![]() ![]() ![]() Chet was kind enough to include my arrangement in his shows, and he always gave me credit on stage for creating it. Chet picked most of it up from the tape, after which I visited him again and we polished it up in his kitchen one afternoon. At his request, I made a cassette recording playing the piece at a slow tempo so he could learn it. My version was a hit-provided I could get all the way through it on stage, which was a challenging prospect.įinger-style guitar legend Chet Atkins heard about my version of the piece and invited me to his office at RCA Records in Nashville to play it for him. But, of course, they didn't just laugh they applauded wildly and clapped and stomped along. I thought to myself: Joplin wrote marches as well as piano rags, and Sousa wrote rags as well as marches, so why not? I figured it would be a big joke for the audience. Joplin's rag "The Entertainer" had become a hit after it appeared in the soundtrack of the Academy Award-winning movie The Sting starring Paul Newman and Robert Redford. I had been playing a lot of Scott Joplin's music in my guitar concerts. But it would take a huge amount of patient practice to pull it off as a performance piece. I worked on it until 6:00 A.M., and I was convinced that the entire march could be rendered on a single guitar. Guitar in hand, I started listening to the recording, and before long I realized that many other parts of the arrangement were possible to play on my guitar. Checking the communal record bin, I discovered that someone had left an LP of the Michigan State marching band, and there it was. ![]() Pretty soon I started wondering if I could play more of it than just that little fragment. Once my friend left for the evening, instead of going to sleep, I found myself intrigued with the Sousa piece. Attempting to play it on the guitar was even more fun. Kids sing this melody as "Be Kind to Your Web-Footed Friends" with silly lyrics about ducks. Eventually we happened on the trio theme of John Philip Sousa's famous march "The Stars and Stripes Forever." This is the tuneful section that begins in bar 39 (see music on page 41). We both play finger-style, and were "ragging the classics." By that I mean we were attempting to finger-pick any tune or melody we could think of: fragments of Mozart and Bizet, cola commercials, old TV themes, anything we could remember enough to play by ear. Way back in the 1970s, around the time of the nation's bicentennial, a friend and I were playing guitars together at the kitchen table after dinner. Below, Van Duser shares the music as well as comments on the background of the arrangement and suggestions for learning it. YouTube videos of renditions by these and other performers abound. Among the many who have performed and/or recorded it are Chet Atkins, Rick Foster, and Doug Smith. It was an instant audience pleaser at Van Duser's live concerts, and loads of American guitarists took note of it. Phil FarnsworthEarly in his career, Guitar Professor Guy Van Duser created what has become an iconic arrangement of John Philip Sousa's march "The Stars and Stripes Forever." Initially, Van Duser's version of the piece gained attention because it seemed to be one of the least-likely candidates for a successful solo guitar arrangement. At Berklee, Van Duser teaches guitar arranging for songwriters and the Chet Atkins guitar lab. He has performed and recorded as a soloist and in a duo with clarinetist Billy Novick. Guy Van Duser is a finger-style guitar specialist known for adapting the “stride” piano style to the guitar. ![]()
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