Graded Duets for Classical Guitar: Progressive Pieces from Beginner to Advanced

The authors have collected and edited an amazing variety of material and progressively arranged it along 8 grade levelsI particularly like the fact that with every piece they have indicated the grade level for each one of the two guitars. That’s going to be extremely helpful when two players decide which guitar part to tackle. Given that the scope of music ranges from the Renaissance all the way to contemporary music, players are bound to find something for their taste at their present guitar proficiency level.Even if you are a beginner you’ll find that the first 16 pieces (grades 1 to 3) are perfectly doable. Moreover, Tarrega’s Mazurka -for example- is placed at level 4, but the second guitar in this piece is placed only at level 2. Thus two players with different levels of proficiency could enjoy this lovely piece.I have played seven of these pieces in the past [not necessarily in duet form] and I could bet that the ones I have never heard of must be just as fun to play. As soon as I opened the book I had to pick up the guitar and read some of the early levels (perfect for sight reading!). I fooled around with the Level 1 repertoire and I tried to play both guitars at once with level 1! I sort of did it and I loved the way they sound.There are so many intriguing pieces.The first one that caught my attention is Telemann’s Canon in G. Just for fun I think I’m going to use Garage Band to make my own recording of this duet: I’ll record Guitar 1 and then build the duet by using the same recording for Guitar 2, only one bar later! It should work!Inventions 10 and 13 from Bach’s famous two-voice inventions are included here. I looked at Bach’s Invention No 13 and I was curious about the fingering for bars 4-5 and the last bars of guitar 2. The approach here is so much better than the ones I have been using. Why didn’t I think of that before? I guess that’s the difference between a professional and this amateur player!This collection also includes a delightful arrangement of La Paloma and a great Argentinian duet with a funny name: “Milonga Arrugada” [Wrinkled Milonga].All things considered, the authors have come up with a marvelous collection of graded duets for the guitar which are going to give all of us many many hours of challenge and fun.

This is an wonderful asset to instructors who wish to introduce their students to the challenge of technique and theory while enjoying the beauty of the music selected in performance with another.

These graded duets all sound fantastic and have You Tube videos available to watch them play. I've learned a lot from these duets and I'm glad I purchased them.

In this volume we finally have an expansive collection of grade appropriate duets that students and teachers alike can use to explore how satisfying and inspiring it can be to share making music with others, all the while ensuring a level of difficulty consistent with other repertoire being learned. As with other publications I’ve purchased from the Classical Guitar Corner Academy, the material quality of “Graded Duets” is top notch, and the content is equally superb. There are between five and nine duets for each of grades 1-8 and the repertoire runs the gamut from Bach, Carulli, and Sor, to modern composers, along with several delightful new compositions by the authors themselves. I look forward to using “Graded Duets” to make some musical memories that take me beyond the often lonely pursuit of solo study. Thank you Dr. Powis, Mr. Belcher and Ms. Todesco!

This is not cheap, but it does give a very good selection of pieces across a wide range of standards so should last us a long time. It's clearly laid out with a standard level indication for both parts of the duets (which is pretty accurate). A spiral binder would be good to allow for easier opening on the music stand, but otherwise a good purchase.

The book is divided into a series of guitar duets ranging from Grade 1 through to Grade 8 in difficulty.There's an excellent choice of duets within each grade and I particularly like the notes for each piece shown on the Grade summary page.If you starting with someone to play duets, this is an excellent starting point.