In an email to me, Rob shared that he took special satisfaction in the videos below as “Passing Clouds” would never see the light of day unless Rob played the music himself. “Passing Clouds” is an original work composed in 1997 and revised in 2009 for the presentation below. It consists of guitar characterizations of five haiku poems by Miyako Kimura, a former student of Rob. A photo of Miyako, the author of “Passing Clouds” appears at the end of the second video.

Fortunately, we have some record of the composer playing his own music and how he approaches the mood of the piece. Check out the fingering, tone colour and harmonics in this remarkable piece. If any future intrepid guitarist attempts this piece, he or she would be consoled and perhaps encouraged by the fact that the composer himself had a difficult time learning how to play this piece, and an even harder time attempting to commit it to memory! “Passing Clouds” was in Rob’s words “truly a monster” despite the simplicity of the haiku poems being characterised.

A few words about Rob. Rob has always been intrigued by why classical guitar pedagogy had lagged so far behind the pedagogy for other classical instruments e.g. the violin or even instruments with a shorter history than the guitar e.g. the saxophone. He has spent the greater part of his life developing a classical guitar method that he could continually refine and teach for a life time.

A significant part of Rob’s method has to do with the right hand. In Rob’s view, the right hand is very much “the stuff out of which technique is made.” Rob observed that amongst primates, we Homo Sapiens have evolved the best hands for playing the guitar. “Thank Heavens for opposable thumbs!”, as Rob is fond of saying. But possessing hands best-suited for the guitar is not the same as having hands purpose-built for the classical guitar.

Rob’s method is designed to free our right-hand thumb, fingers and wrist from the constraints of our evolutionary heritage e.g. the natural tendency of the right hand wrist to straighten itself and consequently prevent the thumb from generating the most efficient force upon the strings and hampering its ability to “lead” the other fingers. In Rob’s words, “Sufficient – and sufficiently flexible – tone production by the right hand requires a determined slog against the overwhelming evolutionary tendency to do hand work with a stiff wrist.” Click here for an illustration more information on Rob’s guitar method. [Edit made for accuracy on 17 Dec 09]

Rob is also driven by a desire to not let the beauty and exciting possibilities of the classical guitar be eclipsed by the guitar as found in contemporary pop and rock music. With “Passing Clouds”, Rob demonstrates that classical guitar music and the images found therein can be as exciting as anything in contemporary pop music.

Luse plays Luse: Passing Clouds (Part 1)

Luse plays Luse: Passing Clouds (Part 2)