Transcriptions

disclaimer: I do not own the rights to any of these songs. These transcriptions are intended for educational, non-commercial use, and therefore should fall under “Fair Use” of copyrighted material. If I am wrong on this, I will immediately remove any content deemed to be in violation of copyright laws.

About the transcriptions

These transcriptions are the result of 100s of hours of work spread out over the past fourteen years (beginning in the summer of 2012). I transcribed the songs by ear from recordings from Bonfá’s studio albums and live television performances (these sources are indicated on each score). Two of the transcriptions were made by Roichi and Motoko Yasuoka, and were taken from their fantastic Luiz Bonfá Discography website. On these, I simply changed their tablature transcriptions into standard notation, and made a few minor revisions. There are also four transcriptions by Tiago de Souza Mayer ( Bonfabuloso, Garoto, Leque, Marcha Escosesa) which are coincidentally ones that I had also done. There are only minor discrepancies between the two versions. The rest of the transcriptions are my own.

About the selections

Bonfá’s music covers a wide range of styles, from Brazilian popular music and American jazz, to classical. This collection comprises a smattering of pieces across this spectrum of genres, and spans 15 years of his recording career, from his earliest releases (1957) to later ones (1972). Uma Prece, a samba, deserves special note, being one of Bonfá’s earliest songs and the first track on his self-titled debut solo LP (1955). Elsewhere, Preludio, classical in nature, with its gorgeous arpeggios and repeating right-hand figure, evokes a Villa Lobos study, while Rain, a likely entry into the so-called “new repertory” for the solo guitar which Bonfá had begun work on in the 1970s,”**, is a moody and improvisatory piece notable for its use of natural harmonics and its crepuscular sound world. Another standout, and also from the Introspection album, is Enchanted mirror***, whose intricate and hypnotic arpeggios evokes at times the transcendental acoustic drone of a James Blackshaw song. Bonfá originally played the song on a 12 string guitar made by the Brazilian luthier Gianinni. The doubled strings of the 12-string guitar, as well as the dropped string 6, give the piece its remarkable resonance. The song can also be played on a 6 string guitar, albeit with a few necessary omissions with octaves due to instrument limitations. While some of these sections with octaves can still technically be played (and doing so will add more resonance to the sound), this requires more tricky fingerwork than it would on a 12-string guitar, where the notes sound together on their own. .

** Hodel. Brazilian Wizard. Bonfá described the pieces of his new repertory as “romantic descriptive”, and gave some of them titles that evoke a specific image, not unlike what the French impressionist composers did sometimes for their compositions (for example, Debussy’s piano preludes (“Pas de neiges”, “La fille aux cheveux de lin”, etc.). “Mar encantado” (The enchanted sea) - a later composition which reuses some of the same musical material as Enchanted mirror, hence the similar titles - is an apt description of the mood of the piece. Along the same lines, in “Adventure in space”, the dissonant opening chords evoke the mysterious allure of space, while the rapidly moving chords in the section with the “lush string effect” give the impression of flying through space.

*** Figuring out this piece was like trying to solve a puzzle due to its unusual scordatura (CGCFAD), and altogether took a few months to complete. I had first worked out the notes in what I had initially suspected to be the song’s tuning, but it was awkward to play through, and something seemed off. The real break came when I heard the song “Mar encantado”, which is one of Bonfá’s later compositions and a reworking of enchanted mirror, in D-major. Since in this song similar passages to those found in Enchanted Mirror could clearly be played in a drop-D tuning, this got me wondering if enchanted mirrors tuning was similar to drop-D, but just with every string tuned down a whole step (drop C). Sure enough, when I then tried playing through it with the new tuning, it was immediately clear that it was the correct one, as all of the notes then fell easily under the fingers, and all of the problematic passages were resolved. I've included a version of the transcription transposed to D-major (i.e. drop-D) as it is easier to read with the fewer string tunings. Similarly, for "Summertime love" and "Missal", also played on a 12-string, the tuning Bonfá uses has every string down a step (DGCFAD). For these as well, there are two versions provided, as the one that is transposed into a key with standard tuning is much easier to read from. If I had to guess, Bonfá decided to do this for practical reasons, as string tension is likely higher on a steel string guitar than on a classical guitar, and so tuning down the strings would decrease the string tension, and therefore make them more similar to the strings of a classical guitar, which is the instrument he was most used to.

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Note: all transcriptions are in standard notation, and fully edited, including fingering. Click on the song title to view the .pdf. Transcriptions marked "unfinished" are currently being worked on. Please check back later for these.

Albums

Alta versatilidad (1957)

Violão boêmio, vol. 1 (1957)

Ritmos continentais (1958)

O violão de Luiz Bonfá (1959)/ Solo in Rio 1959 (2005)

The fabulous guitar of Luiz Bonfa (1959)

Luiz Bonfá EP (1961)

Luiz Bonfá sings and plays (1963)

Luiz Bonfá Le roi de la bossa nova (1963)

Violão boêmio, vol. 2 (1964)

Braziliana (1965)

The Brazilian scene (1965)

Bonfá (1968)

Introspection (1972)

Tv appearances, film soundtracks

Other songs available elsewhere:

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