Muriel Anderson’s music melds her early background in folk and bluegrass with the precision and elegance of classical guitar. Equally at home on nylon-string, steel-string, and harp guitars, Anderson was the first woman to win the International Fingerstyle Guitar Championship in Winfield, Kansas (in 1989) and she recently won a Bronze award in the Classical Guitarist category in Acoustic Guitar’s 2008 Players’ Choice Awards. Anderson has a diverse collection of recordings to her credit, from solo instrumental efforts like Heartstrings to larger productions and vocal numbers on Wildcat, harp-guitar showcase Harp Guitar Christmas, and duet recordings with Jean-Félix Lalanne and Phil Keaggy. She tours extensively and shares her knowledge through workshops and master classes as well as books and instructional videos, including her latest, Innovations for Acoustic Guitar.
I spoke with Anderson following a master class she was teaching in San Jose, California. We began by discussing some themes from the workshop before moving on to technique and unusual time signatures.
In your master class, all of the students played their pieces correctly, but after your suggestions, they performed more musically. How do you move beyond the notes and really create music?
Part of it is figuring out what the notes are telling you and how to best go about saying it with your hands. One of my compositions, “Arioso,” starts like this [Example 1]. The thing that my ear is drawn to is the melody, on the top. The other thing I’m listening to is what’s happening in the middle voice—there’s a little movement there.
With some notes, I’ll give them just a little bit of extra time. Sometimes that’s what they want. How do you know which notes to give more time to? Well, I give more time to my favorite notes! Some days I might like one note more than another. I’m playing with the interpretation, even though I may not change the notes that much. That’s how I keep the music alive.
 Video: Example 1
Are there other things you can change besides time and volume?
I experiment with different types of tones. The warmest sound I can get is by relaxing my hand and contacting [the string] right at that spot where the fingernail and fingertip connect, and I slice across toward my left shoulder [moving the nails across the strings at an angle] and that gives me a warm sound. If I go straight up and down, I get a brighter sound. And I can also change [the tone] by playing different areas along the string length.
Do you do any picking-hand exercises for dexterity?
One thing that really helps with the right hand is working on tremolo. There’s this beautiful piece, “Recuerdos de la Alhambra” [by Francisco Tárrega]. In order to learn that, I needed to learn the tremolo technique. It’s three fingers—ring, middle, and index—[plucking] the same string, all the same volume, evenly. The best sound comes from moving from the big knuckle. I had to work on that to make a tiny but quick motion and not linger on the string. And after it strikes, the hand has to completely relax again so the finger falls back into position. Then, to get them all to be the same volume, I tried accenting different fingers—first the middle, then the ring finger, then the index [Example 2]. Then I’d accent every three notes. So that way, I get a different note accented each time [Example 3].
Video: Examples 2 and 3
Did you do anything to develop your tremolo speed?
I broke it up into two parts. The thumb and the ring finger are played really fast, and then the middle and index are played really fast [Example 4], with plenty of time in between [the groups of two] so I can listen to the tone. Then I’ll do the opposite: I’ll play with the ring and the middle really close together and then the index and thumb [Example 5]. So I’ve just broken my practice time in two. In theory, I should be able to play all four, putting it back together, right? And indeed when I went back to playing all of them, it was much easier.
Video: Examples 4 and 5
You’ve written some tunes with complex time signatures. How do you deal with something like 13/8 time?
I put out a limited-release CD called Journey Through Time, where every song was in a different time signature and the track number corresponded to the time signature, on to track 13, in 13/8 time. With that [“A Baker’s Dozen”], I don’t think of it as one, two, three, four, five, six, seven . . . you know. I think of it as groups of beats. Three beats is a long beat, and a little group of two beats is a short beat. So, it’s one two three, one two, one two, one two three, one two three: long, short, short, long, long. So it just keeps that dance feeling [see Lick of the Month].
You’re feeling the higher-level rhythm?
Yes, and when I first started working on those, when I’d hear a rhythm I’d like, I’d just walk in that rhythm, move my body in that rhythm. It got internalized, so that when I went to a guitar it was quite natural.
Another tune that uses an odd time signature is “Prelude to a New Morning.” How did that come about?
When I was teaching at Belmont University, I was told that my students should all learn an étude. So I thought, “Maybe I’ll just write an étude for them.” I said, “I want to get them out of this 4/4 thing, so I’ll write it in five.” I wanted it to be really pretty, and the prettiest tune on the guitar that I could think of was Bach’s Prelude from the Cello Suite No. 1. And the prettiest part was the first five notes. So that was my inspiration. But just so it wasn’t exactly like Bach, I changed it to D–C#–D instead of F#–E–F# [Example 6]. I knew that Bach had never written in 5/8 so I was home free. I didn’t have to worry about getting too close to Bach.
Video: Example 6
Lick of the Month
This fast passage from Muriel Anderson’s “A Baker’s Dozen” will get your feet tapping in a new groove. The fingering is fairly straightforward. The trick is to feel the pattern created by the odd time signature—try thinking of it as groups of two and three beats. This is a great exercise for playing pull-offs cleanly while breaking out of 4/4 time.
Video: Lick of the Month
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