The Guitar Master

What I’m teaching… Cavatina (aka the Deer Hunter Music)
By Stanley Myers (most famously recorded by John Williams)

I started learning Cavatina after having played the guitar for around 6 months. Within a relatively short time (a few weeks) i had the whole thing committed to memory. however, it took me at least two years to iron out all the little mistakes and pauses and be able to play the piece to a standard that someone else would not mind listening to.

To this day (I have been playing for just over five years) I still have good and bad days with Cavatina. on a good day, I play the whole thing all the way with (almost) no pauses or mistakes and come to rest on the final notes feeling utterly relaxed and pleased with myself, wishingthat someone else had heard me play it so well. On a bad day, my fingers stumble around all over the place; there are pauses where there should be fluidity and on occasion I have had complete mental blocks and failed to remember what comes next. I find that by putting my guitar down somewhere and leaving it for a couple of days, my memory is magicaly restored and I can play it again.

This is why I truly believe that the guitar is special. I’m sure all instruments have their various similarities and differences but I haven’t played enough of them to know. But I can tell you that to play guitar well requires a certain frame of mind. Some people have this level of consciousness all the time, whilst others do not have it at all. Most people however, are able to sink in and out of it when needed, as long as the mood is right. But if the mood is wrong, frustration can arise, and I reckon that’s why some people get angry and smash their guitars against the floor. (Although it’s probably not whilst playing Cavatina…)

Here is the tab for the whole of Cavatina, personally transcribed by me.

Now have fun and don’t smash up your guitar. If you need any help, please let me know. But I promise that when you get it right (which may takes several lifetimes worth of effort) all of the planets will align and you will restore order to the galaxy, and then the universe and all it’s inhabitants.

(OK, I may have made up that last bit… or did I…?)

Good luck

The Guitar Master

Tags: cavatina, deer hunter, tabs