Lovemyguitar wrote: ↑Tue Feb 12, 2019 6:11 pm
As for your assertion that "classical guitar music used to be dance music" -- based on what, exactly?
I agree with much of the rest of what you wrote, so I'll try and respond to this question.
Courtly or Country dances, informal or formal, are a huge part of Classical Guitar repertoire going back to the Renaissance.
Specific to that period, the Almain, Pavane, Canario and Branle come to mind off the top of my head.
Selections from the Baroque period that come to mind include the Bouree, Pasacalle, Chaconne, Minuet and Gigue.
In both these periods, and the ones that followed, there are many more dances written for and transcribed to the guitar, and in fact many books are composed almost entirely of dances!
I was hoping that someone who knew the dances might chime in, but it would appear for some reason that those of us who play them quite often have lost them?
You could if you chose to do so, follow a historical line all the way to Modern compositions to find Dance as a continual and often named influence on Classical Guitar music.
Additionally I've often wondered why, as a genre, we've lost the Rythm and often players copy tempo so much.
Take for example adagio: the range is about 40 BPM! And the allegro about 50 BPM! Yet you rarely hear allegro tempi played with any variations outside of 5 maybe 10 BPM. People seem stuck really, copying others.
Perhaps Classical Guitar has lost the Beat?
Finally, when I play Sor's guitar music, albeit numbered and not named, I interpret much of it quite rhythmically and danceably. I have done Music and Movement sessions with Body Workers, and performed with Dancers and Performance Artists and it works well! Not limiting the repertoire to Sor exclusively in those situations, but also mixing from different periods and genres and bringing improvisation in as well.
"Pay no attention to what the critics say. A statue has never been erected in honor of a critic." -Jean Sibelius