Easy music for 4 guitars - Blues du Mississippi (United States)

This short piece is part of the excellent “Easy Music for Four Guitars” series, and this piece, with each part just one face of paper, lives up to the series' title well. Starting in E with the requisite complement of “blue” notes, there is a short introduction - a few notes from each part - culminating in big B13 chord - not exactly bluesy, but definitely ruling off the entree from the main course, which is four servings of 12-bar blues rounded off with a repeat of the last four bars. The bass line is pretty much a traditional boogie-woogie pattern. In verse one, the composer superimposes three lines redolent of those by the saxophonists in a Glenn Miller piece. Verse two sees more action. The top part moves up the neck a little and all three top parts have some swung quavers too. There's a real sense that the music is moving on. Verse three sees a modulation from 4# to 1b - and it's accomplished fairly effortlessly. Verse three is a re-statement of verse one with a little more action in the internal parts, but if that makes you think that the final verse is verse two again, no it's not, there is a different theme again. In terms of complexity, this is nicely straightforward and is ideal for a group that is learning and which is mixed ability - perhaps from Grade two to Grade four.

Derek Hasted (Classical Guitar Magazine)