The Melody Spin Song Encyclopedia

Minuet (Savannah) for classical guitar - A minuet, sometimes spelled menuet, is a social dance of French origin for two persons, usually in 3/4 time. The word was adapted, under the influence of the Italian minuetto, from the French menuet, meaning small, pretty, and delicate. This minuet in binary form features a captivatingly sweet melody on the classical guitar, a sumptious cello line, and strings that build to a wonderfully satisfying climax.

“There is a little girl I met a couple of years ago, whose personality was like sunshine. Around her, I cannot help but smile. Her name is Savannah. I wrote this classical guitar minuet for her” - Darren Curtis Skanson

The classical guitar and its repertoire span over four centuries. The popularity of the classical guitar has grown over the years with the advent of many great players, arrangers, composers and classical guitar makers. Gaspar Sanz, Fernando Sor, Mauro Giuliani, Francisco Tárrega, Andrés Segovia, Julian Bream, John Williams, Andrew York, and Darren Curtis Skanson just to mention a few. The sound and technique of the classical guitar is unique from other types of guitar performance. The guitarist uses the fingers to pluck instead of a plectrum. By doing this, the performer can play polyphonic music that contains two, three, or four musical lines or voices. The sound is also created by the use of nylon strings (which have, largely, supplanted the use of gut strings. (Yes, by “gut” they literally used the guts of animals to make guitar and other stringed instrument strings!). Nylon strings give the classical guitar a unique, varied, and rich color palette.

The classical guitar repertoire in practical terms includes not only music written specifically for the classical guitar, but also arrangemts of music written for other instruments. As well as being a great composer of original classical guitar music, Darren’s other focus has been to arrange familiar songs for the classical.