Ensemble: Folk Music
Folk music is from all times. As soon as people learned to beat a rhythm and to give voice to a song, folk music has been there. Often folk music implies playing together, so it is well suited for an ensemble like a guitar duo.
In this section you will find arrangements of folk music from Mexico, Brazil, Russia and England. All arrangements are for the ensemble Flute/Guitar.
Click the title for playback and sheet music:
A Mexican dance in the typical Latin 6/8 and 3/4 measure variation. Play the piece at a joyful tempo. For the flautist: Because the melody line is a bit limited, take all freedom to make variations in the theme!
A Mexican dance in the typical Latin 6/8 and 3/4 measure variation. Play the piece at a joyful tempo. For the flautist: Because the melody line is a bit limited, take all freedom to make variations in the theme!
An arrangement of a joyful Samba theme that is very popular in Brazilian folk music. The flautist should make some variation on the theme during the repetition.
During my brief career as an amateur-guitar teacher I have made some arrangements of classical pieces for a duo setting, with a relatively simple melody part and an accompaniment for the teacher. My aim was to start playing together as soon as possible.
I got acquainted with traditional Brazilian musical forms via 10 Brazilian Folk Tunes in the setting by Isaias Savio, they have been a personal favourite of mine ever since, I still play them regularly. Cancao is a quiet lullaby, I added a variation to the original tune.
The piece was very suitable for separation of melody and accompaniment. After some trickery with Sibelius, this duo was the result
During my brief career as an amateur-guitar teacher I have made some arrangements of classical pieces for a duo setting, with a relatively simple melody part and an accompaniment for the teacher. My aim was to start playing together as soon as possible.
I got acquainted with traditional Brazilian musical forms via 10 Brazilian Folk Tunes in the setting by Isaias Savio, they have been a personal favourite of mine ever since, I still play them regularly. Maracatu is a quick and lively dance form.
The piece was very suitable for separation of melody and accompaniment. After some trickery with Sibelius, this duo was the result.
The Russian folk song Two Guitars was one of my then flute partner’s favourites (the original title, with or without Russian characters, was unfortunately not known to me). She had a score for flute and piano, but no pianist.
Well, the only solution is an arrangement. In those days I had no computer to help me, so it became a long process of experimenting, noting it down and erasing it again. The result was this arrangement, made without almost any music-theoretical background knowledge. At least playing it together, it did not sound bad!
The song has a Rondo-like structure, a lead theme which pops up regularly (3x) with connecting themes in various tempos and moods in between. Of course, there is the accelerating final!
The song is nice to play with.
Scarborough Fair is one of the best-known English riddle songs that has been arranged in many styles and tempos. In my younger years the most famous version was the one by Simon and Garfunkel.
Scarborough Fair was my very first arrangement for flute and guitar. Later on, I converted it to a guitar duo for DOS Amigos and added some things to the atmosphere of the piece. Perfect material to upgrade the original guitar/flute arrangement!
