WEEK 4: Homenaje a la Guitarra 
Welcome to the Main Thread for the fourth week of our musical Journey to Spain!! This is the place to share submissions of the fourth week! 
- Make sure you've read the guidelines before replying (<- click)
- Watch the kickoff livestream for help with the first section!
If you want to describe your process (optional), feel free to use the following template.
- Things you found easy:
- Things you found difficult:
- (Optional): a video of you performing it!
- (Optional:) questions
↓ HAPPY PRACTICING, HAPPY SHARING ↓
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Campanas del Alba / E.Sainz de la Maza
Dear Community - this is my last piece for the challenge. I thought back and forth for a long time, if I should already record that piece.
(I know how much work I`ll have to do till it sounds the way I want it)
My tremolo gets better week to week and my personal goal is to play killer tremolo at the end of the year
. If you find it boring - set the speed to 1.25
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Olli Excellent Olli. You played the tremolo wonderfully. It is a mystery why this piece isn't better known. Your performance shows why it should be played more frequently. The intro is very nice and sets up the tremolo melody really well. The coda is a real surprise as well. Thanks for presenting this.
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Olli Never boring!!! that was very good! Campanas del Alba is my next tremolo after "El ultimo tremolo" de Barrios which iI am already working on. I am dealing with this technique for a while...there are several beautifull pieces with tremolo...it is difficult but...magic!!!
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Olli another beautiful piece!!! Beautifully played, truly sunrise bells, clean and beautiful
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Olli Wow! Beatiful, Olli! Full of emotion, a great interpretation, thak you!
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De Falla Homenaje final posting for Spain
I think this is much better, though I can't seem to eliminate the odd glitch here and there. I will be learning how to interpret this for a long time yet, but I think I have a good foundation for it.
This is dedicated to the people and country of Ukraine.
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Jack Stewart Really great, Jack! Definitely your best performance yet. It has such energy and drive, punctuated with fleeting moments delicate beauty. Perfect choice of painting as well, for both the music you played and the dedication you gave.
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Eric Phillips Thanks Eric. I keep listening to other performances and hearing refinements that impress me. I feel I have a pretty solid grip of the piece and now the REAL hard work begins.
The news of the invasion of Ukraine is so upsetting and the people are so courageous, Picasso's Guernica is such a powerful reflection of the consequences of war, especially one that is so heartless and unprovoked.
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Jack Stewart wondeful Performance - I think it is not just foundation...it is already very far from that point
... This is a really great piece and you motivated me to have a look at it in near future time ! Best Regards -
Jack Stewart Wow, that was very impressive, I hope the Virtual Masterclass gave you a little bit more inspiration for that masterpiece!
And thank you for that dedication, as a EU citizen this horrible war feels so close...
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Jack Stewart very good!!! It has been amazing seeing how you have matured this piece throughout the challenge. Well played and beautiful interpretation . I hope to hear it again !!! In a community concert? Bravo!!
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Olli Thanks Olli. It is a great piece - probably even greater than I had previously thought. Learning it has opened my eyes to how deep it is.
See you at the Redzic Masterclass.
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Martin Thanks Martin. Your masterclass was invaluable in helping me, as was Manny's. I feel I wasn't able to incorporate everything I learned from those masterclasses. I will have to learn how to record future masterclasses so that I can continually refer to them.
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Emma Thanks Emma. It has been quite a journey. It was actually more difficult than I had originally thought.
See you at the Redzic Masterclass.
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Jack Stewart wonderful Jack. There is some fantastic emotion coming out there. I really enjoyed this performance! Thank you very much. I had forgotten how much I like this piece
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Jack Stewart Excellent and you made such great progress on this outstanding and rather difficult piece over past month. I think this is one of the first great pieces written for the guitar in the 20th Century. You have inspired me to take it up again. Congrats!
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Jack Stewart Inspiring, Jack! Great job you did, you have all you need to this piece. Thank you for sharing!
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Federico Moreno Torroba – Arada
This piece is the second movement of the three-movement Suite Castellana. As seems to be the case very often, I find the second movement to be the best. The only meaning of the word Arada I can find is plowing, and I have no idea why it might bear that title. Maybe it is meant to evoke images and feelings of rural Spain? Does anyone have any insight about this? Regardless, it is beautiful music.
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Eric Phillips That was beautiful, Eric, there is a beautiful sonority in your interpretation and I like how you really take care of making that legato line in the top sing!
I always try to find some information about the pieces I am playing and must say that for guitar music that seems to be really hard sometimes. What I find disappointing that in most of the scores there's often nothing more than the notes printed.
A quick google search came up with this:
Suite Castellana ("Spanish Suite") can be interpreted from the heart of Spanish nationalism. The first movement, Fandanguillo, is modeled after the traditional Fandango dance in moderate triple meter. A brief and dramatic introduction leads into a mysterious theme. A brighter contrasting section is filled with turning melody and lower-voice interjections, but the original material finishes the movement.
Arada is gentle and expressive and its colorful harmony creates a calming and reflective atmosphere. Torroba's mastery of beautiful vocal-like melodies from his experience in Spanish opera is apparent, while he uses the French Impressionistic techniques of planing and unexpected harmonic directions.
Danza, simply "Dance," was Torroba's first composition for guitar. Beginning with a fast-paced theme, the listener is welcomed to a scene of joyful dancing and spinning. The middle section suggests tiring and resting, but the dance theme beckons the dancer to return, as the evening ends boisterously. -
Eric Phillips It was beautiful! How did you record so many difficult pieces in such a short period of time, with such a good quality?! Really Amazing!
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Martin Thank you so much, Martin! This is a wonderfully good description of each of the movements of the suite. I do still wonder why the second movement is called Arada.
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Wai Thank you, Wai. This particular piece has some parts that seemed almost impossible at first glance, but eventually became doable. I will admit that I altered the score in a few places. When I saw that Pepe Romero had done so (in his YouTube video of this suite), I took that as permission to do the same. I hope Torroba does not mind.
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Eric Phillips That was beautiful. You are truly the master of the melancholic Romantic character pieces. (Interesting contrast to your light and friendly personality).
I did the same search for Arada and came up with 'plowing' also. I can't imagine anyone that actually plows sharing Torroba's impression of that work. Maybe he meant it to be a soothing salve for such hard work. In any event, it is beautiful.
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Eric Phillips beautifully played Eric. You bring out the melody well and the tone is really lovely. I have been looking at the two other movements but I'm not confident that they are good enough to record. Probably too late now for the challenge but I will put them in the practice diary.
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Derek Thanks, Derek. I find the other two movements harder to play, mainly because of the tempo.
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Jack Stewart Thanks, Jack. I guess I let out all of my bottled up romantic melancholy while I play!
And I agree, if this piece really was named "plowing" by Torroba, it seems to come more from nostalgia than actual experience.
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End of the Year Challenge: Finish Strong!
