Day Two: Masterclass Denis Azabagic
In the morning we had our first masterclass with Denis Azabagic. Hans and I started with the suite Modinha Brasileira by the contemporary composer Celso Machado. In his case, however, the term contemporary does not imply that you are afflicted by experimental sounds. The movements of the suite are Modinha, Chorinho, Marchinha de Carnaval, Baiaozinho and Sambinha. Nice and easy going Brazilian folk music in a typical Machado style.
Even though I was here to learn something rather than to make a brilliant performance, I still felt something of nerves. The realization that you are dealing with a master on the guitar appeared a bit stressful. Consequently I did not play everything perfectly, even though the outlines of the piece remained in place pretty well. Playing in a duo, you have more support if you happen to drop a note or two.
Azabagic was quick to neutralize my nerves. He had never heard our music, but he liked it very much with the two guitars. He came up with useful instructions concerning the balance of the players. Hans plays without finger nails -just the way they did in the 19th century- and consequently has a substantial and powerful stroke, while I play with nails, causing a bit thinner sound, specifically playing tirando. Azabagic suggested him to drop a bit of his volume and advised me to change a little in my strokes to restore the balance. The result was a more uniform sound impression of the duo as a whole.
Balance in a duo is an important musical and psychological factor. The musical aspect is quite clear: It does not sound well if the impression is there that one partner is playing the other from the stage. Psychologically the (impression of) balance partly determines your play and performance within the duo, particularly for pieces where the traditional melody-accompaniment pattern is replaced by a more democratic approach.
Playing my previous guitar -a Contreras- in a duo setup, I continously had the impression that I was outplayed. The consequence was, that I tried to compensate it with louder playing, which caused stress which even seemed to diminish the final volume. It is hard to play like this, there is hardly room for dynamics if you are playing at maximum already.
It appeared quite difficult to get this balance right: the (sound) impression you get of your partner's play is and remains subjective, despite agreements concerning the loudness of playing. We have tried to make and play back recordings as a means to get an objective view of our balance, to no avail. The conclusion that our balance towards an audience was quite right did not cancel the fact that you hear the other play much louder than yourself.
We changed guitars and found the solution of the problem: a guitar with more feedback, the Contreras projected its sound too far away. It was perfect for a solo recital, but did not work well in the duo situation. Consequently I presently play a Bernabe, which has a much more representative feedback to the player.
Back to the masterclass: The disadvantage of relatively simple music is that you cannot discuss a lot about it. Never mind, we could rely on the piece that we studied for the masterclass with Yves Storms, The Flatt Pavin with its Galliard. Azabagic had quite some to the point comments. There is a lot of work to do!