Mick Goodrick's 36 solo pieces for fingerstyle guitar??

[RJVB]

Not to tread on any toes, but those 3 nice pieces played by Mike Bono sound like classical music to me (and not just because he plays them on a CG).

We'll still not have any fingering guidance in the new edition, since that was Mick Goodrick's intention

FWIW, I've really been appreciating the possibilities programmes like MuseScore offer to add notes & fingerings, suppress tabs, adapt the layout (I can't read that cursive Cosmic San lookalike font used so often) or even make a "conductor" version of 2 separate duo parts. Pity that there isn't a PDF equivalent application & format that allows this kind of things in ways that would be acceptable for publishers!

[Jimmy blue note]

Not to tread on any toes, but those 3 nice pieces played by Mike Bono sound like classical music to me (and not just because he plays them on a CG).

Those are never intended to be music to be played on Art Blakey's bandstand. They're things Mick wrote because that was a side of Mick's musical persona. He made no distinction between written composition and real time composition save the editorial process with a pen can be much more expansive.
That's the way he heard it, and they were the articulation of some aspect of semantic content he felt for each of the people or places that inspired him. When I played with him, and he was playing unaccompanied guitar, he'd play stuff not unlike those pieces in many ways. Seriously. The only person who does that rich kind of improvisation might be Ben Monder. But on piano, Keith Jarrett has that expansive command on harmonic elements too. Fred Hersch too.
Mick would do introductions to tunes that incorporated motivic development, and contrapuntal voices, voice leading (of which his Almanacs were a gateway to) and that was a way to find the essential harmonic, thematic and melodic elements of a piece before he actually started the first bar. That was the way he played live when he wanted.
But these pieces were also ways for him to solidify his improvisational language and become more intimate with the elements of composition that are the mainstay of classical music, so yeah, it's going to sound like classical.
If you take cycle 6 harmonic minor from the almanacs, it sounds a lot like a Bach Chorale to my ear.

Mick felt that the freer a player was of the limitations and prejudices of compositional theory, the more a player could use those guiding and shaping forces to improvise (compose) with in a personal way.

[Christian Miller]

Those pieces are gorgeous and remind me of something… but I can’t put my finger on it. Anyway it would be nice to try and play them one day.

[Liarspoker]

I like the contrary motion in the first early piece. Haven't gotten too far with it yet. We're converting our attic so lots of shopping and now painting. Leaves very little time for practise.

[rhl-ferndale]

I’m interested in any/or both formats!

late ditto ;-)

will follow these nutritious breadcrumbs and hope to eat cake at the end

[Jimmy blue note]

Overlapping threads and a little taste of using the Almanac voice leading in one of Mick's pieces. Mick's explanation says it all:




Here's a little taste of a piece Mick wrote for his friends in Bass Desires, with whom Mick toured with for a little while when Bill was unable to tour. It uses ideas from the Almanac vol 1.
No TAB. Anybody who wants to make a TAB version is free to do it and post it, but it ain't gonna be me.
Have fun.

[cmajor9]

This is an old thread, but does anyone know if there’s any update? Has any of Mick’s composed work moved any closer to publication?

[Liarspoker]

This is an old thread, but does anyone know if there’s any update? Has any of Mick’s composed work moved any closer to publication?

Check the Modern Guitar Harmony Facebook Group for the update. The 36 pieces is nearly back in print. It will hopefully be released on Mick's birthday.
Other books are being printed too.
Subscribe to the Modern Guitar Harmony Newsletter on the website to stay up to date.

Edit to include link MGH Home - Modern Guitar Harmony

[Jimmy blue note]

This is an old thread, but does anyone know if there’s any update? Has any of Mick’s composed work moved any closer to publication?

Yes! A LOT of things. An annotated collection of 9 early pieces is being prepared for publication along with 1 or 2 fingerstyle compositions from the collected works.

There are new books focusing on rhythmic patterns and rhythmic phrasing.

And there's an unedited massive collection of 50 variations on Steve Swallow's composition, a sort of Goodrick meets Goldberg variations. A LOT of work to be done on this one; it's in handwritten manuscript at this point.

And there's more but stay tuned and you can stay current with updates on the Modern Guitar Harmony site.

[lawson-stone]

Leaving tab out has the added benefit of allowing much more music in the same sized pages and book.