Ben Monder scores

[Jimmy blue note]

Ben Monder has made many of his recent scores available for a very minimal request: basic download fees and requested donation for animal rights causes.
For study, performance and the challenge.
A very generous gesture from a true heavy with one of the headiest sense of harmony and composition.
Scores

[dasein]

Extremely generous. I've had the Monder score folios since they first came out, and they are easily some of the most difficult compositions ever written for the instrument. Harder than almost the entire classical guitar repertoire -- you'd have to start going to stuff like Angelo Gilardino to make a comparison.

Something like "Red Shifts" is difficult enough at ballad tempos, nevermind the speed he played it on the recording. Carpal tunnel in a box. Or something like "Mistral" which pretty much uses the same right hand pattern as the famous Villa Lobos Etude No. 1, except the chords are also way harder.

Nice to see a good selection of arrangements from "Day After Day."

[Jimmy blue note]

This is a college level study in counterpoint right here... and Ben's giving away the store. That's one confident dude holding out his hand and saying "Go ahead and TRY to steal my shit."
It's no secret, there are no shortcuts but there are invaluable helping hands for those who are out there with the love and drive to get it.
Thanks again Ben

[Mick-7]

It's annoying to mere mortal guitarists how versatile he is.

He covers several musical genres and does it extremely well in the album on which he plays many of these arrangements:
Day After Day - YouTube

[dasein]

My impression of Ben Monder has always been one of someone who read Mick Goodrick's book, came across the tongue in cheek directives to "now go work out this material in every single possible combination, it should only take you a few lifetimes," but didn't realize Mick was joking and actually went ahead and did it.

[Christian Miller]

This is a college level study in counterpoint right here... and Ben's giving away the store. That's one confident dude holding out his hand and saying "Go ahead and TRY to steal my shit."
It's no secret, there are no shortcuts but there are invaluable helping hands for those who are out there with the love and drive to get it.
Thanks again Ben

Interesting - so Ben's MO with this type of stuff is to score things out and learn the score? Is that correct?

I wonder if the fingerings for our benefit, or if he finds it helpful to write them in.

I have to say from my own experience what I come up with on paper and what I come up with on the fretboard are two different things. Neither better or worse... scoring things tends to stretch my technique to accommodate ideas that are often conventionally un-guitaristic (I am generally quite bad at playing my own music lol). Fretboard has a closer relationship with improvisation.

[Mick-7]

I have to say from my own experience what I come up with on paper and what I come up with on the fretboard are two different things. Neither better or worse... scoring things tends to stretch my technique to accommodate ideas that are often conventionally un-guitaristic (I am generally quite bad at playing my own music lol). Fretboard has a closer relationship with improvisation.

Same with me, but perhaps this score is a product of improvisation?

[Jimmy blue note]

My impression of Ben Monder has always been one of someone who read Mick Goodrick's book, came across the tongue in cheek directives to "now go work out this material in every single possible combination, it should only take you a few lifetimes," but didn't realize Mick was joking and actually went ahead and did it.

Their conversations were mind bending. They read through the pages of the almanacs like teenagers flipping through a graphic novel.
I once asked Mick if it bothered him that 95% of the people who had the almanacs used them as bookends on their shelves. He said "There's Wolfgang and there's Ben. That's why it's out there."

[Christian Miller]

Well you could never say that about me!

(I don't own a physcial copy)

[Mick-7]

Their conversations were mind bending. They read through the pages of the almanacs like teenagers flipping through a graphic novel.

I once asked Mick if it bothered him that 95% of the people who had the almanacs used them as bookends on their shelves. He said "There's Wolfgang and there's Ben. That's why it's out there."

Which Wolfgang is that, Muthspiel?

[Christian Miller]

Which Wolfgang is that, Muthspiel?

Van Halen


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[Jimmy blue note]

Which Wolfgang is that, Muthspiel?

Wolfgang Muthspiel and Mick were very close and stylistically Wolfgang is as close to Mick's in terms of a "next generation" perspective, while Ben's... well after we listened to Oceana for the first time, Mick waved his hand and said "C'mon Ben. We know you can do it. But EVERY TIME?". His admiration for Ben was total.

[TF]

Mr. Monder’s “Emily” arrangement is beautiful, an amazing achievement that I do not understand.

[Christian Miller]

Mr. Monder’s “Emily” arrangement is beautiful, an amazing achievement that I do not understand.

Tbf for me this covers most of Ben Monder’s ouvre


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