By Jody Fisher
Alfred's Guitar 101, Ensemble makes a great supplement to any class guitar program. Your students will enjoy rehearsing and performing great-sounding pieces using the skills and concepts they have learned in Alfred's Guitar 101. This flexible guitar ensemble is written for five guitars, but it can easily be adapted for as few as two or as many as eight guitars. A creative teacher can find many ways to use Alfred's Guitar 101, Ensemble: add a bass player, percussion, or other melodic or harmonic instruments---whatever fills the needs of your students and program.
Manzanita is an ensemble piece to help students learn to play and read in 3/4 time. The Guitar 1 part contains quarter notes, dotted quarter notes, half notes, and eighth notes providing experience playing constantly changing note values. Guitar parts 2 and 3 fill a harmonic role and will also help develop proficiency performing call and response playing. Guitar 4 challenges the student to play steady streams of eighth notes in the bass register, while the Guitar 5 part helps develop a good time feel while learning to change basic chords accurately.
