Classical Guitar Method   Music for Classical Guitar, Vol. 1   Music for Classical Guitar, Vol. 2   Ten Pieces for Classical Guitar   Eleven Pieces for Classical Guitar   Twelve Pieces for Classical Guitar (view and listen)   Easy Listening Guitar (view and listen)   Easy Listening Guitar-2 (view and listen)   Easy Listening Guitar-3 (view and listen)   Folk Music from Many Lands, Vol.1   Folk Music from Many Lands, Vol.2   Folk Music from Many Lands, Vol.3   The Key of C for Kids and Other Folks, Vol. 1 * All sound clips require Real Player. You can download it here.

1) Classical Guitar Method ($13) Introduces notes to the student a few at a time with accompanying exercises, leading the student to be able to read music in the fifth position and beyond. Most of the lessons are in duet form with the teacher's part providing an accompaniment that provides a full and balanced sound. In some of the duets students can play both parts. After a sufficient amount of notes have been presented to the student, small solo pieces are presented involving two or more voices. The thrust of the method book is to develop the student's skill to the point of being able to play solo pieces that have both melody and accompaniment. Except for five arrangements of traditional folk music at the end of the book, all material is original music tailored to the student's skill as he progresses. Includes a pretty tremolo solo lesson.

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2) Music for Classical Guitar, Vol. 1 ($10) Consists of ten, two-part contraptions and eight miscellaneous pieces. I use the term "contraptions" tongue-in-cheek because "inventions" is what J. S. Bach called his fifteen keyboard pieces in two voices. I wouldn't presume to be on Bach's musical level so I labeled my two-part contrapuntal pieces "contraptions." These pieces are of much more interest to the performer (and listener) if they are aware of the fact that one of the two voices imitates the other, sometimes throughout the whole piece (like a round), sometimes just here and there. A lot of these pieces are somewhat difficult because of the interplay of two independent voices, the appearance of notes high up on the fingerboard and occasional pieces not in guitar-friendly keys (Contraption #10 is in the key of c minor--three flats).

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3) Music for Classical Guitar, Vol. 2 ($10) Consists of ten, three-part contraptions, eight more miscellaneous pieces and two more pieces with the sixth string tuned down to D. Being in the voices, these contraptions are more difficult than the two-part tunes in the previous volume. The eight miscellaneous pieces (different from the eight in Vol. 1) are much easier than the contraptions.

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4) Ten Pieces for Classical Guitar ($10) Both this book and the next book listed contain pieces that are intended as modern classical guitar music--as opposed to "easy listening" music which is intended as lighter, popular music. These are mostly somewhat difficult pieces. Several are longer than those in my Easy Listening books (Number 3 is six pages long). Often in these pieces I introduce harsh dissonance that is associated with modern classical music (and at which the average listener cringes).

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5) Eleven Pieces for Classical Guitar ($10) see above book #4.

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6) Twelve Pieces for Classical Guitar ($10) This volume could actually be entitled Easy Listening-4. It is my most recent book and most of the music I now write is intended as popular or easy listening music. I actually play eleven pieces out of this book as background music at Carlos' Cuban Café in Tallahassee, Florida. Number 9 is the only piece I've ever notated in tablature. It's a blues piece with some sliding chords that would be a nightmare of sharps and flats in musical notation. Number 8 is a piece in the key of D with basically the same recurring bass line section throughout the piece (like the famous Palchebel's Canon in D) so I call it Santiago's Blunderbuss. Number 3 has the feel of a slow ballad and listeners have responded favorably to it. The Spanish flair of Number 10 led me to give it the title of Adventures of Don Quixote, although when Obie Deyo, my computer consultant heard it he thought the added qualification "in the American Southwest" was appropriate. View and listen to parts of the following tracks: Number 3 - view and listen Number 8 : Santiago's Blunderbuss - view and listen Number 10 : Adventures of Don Quixote - view and listen Number 12 - view and listen

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7) Easy Listening Guitar ($10) This was my first attempt at writing popular music after copyright associations informed the restaurant where I was playing that the restaurant needed to pay $2000 a year in order for me to play music by the Beatles, James Taylor, Cat Stevens, etc. The restaurant managers backed out of having the live music even when I told them I could write my own music. The bright side of the story is that I have been having a blast ever since, composing and playing my own compositions (at restaurants with more broad-minded managers). The two pieces that I consider the catchiest of my popular pieces are in this volume. They are Number 10 : Dancing in the Street and Number 12 : Sailing to Freedom. A drummer friend of mine told me he thought I should adopt Dancing in the Street as my signature piece. I think both pieces derive their popular appeal from the predominance of rhythmic chord strumming. I subtitled Number 15 : Homage to the Bull because of its flamenco sound and evocation (in my mind) of bullfights in Spain. The idea for the song's title came after I had already put the book together, so it doesn't appear in the book. View and listen to parts of the following tracks: Number 3 : El Río - view and listen Number 4 : La Respuesta - view and listen Number 8 - view and listen Number 10 : Dancing in the Street - view and listen Number 12 : Sailing to Freedom - view and listen

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8) Easy Listening Guitar-2 ($10) One of the things that fascinates me about writing music is that I never know what's going to come out of my pen. I was a music major in college for 2+ years but have applied myself studiously to music for much longer. I have listened to much music and many different kinds of music. I think the ingestion of so much and so many different kinds of music is responsible for the eclectic output in my compositions. Number 2 opens with a jazzy feel but then shifts into a kind of new age feel. Number 7 opens sounding something like Gaelic music and shifts at the end to the feel of a European Renaissance dance. Number 17 sounds like simple folk music. Sometimes I feel like I am the architect of what I am shaping but sometimes I feel like I am a mere conduit for some mysterious and alive source. Either way, the creative endeavor fascinates me. View and listen to parts of the following tracks: Number 1 - view and listen Number 7 - view and listen

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9) Easy Listening Guitar-3 ($10) I am sometimes deeply affected by movies and will occasionally write music that expresses my experience. Number 11 expresses how I felt after seeing a movie about the plight of the Tibetans. The first half of the piece seeks to express the sadness of their brutal oppression while the second half seeks to evoke the serene beauty, kindness and wisdom of their character as a people. Number 3 is a piece that I wrote while reading an interesting biography of the Paraguayan guitarist and composer Augustín Barrios Mangoré. Number 16 is my tribute to a very close friend of mine who passed away. The circumstances surrounding my writing of Number 17 were so uncanny that it hinted at communication with departed friends, though I am basically skepical of that kind of thing. Still, it left me wondering. View and listen to parts of the following tracks: Number 2 : Pamplona - view and listen

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10) Folk Music from Many Lands, Vol. 1 11) Folk Music from Many Lands, Vol. 2 12) Folk Music from Many Lands, Vol. 3 ($10) Volumes I and II each contain 38 pieces while Volume III contains 35 pieces. These are all instrumental arrangements without lyrics or chord symbols. They are quite pleasant to play and range from an easy to medium level of difficulty. They do not have the feel of "hip" folk music from the sixties; rather, they have the feel of standard arrangements we might remember from our grade school music instruction. Well known tunes like John Henry, The Erie Canal, Streets of Laredo and The Blue Tail Fly are included, as well as lesser known tunes--all in guitar-friendly keys.

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13) The Key of C for Kids and Other Folks, Vol. 1 ($10) This volume is a mixture of children's songs and folk songs, all in the key of C. Like the three volumes of folk music, these are instrumental arrangements without lyrics or chord symbols. Beginning students are often confused and thrown off by the introduction of different key signatures. This volume gives beginners 45 pieces to play with an easy to medium difficulty level (many of them a half page in length) without all those sharps and flats of different key signatures. Some of the pieces, however, do involve accidentals.

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