Sheet music / tabs for extended range acoustic or classical?

[Hollowway]

You guys know of any? A lot of googling has shown me people playing pieces, but I can’t find sheet music or any tabs for classical or acoustic guitar with >6 strings. Help a brother out!

 

[LordCashew]

Lute music is a good place to start, since the diapasons (floating bass strings) on an archlute extended down to an octave below the open sixth course. The Giovanni Zamboni sonatas are pretty easy to play on a 7+ string classical straight from the tab. You need to tune your G down to F# and get used to reading Italian tab (basically pop tab only upside down). The low bass notes, which are all open strings on the archlute, are notated as symbols above the tab and usually come out to a low B or D on the guitar. You should be able to find the music on IMSLP or Scribd.

There are also the Bach lute suites. They're generally fairly difficult, with most now believed to have been written for keyboard instruments (lute harpsichord). The Frank Koonce guitar transcriptions show when the bass note has been moved up to accommodate the more limited range of a guitar. It's easy to put these basses back in the original octave on a 7 string in drop a or an 8 string with 7=D and 8=A.

The composer Napoleon Coste was known for playing on 7 or 8 string guitars in the 19th century. His music sometimes points out notes that can be played an octave lower than written. Can't remember any titles of the top of my head, unfortunately. Maybe Given to Fly will know...

 

[Hollowway]

@Given To Fly do you know of any titles?

 

[Winspear]

+1 for lute stuff. Not something I have experience with, but a lot of the extended range classical guys view their instruments as a way to play lute music. I think generally arrangements will be quite personal - not the kind of thing they just pick up and play as written (aside from the ones with 10+ strings which are sometimes designed and tuned to play lute tablature exactly as written).
I like finding piano notation for video game themes and such and seeing how close it can be played on ERG. Definitely a case of retranscribing though

 

[Given To Fly]

@Given To Fly do you know of any titles?

Yes.
https://imslp.org/wiki/3_Morceaux,_Op.65_(Mertz,_Johann_Kaspar)
Fantaisie Hongroise by Johann Kasper Mertz has several low A’s that everybody raises an octave. No one would start playing a 7 or 8 string guitar over them today, but if you already have the instrument to do it, you might as well. The piece is well known in the classical guitar world.

What have you seen being played?

IMSLP is basically music in the public domain. It is a good resource.
https://www.sheerpluck.de/ - this website is a great source for information regarding contemporary guitar music. When I say great, I mean the most useful website on the internet.

 

[Hollowway]

Yes.
https://imslp.org/wiki/3_Morceaux,_Op.65_(Mertz,_Johann_Kaspar)
Fantaisie Hongroise by Johann Kasper Mertz has several low A’s that everybody raises an octave. No one would start playing a 7 or 8 string guitar over them today, but if you already have the instrument to do it, you might as well. The piece is well known in the classical guitar world.

What have you seen being played?

IMSLP is basically music in the public domain. It is a good resource.
https://www.sheerpluck.de/ - this website is a great source for information regarding contemporary guitar music. When I say great, I mean the most useful website on the internet.

Those are really cool sites! Of course, I haven't played classical guitar in yeeeears, so the idea of reading actual music (and not tabs) is daunting. Mainly, I want to play ERG pieces that are not chugging on the low string. And it seems that much of metal is that. I'm down for Jazz or classical, but it looks like there isn't a lot of contemporary stuff out there. These are good resources, but I wish there was a site where people arranged piano tunes, etc. for ERG instruments, and posted up the tabs/sheet music.

 

[LordCashew]

https://www.matthewgrasso.com/sheetmusic_classical_guitar_solo.php

This is the website of Matt Grasso, an accomplisjed 7-string guitar player and arranger local to me. One of the other guys in his ensemble used to be a classmate of mine. Since both of us played primarily sevens at the time, we'd play some of their ensemble arrangements in our school guitar ensemble.

I haven't personally learned any of the solo rep, but I've heard the "Air on the G String" arrangement performed and it's quite nice. Grasso has a two-fret headstock extension for the seventh string on his guitar, so its possible some of these arrangements were written with that feature in mind.

 

[LordCashew]

Also, Mertz was a great reccomendation that I totally spaced on. I think his Elegy might also make use of extended basses. I've seen it performed that way, at the very least.

 

[Given To Fly]

Those are really cool sites! Of course, I haven't played classical guitar in yeeeears, so the idea of reading actual music (and not tabs) is daunting. Mainly, I want to play ERG pieces that are not chugging on the low string. And it seems that much of metal is that. I'm down for Jazz or classical, but it looks like there isn't a lot of contemporary stuff out there. These are good resources, but I wish there was a site where people arranged piano tunes, etc. for ERG instruments, and posted up the tabs/sheet music.

This is an off topic rant about weird truths:

One of the stranger characteristics of the classical guitar is the existence of the 10-string classical guitar and the amount of modern repertoire that has been written for it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ten-string_guitar#cite_note-Ramirez-1
The 10-string guitar is not "common" but most classical guitarists will know these guitars exist making them "not weird." They are accepted.

I know little about the jazz guitar world but I know Benedetto Guitars will make any model as a 7-string. My guess is any luthier building archtops will do the same thing mainly because you are paying a lot of money but also because they are considered "not weird."

(Any luthier building classical guitars will build you a 7-string too. The difference is most classical guitarists don't ask for one.)

"Metal" has embraced ERG's for better or for worse. It strikes me as odd that other styles have completely avoided ERG's. In general, "guitarists like guitars" and are willing to try most new/different guitars that come their way. Yet I am unaware of a blues/country/musical theater/etc. player that plays a 7-string because "they like it." It seems there would be at least one person......but maybe not.

 

[Adieu]

Eastern Europe was, until recently, convinced that "classical" guitar WAS a sevenstring.

A six string would have been referred to as "Spanish guitar" or something.

It was common as hell.