MOZART’S “RONDO ALLA TURCA”

If you’re a heavy metal guitarist, it can be easy to fall into the trap of only listening to and learning metal music. A great source of new ideas and inspiration is to study classical music, composed for instruments other than guitar.

For this issue, I’ve transcribed a short excerpt from the well-known Mozart piece “Rondo Alla Turca”, written for solo piano. I’ve arranged the main melody of right-hand piano part for electric guitar (with distortion), making only a few slight variations to the original.

EXERCISE #1

There are a number of key practise and performance points to note about this excerpt: use alternate picking throughout, and practise with a metronome to ensure the rhythm and picking remains even and consistent. Break the excerpt down into smaller sections, and start off at a slower tempo before gradually increasing the speed.

The Italian tempo marking on the original score is listed as ‘Allegretto’ (a moderately fast or fairly brisk speed). As such, when transcribing the excerpt, I decided on a tempo of 140 beats per minute to express this.

Unlike the majority of hard-rock and metal music, which is in 4/4 time, the time signature here is 2/4 (also known as ‘March Time’). This is simple duple time, meaning there are two quarter-note beats per bar.

The excerpt is divided into two parts – section A (Bars #1-9) and section B (Bars #10-26). Note the repeat signs at the end of each section, meaning that each part is played twice. The B section introduces a new motif, before reverting to a variation of the opening theme beginning at Bar #18.

Sections A and B star t with an anacrusis, which is a note or series of notes before the downbeat of the first full measure. Also known as a pickup bar, an anacrusis will have less beats than that indicated by the time signature. The amount of beats in the anacrusis is also omitted from the last bar of the section or song to even things out (Bars #9 and # 26, respectively). The overall key here is A minor. This is denoted by the lack of a key signature (C major and its relative A minor contain no sharps or flats) and the fact that the excerpt resolves on an A note.

Much of the melody throughout the piece is derived from the A harmonic minor scale (A-B-C-D-E-F-G#). Notice the frequent use of the significant G# note (the seventh degree) in Bars #1-4 and #18-26. The D# note (Bars #3 and #20), however, is a chromatic note not belonging to the overall key of A minor.

The piece briefly modulates to the key of E minor in Bars #6-9. This is indicated by the F# note in Bar # 8 (the notes of E natural minor are: E-F#-G-A-B-C-D).

Rather than harmonic minor, the melody in the first four bars of the B section (#10-14) is derived from the A natural minor scale (A-B-C-D-E-F-G). Notice that the G notes here are natural and not sharp.

Take note of the quick grace notes in Bars #6, #7 and #8, as well as the trill in Bar # 25.