Product Description
"Sebastopol, A Descriptive Fantaisie For The Guitar" or "The Siege of Sebastopol" by Henry Worrall (1825 - 1902) is considered to be the seminal work of the American Parlor music era prior to the turn of the 20th century. Worrall was largely responsible for introducing open tunings, particularly open D major, i.e "Vestapol" or "tuned like Sebastopol, to the American public with the wide distribution of his publications and guitar method.
"Sebastopol" was the original work in open D major tuning. It reveals many of the potential harmonies capable in this tuning such as barred chords at the 5th and 7th frets, as well as the usage of the rising minor 3rd interval rising to the Major 3rd in the context of the major scale - an important element in ragtime and country blues which would develop subsequently. This opus was first published as early as 1854 inspired by the contemporaneous debut of photojournalistic depictions of battle scenes and war in newspapers worldwide, otherwise known as "The Siege Of Sevastopol" of the Crimean War. The "descriptive fantaisie" aspect of the work illustrates via sound the images of armies marching in the 2/4 beat, bugles represented by natural harmonics of the D major chord, cannons firing in barred arpeggios and rasgueados, and bombs exploding using the "Drumming" technique of tambor. The middle section of this work may be the first extensive passage of a work composed in the "percussive guitar" genre. In addition, I have included the elegant Introduction and Finale, found only in the notebooks of Worrall's collection. Notation, Tab, with right and left hand fingering, and description of techniques are included. 18 pages including cover.
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