Week 2: Forgotten Favorites!
Welcome to the Main Thread for the second week of "Unfinished Business" practice challenge!
- Choose an piece that you have started to practice but never fully commited to finish. It could be a an iconic masterpiece, a technical challenge, a sweet little miniature or a piece that you played a long time ago and always wanted to refresh! You're encouraged to experiment with pieces from composers you're not accustomed to or push your boundaries with a technically demanding work.
- Commit to regular practice and share your journey with the community. Aim to practice daily and upload at least two videos per week to showcase your progress. This will not only aid in keeping you dedicated and motivated but also enables you to share your musical journey with our tonebase family.
- Share your favorite piece or recording that you always wanted to learnm but is still "unfinished business". Your submission will serve as inspiration for others and construct a vibrant repertoire of potential pieces for fellow members to explore.
↓ Happy Sharing! ↓
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Whip My Toudie/Hench Me Mallie Gray - Straloch Manuscript
When I first saw the title of this month's challenge, I found that most of my unfinished pieces required alternate tuning. I have to admit, I've been a bit lazy when it comes to tuning my guitar or finding the capo for those guitar pieces.
After watching Eric's lute performance, I felt inspired to learn some lute pieces myself (but lute pieces need alternate tuning
). So, for this challenge, I chose a short & simple piece to start with.By the way, could anyone tell me the meaning of the titles of these two pieces in modern English?
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Wai very nice Wai! It sounded really good on the guitar too. I'm really curious what the title means too.
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Wai Nicely played, Wai! I'll point out that the use of a capo for lute repertoire of this period is entirely optional: the idea that there existed during the renaissance a 'standard' lute tuned to concert 'G' is largely a modern fiction. Lutes came in a variety of sizes (and many of those that have survived are quite big) and would have been tuned accordingly. (You can hear Paul Kieffer playing a large lute in 'E' on his YT channel, and it sounds great.) As for the titles of the two pieces you play, although I can't provide a precise modern translation, I can tell you that this is early 17th c. Scots English slang, and that the language here is almost certainly coarse. 'Mailie Gray' is evidently the name of a woman, likely one of ill repute. (The association of the forename with moral 'looseness' has persisted into the modern era: consider, for example, the Little Richard classic 'Good Golly, Miss Molly'.) 'Toudie' (according to https://dsl.ac.uk) is a term referring to the female reproductive organs. And 'hench' is simply a variant of the modern English 'haunch'. I imagine you get the idea! (I should add that I might be wrong about the intended meaning - if you were to contact Rob MacKillop directly, he could probably suggest a modern rendering of the titles - after all, he's Scottish himself, and a specialist in the music of this period.)
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Wai Very nice, Wai. You seem to have a very strong affinity for early music.
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Wai very well done Wai! I find it interesting to play in alternate tuning as it enlarges the way you think about the neck and how music sounds on the instrument. Some modern music uses even more obscure tuning to create different atmosphere and resonance.
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don Thanks, Don! At first, I thought the first title might be sth like "Kick my Ass" in modern English, as for the second title, I had no clue what it meant. After reading David's comment, well, it's dirtier than I had originally thought.
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David Krupka Thanks, David. Initially, I thought the first title might be something like "Kick my Ass" in modern English, but as it turns out, both titles are actually quite a bit dirtier than I had originally thought!
I find it fascinating how the earlier music was so much more free and playful, with musicians interpreting and improvising the music in a wild manner. And I bet we can no longer use such titles in modern times.
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Dale Needles Thanks, Dale. Yes, I always find early music fascinating, I wish I had the opportunity to learn more about it myself.
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Blaise Laflamme Thanks, Blaise. To me, playing with standard tuning is already hard enough, which is why I also don't often practice pieces with alternate tunings. However, I think this challenge is a great opportunity for me to try playing those pieces and push myself out of my comfort zone.
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Wai
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Wai no worries, this is something you build up across years but that worth the effort in the long term. I hear you, playing standard tuning is hard enough!
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Arabesque week 2
I spent a lot of time this week listening to different versions of this piece and beginning to have a little bit more understanding and ideas how I wish it to sound eventually. 4 more bars of unfingered music. Should be able to finish them by end of this challenge.
Bar 1- 16
I think I'm getting the hang of the polyrhythm so now the objective is the beginning flow and make the tone more even.
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Bar 21-37
Need to connect the top line a little bit better. It still sounds cut in some places. Started to get the hang of shifting in chords for the last 2 measures. So continue to work on accuracy when shifting.
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Bar 47-66
Bass notes always missing when I play the triplets at the beginning. Need to shift a little bit slower. Need to connect the block chords in the last 3 measures.
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Bar 82-102
Only learned this this week. Notes not sounding clearly when playing at high fret and need to remember to play more ponti for the harmonics to sound cleanly.
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don You are making nice progress on this piece. The beginning is sounding so beautiful. I agree the upper registers are giving you some challenges in the later measures. My only suggestion would be to practice it very slow and try to use your left arm to lift your fingers off the strings (per Carlevaro's School of Guitar) in order to reduce some of the string noise. In any case, you have a nice tone are sounding good and I look forward to your continued progress.
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don Don, you're making great progress, especially in the first half - it's getting smoother! I'm currently practicing a Bach piece myself, and while I can play the first half smoothly, I'm still suffering in the second half.
I hope to be able to share my progress with everyone here in a week or two. Keep up the good work, look forward to listening to your next version! -
Dale Needles Thanks Dale. Is this the idea of fixation? Where joints of fingers are fixated and moving using bigger muscles from the arm?
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Wai thanks! It took 12 years since Arnold said I'll be back for Terminator 3 to happen. I'm sure this piece will be in the Í'll be back"bucket after the challenge.
I'm not a big of Bach's music before as I always thought them to be heavy and sombre. But been listening to some of the Cello suites on Apple classical recently and started to appreciate them more. I hope to hear your Bach soon, but that's what this challenge is, don't have to cross it as long you inch a little bit closer to the finishing line. There's always the Ïll be back"option
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don Yes, this would be an example of "fijacion" in which the stronger muscles of the arm are used to lift hand/fingers off the strings.
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don you're progressing well on this difficult piece, not easy all the musical aspects that you have to highlight. As Dale suggested, using your arm for shifts will definitely help but don't forget to have your fingers lifted before putting the movement into action!
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Blaise Laflamme thanks!
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Here is the B Section of Carlevaro's Capricho from the Introduccion y Capricho. This is a short movement with a call and response of the original theme introduced at the beginning of the Section A with a beautiful and haunting melody.
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Dale That was beautiful, Dale! I found that Carlevro's music has a very unique dream-like soundscape, which your playing captured so well!
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Wai Thanks and great observation about Carlevaro's music.
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