duets - how-to?
 

I'm working on some duet guitar arrangements. My duet partner lives far away, so we're hoping to record a CD of new tunes during a weekend visit.
What's the best way to prepare for this?
The pieces are very sparse and timing errors will be magnified, I think.
Art

If you're working out an arrangement before hand and have your partner look it over prior of getting together, I don't see a problem of getting something done. However, from my experience, if you or he are introduced cold to an arrangement, it can become tiresome. I don't mean so much from a technical aspect, although I don't know the degree of difficulty of the music, but purely from the music itself. Sometimes, you have a particular feel in mind and your partner doesn't get right away, you're spending more time talking than playing. That said, I think, preparation would be beneficial.

This won't be cold. I'm doing the arrangements and we'll have several months lead time.
However, it takes me a long time to learn 50 minutes of new music, which I plan to do because I'm not a great sight reader.

I recorded the bass part and tried to play the melody live against it. It was not a pretty sound :)
For a duet guitar transcription of a piano piece, would the left hand guitar or the right hand guitar lead?
I'm worried that if the timing is off even a little it will sound sloppy. A piano player doesn't have this problem.
When people do internet collaborations, do they use click tracks; how do they intro the music? Say "one, and-a two and-a three"?
Art

This is just my opinion and how I have approached this. Unless, you have a guitar composition specifically written for two guitars, where each guitar switches it's function to either support the lead guitar or be the lead guitar, your option are pretty much wide open. Taking a piano piece and making it a guitar duet has some problems in terms of pitch range and the music itself. You need to carefully look at the music, analyze it and make your assessment of how to structure the voices. You don't want to break up the flow of the melody and rhythm. I did some Renaissance transcriptions for two guitar years back and the problem I always had was to strictly stick to what was written until I decided to take the music, maintain the feel of the piece, but arrange it pleasing to the ear and making it fun to play on the guitar. Don't be afraid to change things around a bit. :)