Masterclasses

I ran into a rather clumsy interview on YouTube the other day that attempted to address the question "are masterclasses worth doing." I stopped watching after a couple of minutes, but I got the impression that the conclusion was going to be yes, they are. That would be my opinion as well, but with this proviso: it really depends on who is giving the class. Some guitarists are so taken with their own egos that they are not terribly helpful to students. Other guitarists are enormously helpful. I took masterclasses with José Tomás, Leo Brouwer, Dik Visser (Dutch guitarist), Manuel Barrueco, John Duarte, Oscar Ghiglia and Pepe Romero and I audited masterclasses by Abel Carlevaro and David Russell. Of all these, the most helpful were José Tomás and Pepe Romero. Everyone came out of those classes more relaxed and more confident.

Some maestros have the tendency to abuse their students which, in a public forum, is very unethical. John Williams hinted that Segovia had this propensity, but he was certainly not alone. One of the best things about masterclasses is what you can learn from other students and the wide variety of repertoire you would, one hopes, be exposed to. You also get to hear an interesting collection of guitars. In one masterclass we came up with a particularly challenging game. Sitting around in a dorm room with ten or so guitarists and one lonely guitar the rule was, whoever had the guitar had to play the first four bars of whatever piece anyone named, or give up the guitar. One fellow, from Cornell, was the champion. It was almost impossible to stump him: Ponce, Prelude 12? Santorsola, some obscure piece? Bach, Minuet 1 from the Cello Suite 1? He knew them all.

You should take masterclasses when you are a young guitarist and you should seek out different kinds of players. Some maestros are just going to try to impress their interpretive ideas on you, which might be interesting, but might not be! As you develop as an artist the really important interpretive ideas are yours and no-one else's. But a lot of the value in master classes comes from the learning of technical solutions. Pepe Romero and Abel Carlevaro were particularly good at this. After every student Carlevaro would say the same thing: "hay dos problems: la mano derecha y la mano izquierda!" And then he would explain the problems. It was quite fascinating. Abel Carlevaro was probably the best guitar pedagogue of the 20th century. Mind you, after a few days of this we were all thinking, his upcoming concert better be perfect! And, as a matter of fact, it was: technical perfection.

Here is an interesting clip: Abel Carlevaro playing three pieces on Spanish television in 1989.