It’s Monday morning. The American time change has gone through and I’m still a bit under the weather. One big plus is that the ringing in my ears is subsiding. That’s right I said ears this time. Seems my right ear was feeling left out yesterday and started ringing at a different tone than my left ear. While it wasn’t the greatest harmony, it was rather odd. At least it’s back to barely being in just my left ear. That’s a plus.
While I’ll likely still remain out of commission for the day I figure I’ll still spread some musical joy.
Today’s selection comes from Italy but has a very Spannish flavor to it. This kind of playing holds a special place in my heart because I started out with two years of classical guitar lessons when I was first learning to play. I did it for the discipline. I was fortunate to have a teacher that took lessons from Segovia who is considered to be one of the, if not the, best classical guitarists of all time. My teachers first words to me were – If you don’t want to learn, I don’t want to teach.
So of course I said I wanted to learn. I started lessons on a borrowed guitar from my friend Brett Hanscom and proceeded to start practicing for hours a day. Eventually I got my own classical guitar. At the same time I was applying my practice not only to what my teacher was showing me but also to rock and hard rock stuff. One day I came in playing the melody line to Diary of A Madman cause I thought Ozzy was cool and I was learning stuff from his past guitarists. My teacher was surprised and said where did you learn about Leo Brower?
I was shocked and said, no this is Ozzy and Randy Rhoads. At which point he proceeded to pull out a piece of music and play it. However the name at the top of it was Leo Brower. It started out note for note identical. I was floored. I had read about Randy taking classical lessons and that Ozzy overheard Randy playing something which turned into Diary of A Madman, but I didn’t think they ripped it clean off. I was wrong. Ouch.
I’m not as classically versed as I used to be, but I do still whip it out to play sometimes. I still keep my right hand fingernails longer and shaped to play. So Saro’s recording is a nice treat and a good break from the norm around here.
Last year I ended up listening to a very large amount of solo guitar stuff. Lots of it was classical. A vast majority of it wasn’t as good as this. So while there are a bunch of guitarists out there pushing the classical guitar thing, from my experience (of roughly 200 cd’s worth) this would easily stand out in the top 10. I’m sure Saro must be doing well over in Italy. Then again, I’m not sure how many classically trained guitarists they have over there. Either way, I like what he’s doing and I think you ought to have this for your collection. Especially for those times when you’re having an espresso on a cobblestone patio.