Abel Carlevaro
Editorial Barry, Buenos Aires: 177 pages
This series of four volumes, previously published separately were here issued as one large book to celebrate the composer’s centenary and is in Spanish and English throughout.
Volume 1` covers the Diatonic Scales in great depth and with great attention paid to the fingerings , but that is only the beginning as he then covers two – voice scales where the pupil and the teacher each playa different form of each of the scales to interest the pupil in the movement of the voices.
Volume 2 is to do with the Right hand technique, with arpeggios and various exercises, beginning with the joint action of thumb and ring finger in multiple different ways, and then after that onto thumb and first finger, double action of thumb, and then rhythmic variations covering all manner of differences for the thumb ( 84 of them) , and then exercises that just about cover every variation possible which are extremely detailed (repeated notes , repeated chords just to mention two of them)
Volumes 3 and 4 cover the Left Hand Technique beginning with preliminary exercises that start quite simply, before taking great care to give the pupil every possible problem he might come across and then providing a piece that deals with it. The coverage is quite simply the most detailed in a book, I have ever happened across and it goes without saying I hope that everyone who gets into this series will benefit in immeasurable ways as , by the time you have gone all the way through the four volumes, your technique will be many times better than it was before.
This book, goes hand in hand with my other review of Carlevaro’s (The School of Guitar) , as both are so comprehensive in their coverage and so useful in so many countless ways that they should both be studied by any serious classical guitarist!
Chris Dumigan
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