What’s with all the variations on Fernando Sor’s “Variations on a Theme of Mozart?”
What's with all the variations on Fernando Sor's Variations on a Theme of Mozart?" The Spanish classical guitarist Fernando Sor (1778–1839) wrote many virtuosic variations on various themes. But his most famous—and most frequently performed—set is based on a melody by...
Jarabi (Passion)
Here's my performance-ready version of this amazing endless melody of a piece. I've been enjoying Derek Grippers arrangements of Kora music for classical guitar for years, and finally got a chance to try some of them out. Someone once said (I forgot who) that it's...
What Can You Change When You Can’t Change the Notes?
New classical guitar video on creative interpretation. In this video I play the same piece 5 or 6 completely different ways, and show you how you can experiment with this too.
How do you manage to practice a piece of music that many times and still not go crazy?
When you are learning a piece of music, you have to play it hundreds of times. Over, and over. And over again. The same notes, the same chords, the same fingerings. In one life, you might play the same set of notes tens of thousands of times. I haven’t done the...
Learning Repertoire: Jarabi Runthrough
This is a follow-up to last week's video on "finishing" learning a challenging piece of music. In this video I run through Jarabi, the arrangement by South African guitarist and composer Derek Gripper of Toumani Diabate's amazing Kora version. I have the piece...
How Do You “Finish” Learning a Piece of Music?
Once you can play something well enough that it's fun to run through, the temptation is to stop practicing it and just play it over and over. Here is one method I use to keep myself focused on mastering repertoire up until the time it's actually ready to perform....
Announcing a New Online Course
This 6-part interactive pilot course is designed to help you break through limitations and master the best, fastest, and most musical ways to learn the pieces you most want to play. By joining the course and doing the work seriously, you will be getting two-plus months of carefully designed coursework on the most powerful ways I’ve found to transform your playing…
Classical Guitar Repertoire Reading: Guardame las Vacas by Luis de Narvaez
Read up on Luis de Narvaez at his Wkipedia page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luis_de_Narv%C3%A1ez This deservedly well-known work the first known written example of the musical form "variations on a theme." It's always been one of my favorite pieces! The theme upon...
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Archipelago for Solo Guitar
Archipelago is an adventure told mostly through music. There’s light narration in between movements while I retune the guitar for the unique musical ecosystem of each new island. As an experiment, I’m creating a series of drawings and paintings to illustrate the progress of our hero on his guitar-powered boat. It’s a work in progress. Stay tuned for further documentation of this journey! For more music, go here.
Eine Kleine Nachtmusik for Solo Guitar
I have arranged all four movements of Mozart’s Eine Kleine Nachtmusik for guitar. To hear more movements, and to get all of the scores and tabs, click here.
Purchase Classical Guitar Arrangements and Compositions
Click here for the full Catalogue of Scores
| Title | Price | Further Info |
| Five Preludes | $6.50 | Instant Download of 7-page Pdf Score |
| Archipelago For Solo Guitar | – | coming soon |
| Island One: Milonga | $2.75- | (Archipelago, Movement 1) Instant Download of 3-page Pdf |
| Title | Price | Further Info |
| Johann Sebastian Bach | ||
| Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart | ||
| Eine Kleine Nachtmusik (Full) | 21 | Zip File Containing all 4 Movements: 1. Allegro (2015 Revision), 2. Romanze, 3. Menuetto 4. Rondo. 3 fully fingered Pdf versions of each movement: Score (13 Pages) TAB only (20 Pages) Score + TAB. (37 Pages) (Bonus Folder: 2013 Version of the Allegro with TAB) |
| Allegro | $7 | Revised 2015 Zip File with 3 Pdfs: 4-Page Fully Fingered Score 10-Page Fully Fingered Score with TAB 6-Page Fully Fingered TAB (Plus Bonus 2013 Version Score and TAB) |
| Romanze | $7 | Zip File with 3 Pdfs: 4-Page Fully Fingered Score 12-Page Fully Fingered Score with TAB 6-Page Fully Fingered TAB |
| Menuetto | $2 | Zip File with 3 Pdfs: 1-Page Fully Fingered Score 3-Page Fully Fingered Score with TAB 2-Page Fully Fingered TAB |
| Rondo | $7 | Zip File with 3 Pdfs: 4-Page Fully Fingered Score 12-Page Fully Fingered Score with TAB 6-Page Fully Fingered TAB |
| Gioachino Rossini | ||
| William Tell Overture (Finale) | $7 | Zip file with 3 pdfs (5 pages each): 1. Urtext Score 2. Fully Fingered Score 3. TAB Only Version |
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Purchase Prints and Artworks
I am diving back into painting and illustrating after a long hiatus. Getting these new pieces finished has been slow going because of all the other stuff I’m doing, but I’m working at it!
Click here for a sampling of my drawings and paintings. You can click on any picture to see a more detailed version. If it’s for sale as a print, there will be a link to the print store where you can see the purchase options.
Jay Kauffman
Classical Guitarist
Composer
Teacher
Illustrator