Fred Benedetti: Concert Report

Posted: October 17th, 2013

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Fred Benedetti: Concert Report

On 2^nd of March, I attended Fred Benedetti’s concert. It was at Grossmont Community College. He is a musician who has good skills on playing a guitar. He introduced the concert by explaining the different types of guitar he will use, during his performance. He started with the baritone guitar. He described what is was and said it is one of the classical guitars, which has a low tone but it is gentle and rich.

Just before sitting, each one of us was given a piece of paper containing the program of the evening. The program outlined every piece he was going to perform. There was something interesting about the program. It was written using a restaurant’s menu. The audience thought it was a creative idea and they were excited about it. For example, he referred to short and light pieces as appetizers. The longer pieces were considered heavy so he called them courses like those of a meal. The program was concluded with pieces from world music. They represented dessert. However, he did not follow how the program had been arranged. H tried to play as many songs as they had been

When he began, he played Dominico, I Scarlatti Sonata’s piece. Benedetti used the baritone guitar and played a key of E minor. The tune was from Spain or Italy because it was fast and lively. As he played, he also enjoyed it. He bobbed his head and walked around. Personally, I considered it a good way of commencing the show.

After a lively introduction, he played the first group of pieces, using the baritone guitar. There was something special after Benedetti played the first group. He played a song called La Comida La Mañana, which was composed by his friend. It talks about a young lady who went to the market and meets a man who she falls for. The next piece he performed was called Granadinas, which was his own composition. a piece he had composed.

Out of all the pieces he performed during that night, only granadinas was his own composition. The rest were borrowed from other musicians. He had a good selection of all the pieces because each belonged to a specific class. Some were classical pieces from Baroque era while others were classical rock pieces from the years of 1960s and 1970s. However, no specific order was followed when playing the tunes.

As he went on, he chose to use a guitar made by one of his former students. The guitar was amazing and it was one that was a plug-in. Benedetti had other skills on stage other than playing guitar. He manipulated the guitar to sound like an electric one or bass guitar. He went ahead and played several songs from different backgrounds. One of them was a song from Macedonia called Come beauty. Benedetti changed a few areas of that song and made the guitar sound like a drum. Together with the guitar, he used a recorder, which he controlled it with his feet. It enabled him to capture a tune that he could use later as back up rhythm.

We were privileged to hear a song that was not part of his program. It was called Barcelona Nights. One of his students accompanied him on stage and they did the song together. He made some adjustments because he liked dealing with challenging things in music. I liked this concert because Benedetti seemed to enjoy it and not just there to perform. He did amazing things like playing a guitar when it is behind his back and making it sound like a drum.

Finally, the concert was ending and he concluded by playing Stairway to heaven. It is a song by Led Zeppelin band, which is one of my best. Although it was almost the end of the show, he performed it with so much vigor. He added other creative parts, which made him get a big applause at the end. He is a great musician who is exemplary to all.