Just came back from the academy and brought my brand new guitar. My luthier Viljar Kuusk completed it last week but still kept it for polishing. Now I said it’s enough because I have to play tomorrow and the day after. He can continue polishing some other time 🙂 The guitar is special in many… Continue reading
Author Archives → Kristo Käo
Playing the Carulli Concerto in A
Last week I had a chance to perform the A major concerto by Carulli in front of an orchestra. I don’t play often the concertos but it happens and then it’s like the first time again. This time the event called for a happy classical piece with maximum duration of 10-12 min. So I chose… Continue reading
Frankfurt Music Fair 2011 – classical guitars
Today is the last day of the Frankfurt fair but I just got home and can share some news already. This year my schedule was so tightly packed with meetings that I did not get out of the halls 4.0 and 3.0 and 3.1 at all. The latter is what should interest classical guitarists. Hall… Continue reading
How Popular is the Classical Guitar on the Web?
Often I find myself in conversations where people praise the things that they know about. What do I mean by that? Well, classical guitarists tend to say that everybody knows classical guitar and train conductors say that the security bars at the crossroads are always down. But if you look a bit further than your… Continue reading
Choosing Repertoire for Classical Guitar Students
Twice a year I have to think seriously about the repertoire that my students at the academy are going to play. Luckily, my colleague Heiki took some time in summer to update our repertoire lists. The list goes together with the study program. My students are mainly studying to become guitar teachers so they have… Continue reading
The Sources of Information for a Guitar Teacher
A (guitar)teacher should always know more than the students and often this is the case. However, young people crawl around the Web, talk to many people and have opinion on everything. How to beat them? The only way is to keep reading. Education is a life-time process and if you give up, you’ll be in… Continue reading
The Best Age for Taking up the Guitar
Karlsson on the roof: “..I am clever, reasonably fat man in my best years” Little Brother: “Which are the best years?” Karlsson: “All of them!” You don’t need to be too smart or fat to start learning the guitar although it may help 🙂 But the truth is that all the years are the best… Continue reading
Rhytm, Meter, Tempo – What Are They?
One important part of a melody is the pitch but besides that we must deal with another highly important characteristic of notes – duration or length. You might have heard terms rhythm, meter, tempo. What are they? To produce rhythm, we need at least two notes, and they should not be played very far from… Continue reading
What Makes a Good Guitar Lesson
The most common way to learn to play the guitar or any other instrument is to get a good teacher and attend lessons. Of course, you should practice on your own between lessons. Lesson is just a short happy occasion when you meet your teacher, get your homework evaluated and what else? Let’s see what… Continue reading
What’s that Funny Instrument? Playing the Guitar in India
The World is round and once in a while I find myself playing the guitar in places where this instrument is not as popular as we know it. Everyone who has read the Tony Palmer’s book about Julian Bream (A Life on the Road) knows what I am talking about 🙂 So we were in… Continue reading