English Country Garden - performance ideas

Hampshire Guitar Orchestra » free Music » English Country Garden performance

Derek Hasted writes...

I thought you might like a few words about this trio, so that you can understand this arrangement all the better...

It's a simple little piece that gives you the freedom to "make it yours" by adding your own performance markings.
I always find that red ink is all the more eye-catching for performance markings. See?

The piece begins with a bar in three parallel octaves - good for making the audience sit up and take note!

The piece quickly moves into 3 very different lines. The top part requires facility in VII position, but the other parts are playable in I position (though a lot is to be gained if part 2 is moved into IV and V position). The key of C tends to hover between IV and V, so the shifts need to be preplanned, or the open B used in cross-string fashion.

To make the rests effective (in bar 4, for example), silence the guitar with the side of the right hand. Not only does this kill the note, but it also kills

  1. Strings vibrating in sympathy - e.g. in bar 4 part 2, the 2nd harmonic on string 5 will echo the A you just played.
  2. Guitars vibrating in sympathy - e.g. in bar 4, Guitar 1 or 2's D string may vibrate in sympathy with Guitar 3.

Take time to see how bar 5 is different to bar 1, to conceal the repetition in the music. Emphasise this.

Bars 9 and 10 benefit from a call & response (loud and quiet) interpretation - make the repeat a real echo. Not only can the repeat be usefully much quieter, but a sul tasto is effective too.

Bar 17 brings a second verse - there is a Bach-like fugal entry, where the first 5 notes of the motif are repeated at different pitches. Make the entries strong and confident! The second verse contains much more movement, but the call & response section is unchanged - a touch of familiarity that makes the other changes all the more noticeable.

It's an easy piece, but all the more reason to explore the higher positions, to incorporate big volume changes, and to look at ways to articulate the piece - whether by slurring adjacent quavers, or shortening some of the middle part's crotchets (quarter notes), to create a tip-toe effect.

Don't forget that one thing an ensemble can do that a soloist can't is to add vibrato to big chords. Why not try it?

I hope you enjoy this very easy but quintessentially English piece!

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