Marcos DE ROS: Masterpieces CD Super guitar virtuoso. Rare CD

Marcos De Ros: “Masterpieces” was recorded due to my my background in classical music. When I first start to study violin, I learned two things that I didn’t know as a guitar student:

1. The discipline of methodical study, where you must do the right movements to get the best results. Because of that, I learned a thing that I called “mechanization” of the exercises.

2. Repertoire. A classical musician is not into improvisational techniques. So, what does he play? He plays songs that he studies daily! These songs that are mastered create their repertoire.

Then I start to put these principles into my guitar study. At some point, I discovered that I could play enough songs to record an entire CD and more! So I start to think about arrangements, and voila – “Masterpieces” was born!

Marcos De Ros: Well, I have some friends that are orchestral conductors (maestros), and I really have some fears about what they will think about my versions. But they are very open-minded people and they liked them! But, please pay attention to my word choice: I said they “liked” them, I didn’t say they “loved” them (laughs)!

Marcos De Ros: It happened in a very natural way. Before I even dreamed of recording the songs, I just chose the ones that I really like. When I start to think about recording, I had to choose the best sounding ones for an electric guitar, which was very easy, ’cause everything sounds great on a guitar (laughs)!

Marcos De Ros: It’s hard to explain. Each song has its particularities, and there’s the aspects that make me love each song. Sometimes a special melody, or the rhythm or even the harmony. Once I know what is the thing that I love in this particular song, I try emphasizing that and add some of my own musicality to it. For example, I love how “The Flight of the Bumblebee” has this intense and non-stop feeling of flight, so I just did this guitar/piano version. But on “Meditation of Thais”, I need something even more dramatic, so the female voice was the real lead part, while the guitar plays the melody. It seems a paradox, but you have to listen to understand that! Each song has its own joy, and requires some particular arrangement and feeling.

Marcos De Ros: To tell you the truth, this isn’t exactly an album. As I love to play live, I always want to do more concerts than it’s possible for a band outside the mainstream. To play in places where they cannot pay the expenses for an entire band, I travel with only my guitar and a CD where I have my own backing tracks. And I noticed that the public reacts very well to these concerts! So to do a more entertaining concert, I began to sing some songs. But to sing live, I need to practice a lot, so I started to work with some songs that I’ve heard my whole life – and record them!

Later, I realized that I had enough tracks to release a CD, but, due to it not being a top quality studio record, I just released it through the Internet. On my page on YouTube you can find almost all the songs! I remember the excitement recording “Space Truckin'” (Deep Purple), ’cause this is a song that I listened to every morning to wake up when I was a kid. “Little Wing” (Jimi Hendrix) was great to,o ’cause I was courageous enough to do a very different version of this classic (with all due respect to Jimi). To tell you the truth, each song is from an important moment in my life.