From: johnl@yang.earlham.edu (John Fiskio-Lasseter)
Newsgroups: news.groups
Subject: Re: RFD: rec.music.classical.guitar
Date: 20 Aug 92 21:19:11 GMT
Organization: Earlham College, Richmond, Indiana

In article <1992Aug20.143013.4877@usenet.ins.cwru.edu>, bk233@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Jack W. Weinmann) writes:

> I also agree that the classical guitar deserves its own discussion group. 
> I too regularly read alt.guitar and alt.guitar.tab, but feel that there
> should be a group devoted to classical and, I would hope, flamenco guitar
> information.

I can definitely see the inclusion of flamenco in a classical guitar 
discussion list -- so much of the repertoire for classical guitar players 
is spanish, and spanish guitar compositions derive a great deal of 
influence from traditional flamenco playing styles (e.g. the 3-finger 
tremolo, the rapid-fire triplet arpeggio, and the rasguedo [sp?]).


> Since disciplines are similar, would it not be fit for any style of
> acoustic finger-style playing?  Many people who fingerpick could gain a
> great deal of insight from classically trained or disciplined guitarists.

I hope I don't come off as a snob, here, but I think it's a really bad 
idea to widen the discussion boundaries this far.  The styles are really 
only similar insofar as they involve the use of fingers instead of a 
flatpick.  With one or two exceptions, the similarity ends at this point.  

Part of the point of having a newsgroup devoted exclusively to the 
classical guitar is that there is *so much* involved in the classical 
technique of playing the guitar, much of which is completely irrelevant if 
you are playing steel strings or even non-"art" music.

By analogy, I would not expect a newsgroup called r.m.c.violin or 
r.m.c.piano (i.e. rec.music.classical.xxxxx) to also involve discussion of 
Texas-swing style fiddle-playing or of barrelhouse piano -- though I love 
those types of music no less for that. 

My other main objection is primarily cultural and historical.  Guitarists 
have been waging an uphill battle for about 150 years now to extablish the 
guitar as a legitimate "art music" instrument.  This was part of Segovia's 
early goal -- to raise it "above" the status of a "mere folk instrument".  
It was for this reason, in fact, that Segovia refused to perform flamenco 
pieces in public and discouraged his pupils from doing the same.

I put certain words in quotation marks above, but I don't wish to give the 
impression that I think other forms of guitar-playing are somehow lesser 
than classical playing; they aren't.  But having a newsgroup devoted 
*exclusively* to the classical guitar offers an opportunity for the groups 
readers to look as closely at the guitar as a classical instrument as they 
might at, say, the piano or the violin, an opportunity which is badly 
needed, and, judging by the number of people already on the mailing list, 
quite in demand.

Slainte,
--John 
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|John Howard Eli Fiskio-Lasseter  |     "Is obair-la\ to\iseachadh"   |
|Earlham College Computing Center |    ("Beginning is a day's work")  |
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