monica Barbaro’s Remarkable Transformation: Mastering Joan Baez’s Guitar Technique
Monica Barbaro’s intricate portrayal of folk music legend Joan Baez in A Complete Unknown not only enriches the film’s narrative but also serves to introduce Baez’s timeless music to a fresh audience.
Despite her lack of prior experience as a singer or guitarist,Barbaro faced the challenge head-on.Much like her co-star Timothée Chalamet, she embarked on an intense journey to grasp Baez’s unique playing style, which is renowned for its complexity and precision.
“I had never played guitar before,” she shared in a conversation with the Marin Independent Journal. “Joan’s fingerpicking technique is incredibly detailed, and I was starting from scratch.”
“I had to practice with a metronome set to an agonizingly slow tempo just to coordinate two fingers plucking the strings simultaneously. Many of our background performers were accomplished musicians and actors themselves, which made singing in front of them an intensely vulnerable experience.”
“The challenge wasn’t just in embodying Joan but in performing at all. I struggled with imposter syndrome throughout the process. It was incredibly daunting,” she reflected.
Initially, Barbaro had a five-month window to perfect Baez’s guitar skills before the 2023 Writers Guild of America strike interrupted her training. This unexpected break allowed her to continue refining her craft independently.
“We had to pause our training and put our pencils down,” she explained to Cosmopolitan. “However, this gave me the prospect to work on the music by myself. For me, the emotional aspect of singing was the most challenging, as it feels like such an intimate act.”
“Guitar, on the other hand, was a different beast. The technicality of finger articulation was intimidating. I had a grasp of my vocal abilities, but mastering the guitar was a whole new level of complexity, and the slow pace at which I had to learn the songs was excruciating.”
“Ultimately, my biggest concern was ensuring that I captured the essence of Joan’s voice authentically.”
In the film, Barbaro portrays Baez using a historically accurate 1929 martin 0-45 guitar, which her co-star Edward Norton, who plays Pete Seeger, humorously encouraged her to “steal” from the set.
While she declined to take the guitar, Barbaro has expressed her desire to continue developing her guitar skills and even aspires to follow in Bob Dylan’s footsteps by transitioning to electric guitar.
On his part, Chalamet approached his initial guitar lessons with a modest $200 Yamaha acoustic, tackling some of Dylan’s more challenging compositions.
