Sometime around 2012, I took a baroque music literature course at Texas State. It was taught by a professor who ranks as easily one of the most deadly boring professors I’ve ever had in my life. He would begin each course by sending us some lecture notes that he clearly had written during the Reagan administration, and then would proceed to read the notes aloud. If you had them in front of you, you could tell what he was going to say well before he said it.

At one point during class, I asked a question that took him off script. He seemed confused for a minute, briefly answered the question with a bare minimum of effort, and quietly returned to his lecture. It was as though a tape had simply started playing again.

I took two things away from this experience. The first was a newly unshakeable faith that I am a good enough teacher to teach at the university level. The second came from the moment I saw a video of a Corelli concerto grosso that contained a theorbo. The moment I saw that, I knew I had to learn to play it.

This set me down a path that I’ve been on more or less ever since. I started taking lute lessons that turned into baroque guitar lessons. When we were packing for our big move to Spain, I left most of my instruments behind in Austin. But I brought my baroque guitar.

I’ll be recording videos like this on the regular this year, I hope. I also hope I’ll get a little better at syncing the video and the audio. This first one is a recording of Francisco Guerau’s Jacaras de la Costa. I can’t tell you too much about either the composer or the piece, besides the fact that he was a priest, and the piece involves lots of hemiola. It’s also in a major key, which makes it different from the regular old Jacaras.

Enough of all that. Here’s the video.