Guitarist and singer-songwriter Sophie Chassée displays impressive modern fingerstyle technique and has a voice that gets under your skin. She has been attracting attention in the scene for some time now. It was high time she released her latest album with Acoustic Music.

Sophie Chassée's percussive yet melodic guitar performance has a forcible and stirring clarity and virtuosity. The tapestry of delicately and richly nuanced sounds she weaves on her Lakewood serve as a backdrop upon which her beautiful and extraordinary voice unfolds at times with power and intensity, and at other times gently and vulnerably. There’s no kitsch or pathos here, but rather melancholy and always great depth. Sophie Chassée paints verbal pictures in her English-language songs and tells tales of friendship and love, transformation and farewells. The cherry on top are the discreet basslines, percussion, vocals and sensitive pad and electric guitar lines, which she recorded herself. Lesson learned – and how!

The album is a tribute to the great masters of Russian guitar music. And Evgeni Finkelstein is surely the one who can best present their work. Some of these compositions haven’t been performed for more than a hundred years and can be heard for the first time on a CD.

The Moscow master guitarist applies the greatest musical sensitivity and masterful virtuosity to these interpretations of works by Nikolai Makarov (1810-1890), Nikolai Alexandrov (1818-1884) and Vladimir Morkov (1801-1864), among others. He also performs compositions by twentieth-century composers, like Sergei Rudnev (*1955), Nikita Koshkin (*1956), Julia Finkelstein (*1977) and Evgeni Finkelstein (*1972) himself. Their place on this album and make it into a comprehensive compilation of Russian music written for the classical guitar that is well worth listening to.

Anyone who has experienced or heard Evgeni Finkelstein's unique art of interpreting classical music – whether live or on CD – and his almost unequaled playing skills knows what a musical treat awaits with each new recording from this artist on six strings, who has won prize after prize.

 "This guy at the ‘Beat Club’ in 1967, initially threw me for a loop. A guy who tunes the guitar in the midst of a deafening fuzz distortion sound and produces sounds from it with his meter-long tongue was just a taxing side-effect. I was fascinated and unnerved by this performance and, as a novice in a guitar band, I had the distinct feeling that this was about much more than just music.

The important, existential things were being discussed in the subtext, the approach! This was not merely a concert, this was a performance that reached several artistic levels. It hit you right in the guts – life itself.

A thought already dawned on me back then: If something is to fascinate me long-term in artistic expressions, it must be something I can lock horns with. Any approach needs time and involves endless roaming.
Then, I took a Schaller pick-up microphone (24 deutschmarks) and pinned it to my robust Höfner traveling guitar and killed off two old tube radios in a single afternoon (for the price of four trips to the movies! An insultingly low price to pay).
It’s without any regrets that I gave up looking for the downbeat in ‘All Along the Watchtower’ (when the solo kicks in!). 
I partially stripped the songs down to their DNA and struggled in my own way (respectfully) to find my own range of colors. 

Cuban masterpieces easy arranged for guitar

25 pieces

Annotations and reference section in German and English language

Book & CD, 80 pages, music score and tablature
MP3 downloads incl.

Cuban music took shape as an engaging blend of different cultures. Though rooted in European traditions that arrived on the islands with its settlers, the inclusion of impulsive African rhythms ultimately formed an unmistakable Afro-Cuban style.

All the pieces included here should be very approachable by intermediate guitarists.

The new CD "Onwards and Upwards" by the guitar trio Guitar Celebration shows all facets of the three accomplished members – Ian Melrose, Rüdiger Krause and Nikos Tsiachris.

All three are well-known virtuosos, composers and arrangers – a concentrated load of creativity and joy of playing. Styles are mixed, stylistic boundaries are crossed, improvisation and experimentation take place. The exciting original compositions are complemented by original arrangements from Bach and Mozart to Dave Brubeck and Eric Clapton.

The trio creates atmospheric sound structures, pulsating rhythmic moments and everything in between. These three virtuosos from very different genres create a new kind of guitar trio!

With STORY BOARD, fusion guitarist Michael Sagmeister has opened a new chapter in his virtually inexhaustible creativity and productive power.

The musical plot of this work is as follows: The master himself oversees each chord, each solo, each baseline, and each groove. Because for the first time, Michael Sagmeister has not only recorded the guitar parts, but also took on the bass, keyboard, drums, and the programming of the percussion. And it's so convincing and impressive, that one just wants to hear more of it. His musical dialogues are enhanced in some passages by Antonella Dorio, whose vocal sound collages integrate seamlessly into the musical tapestry created by Sagmeister. On STORY BOARD, this wizard of the strings has added to his, so far, almost inexhaustible repertoire with eleven of his own compositions and three arrangements – including a wonderful tribute to Dizzy Gillespie’s “Night in Tunisia”.

The result is a fiery fusion album chockfull of musical intensity, playful virtuosity and artistic creativity. So we can state once again: The only thing that doesn’t surprise us with Michael Sagmeister is that he continues to surprise us. 

This book is only available in German language.

Buch, inkl Videos für Download und Streaming.
Noten und Tabulaturen, in deutscher Sprache. 62 Seiten.

Schwierigkeitsgrad: leicht bis fortgeschritten

„Spaß mit Dreiklängen“ nimmt dich mit auf eine Forschungsreise auf der Gitarre. Für die gängigsten Genres zeigt Oliver Kraus, wie man mit Dreiklängen soliert, begleitet, verziert und die Gitarre aus einer völlig neuen Perspektive kennenlernt.

Oliver Kraus hat Jazzgitarre studiert, ist aber auch in Blues, Pop, Rock und Countrymusik zuhause. Das Buch ergänzt die bereits erschienene Lehrbuchreihe „Der unglaubliche Solo Creator, Song Creator, Groove Creator“ und demonstriert, wie man einen nie dagewesenen Überblick über das Gitarren-Griffbrett bekommt und jenseits von „Skalen-Gefängnissen“ mit Spaß und Leichtigkeit auf dem gesamten Instrument unterwegs sein kann.

Dutch classical guitar virtuoso Nathasja van Rosse is back in search of the golden tone, after having to take a break due to a serious injury. This fresh restart also allows for recently discovered new ways to express her own creativity through composing for classical guitar and writing poetry, channelling deep emotions during lockdown into four original compositions.

These pieces blend perfectly into a beautifully balanced program in broad musical variety exploring mainly new works by young composers like Damien McCuskey and Jan Depreter while completing it with two pieces by Astor Piazzolla and Louise Walker. Nathasja’s refined artistry is remarkably immaculate, her dynamic performance between cascading arpeggios and heartfelt lyrical melodies shows depth and maturity in a clear and straightforward approach. Apart from quite a few premier recordings the Sonatina by Florian Palier might be regarded as outstanding.

Naturally according to its title this album is particularly inspired by warmth, love and poetry.

Viviane Kudo and her guitarist Jo Schultz are back again.

If you love this duo's subtly intense and pleasantly unpretentious songs, you will also appreciate the new album "Blue Companion". The song selection, however, is a little unusual. It includes light, breezy and sensitive love songs. There are also some songs in which Jo Schultz works through his experiences in the DEBAGA refugee camp in northern Iraq, where he was active in a music workshop for traumatized children on behalf of the children's charity Terre des Hommes. In these songs, which are steeped in an omnipresent feeling of melancholy, you can hear a profoundly sad but sober sound. "It is this voice of the German-Japanese artist, and it grabs you, goes under your skin and right into the heart!" writes Jens Hausmann in AKUSTIK GITARRE about Viviane Kudo.

This is especially true for "Blue Companion"!

This book is only available in German language.

Buch, inkl Videos für Download und Streaming.
Noten, in deutscher Sprache. 36 Seiten.

Schwierigkeitsgrad: leicht bis mittelschwer

Fabian Zeller präsentiert in diesem Spielheft zeitgemäße, kurze und meisterhaft komponierte Gitarrenstücke von leicht bis mittelschwer für alle Altersklassen.
„Klangszenen“ sind kleine Charakterstücke, die Bilder, Szenarien oder emotionale Stimmungen musikalisch darstellen. Im Fokus stehen Fantasie und Musikalität, sowie das Empfinden von Form und Struktur in der Musik. Der Komponist zeigt Möglichkeiten auf, anhand der Stücke mit konkreten Beispielen die musikalische Bedeutung von Bildern herauszuarbeiten und das Gitarrenspiel dadurch insgesamt lebendiger und kreativer zu gestalten.

Die Stücke sind nach fünf musikalischen Schwerpunkten geordnet:

• Artikulation
• Klang
• Balance bei Mehrstimmigkeit
• Mehrstimmigkeit bei Arpeggien
• Dynamik und Phrasierung

Zu jedem Schwerpunkt gibt es Erläuterungen zum Thema und zu spieltechnischen Details, bei Bedarf sind kleine Vorübungen eingefügt.