Book: Tango Guitar – Aníbal Arias
20 performance ready guitar arrangements
I’ve just published Tango Guitar: Anibal Arias — a collection of 20 solo guitar arrangements of classic Argentine tangos, based on the work of the legendary tango guitarist Aníbal Arias.
If you know Arias’s playing, you know why this matters. He was one of the great interpreters of the tango repertoire for solo guitar, and his arrangements of pieces like Sur, Nostalgias, and Volver are benchmarks of the style. But good editions of his work have always been hard to find, and the transcriptions that do exist tend to be bare-bones.
These aren’t straight transcriptions. I’ve re-engraved every piece from scratch and enhanced the harmony throughout — revoicing basic dominant 7ths as 7♭9 with the flat 9 in the bass, voicing minor chords as minor 6, filling out thin textures with inner voices, and replacing strummed chords with fingered block chords where it improves the melodic flow. The harmonic language draws on jazz and Brazilian guitar traditions while staying true to the lyrical character of Arias’s style.
Most of the pieces follow Arias's arrangements closely, with enhanced voicings and reworked harmony. Two pieces go further — Flores Negras is a more significant reinterpretation of Arias's arrangement that keeps much of his style, and Loca Bohemia is my original arrangement written in the style of Arias.
Every arrangement includes standard notation and TAB, and the layouts are designed for continuous reading with no repeat signs — ideal if you use an iPad with Piascore or a similar scrolling app.
The full track listing:
A Homero (Troilo) · A Media Luz (Donato) · Amurado (Maffia & Laurenz) · Barrio de Tango (Troilo) · Cafetín de Buenos Aires (Mores) · Caminito (Filiberto) · Don Juan (Ponzio) · Flores Negras (de Caro) · Loca Bohemia (de Caro) · Los Mareados (Cobián) · Malena (Demare) · María (Troilo) · Mariposita (Aieta) · Mi Noche Triste (Castriota) · Nostalgias (Cobián) · Nunca Tuvo Novia (Bardi) · Romance de Barrio (Troilo) · Sur (Troilo) · Tabaco (Pontier) · Volver (Gardel)
If you’ve been looking for performance-ready tango guitar editions that go beyond what’s currently available, this is it.
Grab it here: Romantic Tango Guitar Volume 1
Tom