In arranging Debussy’s Arabesque No.1 for guitar, I became absorbed by the idea of what rubato really means. Often it is assumed that a musician’s task, behind the imitation and embodiment of the patterns reflected in nature, is to create ‘balance’. Thus rubato is typically thought of in one of two ways: an ornament or an indulgence. Read More…

Transcription is a creative act of violence. It dismembers a piece, rearranges its limbs and reanimates it in a new body. To critics this is one of the major sins, the desecration of ‘the original’. Read more…

Accusations of ‘selling out’ linger in the air at any event where figures such as Pavarotti are mocked as caricatures of crass commercialism. But what does it mean to sell out, and does the act of doing so, be it real or imagined, alter the nature of the craft in any way at all? Read more…

Arranging a pop song might, at first glance, seem to stand outside of the classical tradition. After all, the classical genre has long defined itself through distinction, an ensemble not a band, a piece, not a song, classical, not pop. For the ‘core’ instruments of the classical music tradition, this creates no natural problem, but for an instrument like the guitar which enjoys a rich history as the ‘voice of the people’, this distinction is more complex. Read more…