HARTOG Cees

Cees Hartog (1949) author and guitarist from The Netherlands.

He started playing guitar at the age of 8 and played in various bands in the 1960s with regular performances.

At that time he was self-taught but in 1970 he started his classical guitar studies. He completed his education at the Maastricht Conservatory and then started his career as guitar teacher.

In 1973 he published his first composition: “Let’s take the Flip Side”, a guitar trio that quickly became popular because of its contemporary style.

Cees was one of the first authors in the Netherlands to give classical guitar literature a more modern look. From 1975 on, he worked for a well-known publisher who published not only his methods, but also various playbooks. The best known is his method “Guitar Starter” which after a few years became a standard work at many music schools.

Not long after, German and French translation were also published which proved to be very successful. Popular are the four editions of “Popsongs for Classical Guitar” in which well-known hits for guitar became available.

As a teacher he knew that the technical skills of students are sometimes limited. His starting point was always that it should not only sound good but also playable. More than 1 million copies of his albums have now been sold in Europe.

Cees Hartog was also one of the founders of the European Guitar Teachers Association (EGTA) in the Netherlands, an organization with the goal of improving the position of the guitar and music education. He was chairman of the EGTA for 12 years.

Renditions for Classical Guitar is proof that even after his retirement the guitar remained his best friend.