Giuliani's complete works can be ordered through Brian Jefferies at TECLA editions in the UK. He's my favorite guitar composer. I play a lot of his solo guitar works and I've also performed his opus 68 (a set of rondos for piano and guitar), and I play lot of his stuff for violin and guitar with a violinist I play weddings with. Some of his music is really high end, but he also wrote a lot of simpler pieces for amateurs. People played in their parlors for their own entertainment back then, and music publishers wanted to publish things that folks could just play, so Mauro Giuliani wrote a number of sets of easy pieces for solo guitar, guitar duet and also chamber music.

it also is absolute nonsense that 20th century music is better, particularly for getting started playing classical music on a guitar. the thing about modern stuff is that the pieces tend towards hand mechanisms that are only applicable to that one piece. On the other hand, I can read through pieces from the late 18th and early 19th century all night and the mechanisms for both the left and the right hand stay pretty consistent. What I mean is that a G triad is a G triad is a G triad all day long.

I think the music from the late 18th and early 19th centuries is pretty, fun to play music. I also have noticed that when I play regular gigs (as opposed to recitals) that people like that style of classical music, whether they like "classical" music or not. Its just pretty music...and its fun to play

but that's just my opinion. I have to play out in front of people a lot and I like to play stuff the nice people might like....but don't just turn off music from before 1900. Lots of fun and very accessible pieces out there for guitar.


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## Animal the Drummer

fajfall said:


> I play Asturias on guitar, it's my favourite song for the instrument. I don't know if that counts as classical though.


Absolutely it does.


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## ClassicalMaestro

I would suggest starting with these four composers:
Carulli, Carcassi, Sor, and Giuliani


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## malc

If you can read dots great! There is also loads of stuff for tab available , as many people have used it in the folk/rock/medieval area


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## gry

there are some lute suites by JS Bach that have nice parts, e.g. the well known bouree is quite nice.


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## Room2201974

If you read tab, try this site: http://www.classtab.org

Double check the tab with standard notation if anything sounds amiss. I'm working on a Chopin piece right now and the middle section of the tab I have is all wrong. The beauty of the above site is that they have midi samples you can hear and they also label many pieces as to the degree of difficulty.

Lots of popular stuff on lickbyneck.com and YouTube as well!

P.S. Here is a great Bach piece that shouldn't be too hard for an intermediate player!


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## vsm

fajfall said:


> I play Asturias on guitar, it's my favourite song for the instrument. I don't know if that counts as classical though.


Yes, definitively classical.

If interested in reading classical sheet music guitar, it is worth checking VSM classical guitar repertoire, I edited some of those editions:

https://www.virtualsheetmusic.com/guitar/classical/


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