I was extremely lucky to born in Italy. Precisely I am from Naples, the city where Pizza was born.
You can describe it in three words: Sun, Sea, and Mediterranean food.
Music is one of the most important aspects of our culture, and the Neapolitan music (canzone Napoletana) is one of the most famous music in the world, a combination of folk, popular and theatrical styles.
Today I want to show you how being an Italian sound like with this sentimental Italian music arrangement on fingerstyle guitar.
Each Italian region has different traditions and music styles, so I am mainly referring to “Southern” Italian music.
In this arrangement, I combined different techniques, such as classical arpeggios, tremolo, and minor melodies.
The classical arpeggios are typical of classical Italian composers/guitarists such as Mauro Giuliani and Ferdinando Carulli, while the tremolo should emulate the sound of a typical Neapolitan instrument called “Mandolino.”
I hope you enjoy this romantic/sentimental Italian music, guys.
Today I want to share with you this little arrangement I wrote today based on sad, melancholic guitar.
I really love to transform feelings in music, and it’s a great exercise that every guitar player should try at some point.
It is mind-blowing what you can develop when you force yourself to write in a specific mood or vibe. Your fingers want to go the usual way, but your mind doesn’t, so it is much more of playing what you hear rather than playing what your fingers want.
Such an awesome exercise! Plus, you get to write your own music, which is also great.
The melancholic guitar is probably the style I like the most. I am not a sad person, but the minor key is really my thing, and I feel I can write more of myself if I play minor than major.
Today I want to share with you this short piece I wrote today.
I was thinking about a few things that happened to me in the past, and I felt pretty nostalgic. It was a new feeling for me because I usually never really think about the past.
I look forward to the present moment and the future, but the past never bothers me … until today.
Obviously, I grabbed my guitar and tried to transform this feeling into music with almost everything that inspired me.
This is the music I first played.
To make it more nostalgic and deep, I decided to play it in Drop D tuning, and I used a lot of reverb and delay.
Enjoy it
The Video
Chords, Melody, and Sound
The Chords
One of the things I love the most is to keep things simple. Nostalgic music will never sound rhythmically busy or full of chords, so I had to come up with few chords and a simple melody.
The Drop D tuning is perfect because it gives depth and sustains the melody and beautiful resonating chords.
The chord progression is D – G – A – D – A – D for the first section; then the music will change in B minor with the chord progression going as follows, Bm – G – D – G – D – A – D.
There is also an outro with a different chord progression that goes Bm – A – G.
As you can see, the chords are pretty basic, so the melody really does it all.
The Sound
I used a ton of delay and reverb to sustain the melody and chords for this nostalgic music.
One of the most important things, when you play something simple, is sustained. If the notes decay too quickly, you will feel like feeling in the gaps with other notes making the music way too busy.
With delay and reverb, the notes sound bigger and with sustain.
I usually take the effects of my pedalboard Boss GT10. The reverb is a Tape rev, and the delay is an analog delay.
Also, I am plucking the strings using a 45-degree angle so that the tone is smooth, rounded, and extremely sweet.
Today I played around with this idea in E major, and I just realized that the E major is probably the best key on guitar.
Don’t get me wrong. Each key is great, and it will give you a different vibe, but the E major has this particular guitar sound that is so characteristic and unique.
In this video, I will improvise over a bunch of chords in E major so that I can show you why I think the E major is the best key on guitar.
Few things I love about this key is the fact that the open strings sound beautiful on any chord.
I spend a lot of time experimenting with that key, and I always try to develop more interesting chords.
Another classical piece that we can rearrange on acoustic or classical guitar. Since I started uploading some classical lessons, you guys have been asking for more.
I have been mainly posting pieces from the classical guitar repertoire, so today, I really wanted to try something different and explore a different composition.
I had a ton of fun rearranging this song by Antonio Vivaldi, an Italian composer who wrote some of the most beautiful concerts for violin as well as over 300 compositions for cello, flute, viola, mandolin, and lute.
The piece we are learning today is from one of his violin concerts called The Four Seasons, a group of pieces, each of which gives a musical expression to a season.
I have rearranged one of the Winter season called “Largo,” a beautiful slow melody that can be perfectly played on acoustic and classical guitar.
Technical Features
With this piece, you will be learning a very melodic and expressive melody in the key of C major, which is perfect if your goal is to familiarize yourself with vibrato and over-ringing technique.
The chords are straightforward.
Listen to my interpretation of the Four Seasons, Largo movement on acoustic guitar.
The Video
Learn This Piece
You can learn this song inside the membership area.
The membership gives you access to all the courses and programs available on BlitzGuitar.com, as well as all the upcoming lessons that I post weekly.
The Four Seasons by Antonio Vivaldi is a series of 10 videos where I show you how to break down the piece into different sections to learn the melody, rhythm, and chords slowly and with consistency.
Drop D is one of my favorite alternative guitar tunings.
You only tune one string differently, but your guitar sounds different.
I have been experimenting a lot with the Drop D tuning on my acoustic guitar, and a ton of students asked me to teach them how to become better with this tuning.
The Drop D opens up a ton of different chords and melodic ideas that you can use along with all the techniques and musical skills you already have.
Usually, there are 6 things that guitar players always come up with when they start experimenting in drop D.
Every guitar player is different but trusts me, as soon as you tune your guitar in Drop D, you will notice each guitar player going for one of the 6 options I am showing you in this video.
I am sure I am probably missing your first Drop D approach, so make sure you leave a comment on my YouTube channel to let me know your experience with Drop D tuning.
Today I am going to show you the sweetest chord progressions I can play on guitar.
It was challenging, but we made it.
I really love working on a chord progression based on a specific mood or emotion.
It takes time to get the right chord progression and voicing, and my struggle is always finding the first two chords. Once I get them, it is pretty natural for me to write the whole thing.
But getting the first two chords right is more difficult than you think.
That’s why I will share the 5 sweet chord progressions I came up with, so you can learn from them and come up with your own.
The Video
Which Chord Progressions?
Last Time Together Kind of Hug
This is an unfortunate chord progression in C major.
This is the chord progression: C – G/B – Am – F – C/E – F – C/E – Fadd9 – Am – Em – F – G
The melody starts on the high range. The first chord starts on fret XII, so the melody sounds tiny. This is the best approach if you want to create sweet/sad melodies.
The second part of the music opens up with basic chords in C major.
I love the C/E chord before the Fadd9.
Couple in Love Kind of Hug
This chord progression really reminds me of When you Say Nothing at All by Ronan Keating.
I really love the voicing and melody over this chord progression.
We are in D major Key, and there are two different sections.
The first part is D – A – G. The D major and G major chord are embellished with different extensions. For the D major, you can use a hammer on and pull off on the first string. The G major can be played as Gadd9.
The second part is more melodic, and the melody more predominant. The chord progression is D – A – Bm – G.
Definitely one of my favorite chord progression.
Together Again Kind of Hug
Another chord progression in E major, this time more melodic challenging to play.
The chords are Eadd9 – B/D# – C#min (add9) B – A – E – A – E – A – E – B – E which repeats twice.
Another section at the end of the song goes like this: E – E/A – E/B repeated three times, then Amadd9 and E.
Honestly, one of my favorite progression of chords I’ve ever played.
Father and Son Kind of Hug
We are in E major key, and the chord progression is fascinating and fun to play.
There are three different sections:
The music starts with E – E/F# – A – E – C#m – E – B. The chords are pretty basic and simple to play. The only challenging chord is the E/G#, which is quite stretchy. Take it to step by step with this chord.
Then you have a more difficult chord progression: C#m – B/D# – E – A – C#m – B/D# – E – A
The last section is only few chords: E/G# – A – E/G# – A – E/G# – F#7(13) – B7 – E.
Please don’t Go Kind of Hug.
A major key and a simple arpeggio.
I wrote this music when I was 12, and this is the first time I am recording it, so I hope you like it.
The progression starts with A – A/D – C#m – Bm – A – E, which you can repeat twice. The second section is more challenging, and it goes like this: A – A/D – C#m – D – E – F#m – D – A – E – A.
I am mainly using 153 chord shapes, so the melody is within the chord and easy to play.
