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Mozart Wolfgang Amadeus, "Turkish March"
Transcription and Fingering: Renato Bellucci
"The greatest melody writer ever" is perhaps the best short way to describe the Austrian master. His melodies have captured the attention of countless generations of music lovers and composers. Having achieved immortality as a child has set him apart from the rest of "the greatest composers' list".
Freshness is present in all his compositions and even when he tries to be profound and deeply spiritual, Mozart musical purity is always present.
Hollywood has depicted him as a musical clown. Far from the truth. Just like most of what Hollywood does, a degree of mockery is necessary to make the product apt for sale to the masses.
Still, the movie has made justice to the great genius of this magnificent composer by making it clear that he was a genius.
Turkish march is perhaps one of the 5 most recognizable melodies on the planet. The classical guitar brings out the piece fantastically well.
Renato Bellucci plays: "Turkish March"
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Staff and Video 1
Analysis: The first technique to master in Turkish March is the slurs sequence at the very beginning. It consists of a pull off and a hammer on. These are best performed using fijación. Refer to Fijación here. Below I propose an exercise (Make your own Exercise) to make you proficient with slurs. I suggest you practice it with the metronome for 2 minutes.
This is an ideal piece to deal with a few technical challenges. The first one is the double legato at the very beginning of the work.
You have to make your own exercise to overcome it. For instance, you can play the 4-2-1-2 sequence on all 6 strings starting with string 1 and going all the way up to the 6h. Do this for 2 minutes. The legatos will improve dramatically. The pull off/hammer on is performed by the hand as a whole and not by the finger alone (animation below).
PULL OFF-HAMMER ON ANIMATION
With pull offs, the 2 intervening finger are on the fingerboard stopping the notes involved. With the Hammer on, one of the fingers is down and the other comes down fast in an "hammer style" to perform the technque
Video 1
Here I show in slow motion how our Left Hand Fingers perform the pull-off and the succeeding Hammer On.
SLOW MOTION VIDEO: HAMMER-ON/PULL-OFF
Here I apply the concerpt upon which the whole of mangore.com is based upon: "MAKE YOUR OWN EXERCISE". Whenever you feel like your technique is being challenged in the pursuit of perfection, Make an Exercise using your creativity and overcome the obstacle or polish any given aspect of Guitar Technique.
MAKE YOUR OWN EXERCISE: SLURS
Revision: February 28, 2013
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