Abstract
Marc Ribot (*1954), one of the most influential guitarists of the worldwide avant-garde scene, started his musical life taking classical guitar classes with the Haitian teacher Frantz Casseus, turning then to electric guitar. After decades spent mainly on electric instruments, Ribot composed and recorded Exercises in Futility, his own series of etudes for solo guitar. The collection of pieces presents fifteen compositions that are intended to be studies for classical guitarists.Between 2015 and 2020 Ribot and I collaborated to create the scores of this collection of studies, soon to be published. The purpose of this paper is to present the work, explain the structure of the pieces, illustrate the process of meticulous analysis of the manuscripts and recordings and how the score was created. Our approach took into account that for Ribot the most important aspect remains making music and having fun with it ‒ how could the Exercises ever be futile if we consider them too seriously?
Recommended Citation
Naibo, F. (2023). Marc Ribot's Exercises in Futility. In R. Torres, A. Brandon, & J. Noble (Eds.), Proceedings of The 21st Century Guitar Conference 2019 & 2021 (pp. 253-270). https://digitalcommons.du.edu/twentyfirst-century-guitar/vol1/iss1/17