Bach | Chaconne (arr. Segovia) for solo guitar

This showed up QUICK, and in great condition. Thanks

Excellence piece of sheet music.

This transcription is wonderful but incredibly demanding to play. Then again, no matter what the skill level requirements of the piece may be, there's plenty to extract from the transcription that can be used as an exercise. I love everything about it, except for one thing: none of the measures are numbered. People complain about the fingerings but I have to disagree with them. If you don't care for Segovia's fingerings, there are other versions of Bach's Chaconne arranged for guitar. Segovia chose these fingerings for a reason - they actually make getting from one place to the next in the music that much easier. He was trying to achieve a specific sound. Be prepared to do tons of positional shifting, making huge leaps across the fretboard, and large stretches.

I had this edition a long time ago. But I always wonder what are the rational of those Segovia fingerings on this music. A lot of jumping up and down along the fingerboard making them disconnected legato. I have compared other editions like Abel Carlevaro Guitar Masterclass series Vol. IV (4) published by Chanterelle No. 744. It is much simpler fingering and a lot of explanations given in this Carlevaro edition.

As most people know, I'm sure, this piece can be found and printed for free from the Internet. However, I found it to be messy and unreadable in parts, viz, staff lines don't print out clearly and someone's hand-written notes are unintelligible except for whomever wrote them. Segovia included detailed fingering, string and position instructions and most of the 4 string chords fall under the hand quite well with several exceptions, e.g. circa measure 23, last chord, open e, d, g# b flat is quite awkward to nail as 16th notes in I position. There really isn't any other place on the fret board to produce that chord w/o excessive jumping around. The piece has many hammer on/pull off legatos but some are a mystery to me - for example a to g on the first string in position V, so I just try to play the g on 2nd string as smoothly as I can. So, having said all that, The Chaconne on guitar is a beautiful piece, very advanced and long and played quite well by less-than-world-class guitarists as well as very advanced players. Reading through it and learning to play the notes, following Segovia's string, finger and position instructions forces us to learn the fret board. There are other transcriptions out there besides Segovia's but this one is as good as any to look into first. Though the piece could be considered way over our heads of us lowly mortals reading and playing through it doesn't do us any harm and in my opinion lays a worthwhile foundation for learning other music.