"How Insensitive" by Antonio Carlos Jobim,  Arr. Howard Heitmeyer
Channel: Toltec Strings
Date: 11/01/2022

How Insensitive , by Antonio Carlos Jobim 
Transposed to B minor and arranged for guitar by Howard Heitmeyer
Arrangement edited, video-score and  guitar built and played by Jason Wehr.
If you want the sheet music without the performance, you can practice with it here:
https://youtu.be/q79mYsBl9Vs
I recorded this back in 2011 with fewer score edits, on a different guitar
https://youtu.be/FhOnKO0rlW4

I'm not the first person to notice that this song by AC Jobim has a strong likeness to Chopin's Op.28,#4. I believe this arrangement was written for a student (Bob Torres).  Howard often tailored his arrangements to the "practice budget" of the student; sometimes creating several editions as the student mastered each.  I've seen about 500 of these arrangements  (who knows how many there are) and it's hard to believe some of them were created and written down in 30 minutes or less.  Sometimes he would change the key, the ornamentation or the voicing density which would give the student some experience with transposition, adding a new dimension to the student's intervallic awareness within the piece.  Pretty much every HH arrangement is, in itself,  a lesson in arranging for guitar.

I always saw Howard's achievements, his bandstand readiness, and the prolific output of his teaching studio as a model of true musicianship.  He educated, entertained, and explored the instrument with the sensitivity of conservatory musician, the spontaneity of jazz musician and the problem-solving of an engineer.   

Howard's arrangements have taught me so much about how the guitar works.  He's an underappreciated pioneer of fingerstyle guitar.  I never met a student of his who wasn't eager to tell me about his effect on their own musical life.
here's a formal bio by Rico Stover (RIP) who was one of the earliest proponents of HH's craft (he also "wrote the book(s)" on Barrios!) http://www.ricoguitarnails.com/Howard-Heitmeyer.html

post-
***In Measure 15-16 a commenter drew attention to an error in the spelling of a half-diminished chord.  The transcription that I was working from has G# D B Gb and there is a chord symbol Gm7b5 (sic) above the chord.
G# D B Gb  would be more effectively written G# D B F#.  One could imagine HH also might have written Gb, (thinking b7 of the Abm7b5) but wanted to avoid writing Cb and Ebb...  Also, keep in mind the source material for the HH restoration project had source documents from several  publishers including handwritten copies, (hand-written by someone other than HH).   

No matter the spelling, it functions as a half-diminished chord a half step away from the root of the previous chord.  I have corrected my transcription and the link to the new video-score, but I've yet to rerecord the music for  performance errors (ignored ties, and that mess in measure 22,38)... so the video and enharmonic voicings will be up at least until I rerecord it. 
 

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