Classical Guitar Arrangements and Repertoire Resources
When you begin learning classical guitar, you often begin with a method book and with a teacher’s guidance. Once you know all the notes in first position, you may start wanting to explore pieces outside the book to supplement your studies and repertoire.
There are many resources for sheet music out there. In many cases - particularly with older music that is now public domain - there are several arrangements to choose from. Some may be free, and others may charge a fee. When venturing out of your method book, particularly if it’s beyond your teacher’s guidance, it’s important to choose the arrangement you learn from carefully.
This is largely because arrangements for classical guitar pieces include more than just the notes. They usually include fingering suggestions for both the left and right hands. For a new guitarist, these are a huge help in learning the piece correctly from the beginning. It takes a while to learn the principles behind logical left and right hand fingerings. Particularly for right hand fingerings, there’s often no single perfect fingering, but rather, technical preferences and consequences. Early on in your studies, you want those fingerings laid out in front of you.
Even for an experienced guitarist, having logical fingerings suggested in the arrangement is a time-saver. We might make some modifications to an arrangements’ fingerings, particularly as we gain experience and our own technical and musical preferences. But it’s nice to have the fingerings suggested from the beginning.
There are plenty of good AND free arrangements for beginner and intermediate piece. You just need to know what to look for when choosing. Here are some tips:
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Choose arrangements from websites that offer them for many classical guitar pieces. If the website tells a bit about the arranger and offers videos of the arranger playing or teaching the piece, that’s a good sign.
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Just searching ‘free score for --x--’ may turn up results from amateur guitarists who transcribed the piece by ear and don’t really know about arranging.
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Look for fingerings. A good arrangement has many left hand fingerings written in. Depending on the piece, it may have some right hand suggestions as well.
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Look for dynamics and interpretation markings. They’re not always included, but it’s a good sign if they are.
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Search youtube for performances of that same arrangement. If a youtube video impresses you and credits the arrangement from the site where you’re searching, that’s a good sign.
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Judge the arrangement’s overall appearance. Are the notes clear and large enough? Do notes and fingerings line up? Are the dynamic markings aligned and well-placed? Music notation software takes some dedication to become adept. An arrangement that’s clear and easy to read is a sign that the arranger is experienced and also knows what they’re doing on the guitar.
As you grow as a guitarist and start learning more intermediate and advanced repertoire, you’ll want to purchase arrangements. Big pieces such as Spanish classics like Leyenda or Capricho Arabe, Bach transcriptions, classical era masterpieces are a ton of work to arrange and play well. Look for arrangements by well-known guitarists whose playing you admire, and expect to pay for them. Better still, choose your arrangement with your teacher’s guidance. If someone’s not charging money for their arrangement of a classical guitar masterpiece, it’s probably not worth your time (or computer storage) to even download.
Here are some websites that offer selected arrangements for free:
Werner Guitar Editions and This Is Classical Guitar (a mix of free and paid options)
Classical Guitar Shed (so many free scores!)
Per-Olov Kindgren (an excellent guitarist and arranger - some of these pieces are his own compositions, and many are for sale)
Classical Guitar Down Under (I just discovered this one, all are free, and it's a good selection, though less extensive than classical guitar shed)
Do you have any resources for classical guitar scores online that you’d recommend? Please share!
