Guitar audition songs (recommendations)

^^ friend played it for with me it sounds awesome
you are

"Anthem" by Ralph Towner?

Edit: Actually, it's a number for solo classical guitar. Maybe I should do some thinking before posting. I doubt it...

Edited by Eetu Pellonpää

^ Do you have the DVD? It's very helpful to watch him play the song.

Reverie wrote: Thanks for the suggestion CalamityDaemon. Cool song but i've just decided to settle for Die To Live by Steve Vai. It's pretty simple and i've discovered there is a backing track for it. Thanks for all the suggestions everybody.

 Great choice! The song is very emotional, and it's not too difficult - but it's not really simple to get it to sound right.

BTW: Could you post the backing track (via Yousendit.com)? I'd greatly appreciate that, because I have only half of it (the end is missing). 

Another Steve Howe song is Mood For a Day. It's somewhat of a Spanish Guitar-esque song. You can get the powertabs here. If you don't know about powertabs it's a free download of the net, just search google. You can also get the tabs from Ultimate-guitar.com or here.

A good contrasting piece would probably be something harder. Hm, you could try Icarus--Borne on Wings of Steel if you can find it. Or just have one of these other people tell you.

Speaking of Page, you could try the Rainsong. This suits either electric of accoustic- should be easy to find in tab. It is not too diffiult and also enjoyable as a solo guitar piece- shorten it up.

MikeEnRegalia wrote: Why no Vai or Johnson? I guess you don't want to play anything by Satriani either ... must it be electric / lead guitar or can it be acoustic, too?

Well maybe i was too hasty with the Vai and Eric Johnson stuff. It's just in my experience, EJ and Vai are often ver hard to play. If i could get a backing track to it i would probably consider Die To Live as that's not that hard. But i know what it's like to try and getting backing tracks without paying for a whole bunch of others. I can get the Lenny backing track from one of my friends which is cool (i just hope it's in E :P)

Regarding Satch... well i'm not really a fan of his music. I played "Always With Me, Always With You" for music in highschool, but i don't really want to play that again. I suppose if i can't find anything in time i'll just go with that *shrug* I also played Sisters by Vai, but that doesn't contrast, and originally was going to play Cliffs of Dover by EJ (i actually like that song) but i just couldn't get that down in time and i doubt i could now either. I might start practising it anyway.

I can't play acoustic songs because i don't have an acoustic guitar (apart from crappy my beginner one), and i get the feeling most acoustic songs won't contrast enough with Lenny.

When i say a couple of months i'm talking end of November, which is fine unless i go for something too hard. It doesn't have to have too much depth, they just need to know that i can play the guitar well enough and i'm not wasting their time.

penguin, i can't say i'm that familiar with Clap or Howe actually. I have heard Howe but it was a while ago and i can't remember what he sounded like. I'll check them out. Thanks!

I just thought i'd ask here as it's one of the most musically diverse boards i know of. Thanks for your replies so far guys.

A couple of months is not long to prepare anything of any depth. I am interested in the reply to Mike's query about accoustic. This would better suit a solo presentation. Do you have any training? Can you read manuscript?

I guess this belongs in here.

In a couple of months i'm going to be auditioning to get into a music school. I need to perform two contrasting pieces of music on the guitar with or without accompanyment. I've already chosen Lenny by Stevie Ray Vaughan, so i need something that contrasts that, but also something that could sound good with just guitar since i can't say if i'll be able to get a backing track for anything i choose.

They can certainly be prog, but they by no means have to be. I'm just after some suggestions as i can't seem to find anything i particularly want to play. Nothing too difficult. No Eric Johnson or Steve Vai. Well, thanks for any ideas.