study . live . teach
Max was getting tired of his classical guitar training so he decided to take a break this year. We hated for him to give up the guitar completely so we got him hooked up with a British guitar teacher here in Banská Bystrica who focuses on the blues.
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Music lessons in Slovakia are split into three stages with the first stage lasting four years, the second is also four years and the third is two or three (I’ll find out when my kids get there). Max finished the first stage this year which means he had to perform for the head of the music school and then played for a special graduation concert (Elisabeth did this last year).
For this year’s recitals, we have Elisabeth playing a duet (Mazas Rondo from Twelve Little Duets) with her teacher.
With the holiday season comes the season for winter recitals. This year Max played some very interesting duos and trios. He and two other guitarists from their music school did an experiment with “Caravan” a classic jazz piece for guitar. Along with Elisabeth they played a very nice classical piece. You can see that on Elisabeth’s recitals page as well. Along with a couple more duos and trios Max also had a voice recital for which he sang two songs. You can check out all the performances after the jump…
Max got to kick off the spring concert season playing Ferdinando Carulli’s Andante for his Music School’s Tenth Anniversary concert. He and Elisabeth will have their recitals June 10th and 12th and the school’s annual recital highlight concert is June 9th. [Read more…]
When you’re ten years old it’s not easy to play your recital piece in front of a crowd of people but it must be even harder to play when there’s a camera three feet away capturing your every false note for posterity. So Kudos to Max and Danko. They were invited to provide the musical interludes at the Grand Opening of a new exhibit at the Central Slovakia Museum in Banská Bystrica.
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Max just had his mid-year guitar recital. Above he plays a Czech folk song and if you click through you can watch him and and three classmates do a great job of a Bach Chorale and then he plays his version of Sweet Home Chicago with Elisabeth to help him on vocals. [Read more…]
Max just had his 2013, second year guitar recital. For his recital he played a minuet that he got lost in about half way through. At the end of the recital Max got to improvise some blues and then played his Jimi Hendrix inspired version of “Hey Joe.”
Unlike violin, guitar concerts are hard to record because the sound doesn’t come through well. The above is a clip of Max playing “Hey Joe” for me on his electric guitar at home. To see Max’s three performances at the recital, click through for the full article.
While it seemed that Elisabeth played in concert after concert at the end of last year, Max waited until now for his end of term recital for grade one guitar. (The first year of lessons is called “preparation.”
Max played four songs for the recital. The first was “Come all Ye Faithful,” the second and the one seen above is called “It’s Raining, It’s Raining,” the third was his own rendition of “Helter Skelter,” and the fourth was a duet with a third year guitar student as the finale of the recital.
Enjoy!
