WEEK ONE Updates: Main Thread - Awakening Tárrega's Spirit
Hello and welcome to the WEEK ONE Main Thread for this challenge! 
Alright my friends - this is the thread where we'll all be posting our daily updates.
Make sure you've read the rules before replying (<- click)
Twice a week between Mai 31st and June 21st, I hope to be reading your daily updates in this very thread right here!
Download the music here! (← click)
Please use the following format when commenting (feel free to copy & paste!):
- One thing you found easy:
- One thing you found difficult:
- (Optional): a video of you performing it!
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I started with Isabel, Valse.
Not very difficult to sight-read and structurally very straight forward. Simple Binary form piece and common harmonic progression.
As I often find with these types of pieces the difficulty lies in the details. Getting the feel of the Viennese waltz is more difficult than it seems.
video coming soon!
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David Chidsey This is one reason why I love playing these standards of our repertoire, like Tarrega, Sor, etc. Even the simplest of pieces can continue to be worked on and perfected for the rest of our lives.
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David Chidsey Yes, in these pieces there's always so much to discover over the years! And if you think you know everything, you listen to a Masterclass by René Izquierdo and he talks for 1h about details you've never recognized! Music is a path with an unreachable destination!
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Hello, I'm going to do Capricho Arabe and Rescuerdos del Alhambra. I really want to improve my paying level for these songs and will be using techniques I've learnt recently on tone base.
Regards
Dennis
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Dennis Greensmith Great, keep us updated about your progress!
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Here's my first update, I recorded myself after 1min (!) of practice, after 10min and after 1h!
- One thing you found easy: Following the musical line and find out-of-the-box fingerings for certain passages like the hinge-bar in Line 3, Bar 2 or overall legato solutions in line 2, bar 2. Great fun (but I need to correct some notes, haha).
- One thing you found difficult: Chord Balance and working out the musical contrasts in this gem. I get carried away with performing, but then I get in serious trouble dynamic-especially with the piano-like Sequence in the 3rd line
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Martin that was very educational to see how you work out a piece and how you manage to progress through it. Thanks for sharing this!
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Martin That was great to watch! Here are two things I loved about that:
1. I confess that it was nice to hear you making mistakes the first two times you played it. It was far fewer than I would make, but it is good to see that even a virtuoso like you is human!
2. I am blown away (and more than a bit jealous) by how beautifully you played it after just one hour of practice.
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Martin that’s wonderful. Thank you for sharing.
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Martin this is great! Your 1 min is better than my 1 day hahaha
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Blaise Laflamme Eric Phillips joosje don
Thank you! That was a lot of fun, with the smaller pieces this is an exciting challenge to see how far you can push a piece after a total of 1h11min of practice, haha!
And yes, making mistakes is an essential part of the process! Usually, I try to play a passage a couple of times and if I keep making mistakes I try to find a new fingering or another approach! -
Martin Bravo!!!
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Martin thank you Martin! Beautifully played!!!! That fingering where you put the finger 2 in bar 14 is a great idea and the alternative to the harmonics works perfectly!!! I will use them thank you!!!!
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Emma Thank you! I liked the added sonority in the end, I probably wouldn't have thought about that if I didn't restrict my practice time to 1h for that piece, haha!
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Martin Martin that was so good to watch. I'm really jealous to see how much progress you make in such a short space of time. It would take me more than a week to achieve even half of what you achieved in an hour! Bravo
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Martin very interesting to see your progress at each take. Amazing playing! I will try that prelude but I am pretty sure it will take me way more than an hour to be able to play it. Maybe several days! Hahaha
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Martin just seen this Martin - amazing! Maybe I should do a video after 1 hour, 10 hours and 60 hours to see if I could progress in the same way
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Hi everyone,
I'm working on Capricho Arabe. I played this a number of years ago, and want to get it back into my repertoire. I always so enjoyed playing it. There are a lot of other pieces too, some I have played and some I have enjoyed hearing others play very much.
Hard: Since I've played this, but it's been quite a while, I really need to go through and make sure that I'm following the music and not making it up from a faulty memory. I also want to play a better version.
Easy: Motivation. I really love this piece.
So far: It's going well. Glad we have 3 weeks to develop!
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Palmer Awesome! I will dip my toes into Capricho as well, such a beautiful piece! I am excited for your updates
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Hello everyone! Really looking forward to this. I read through several of the pieces recommended; Lagrima, Adelita, Preludes 1 and 5. I decided to work on Prelude number 5. I know it will be difficult for me to make this sound good as having a nice legato is always difficult for me. Always looking for a few tips as I have never had a formal lesson on the guitar.
What did I find easy? I think the opening chord...
What did I find difficult? Everything after the opening chord.
Seriously however, the part that is currently giving me trouble are the chords in measures 3 - 5; especially the crescendo/decrescendo. And again, the A tempo in the last line. I have decided to just have fun with it.
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Paul Kennedy Awesome! I have worked through this piece quite a lot as I am teaching this piece to my students as well!
We have a terrific tutorial on the 5th Prelude by the winner of the International Tárrega Competition in Benicassim (one of the biggest international guitar competitions) and dear friend who happened to study with the same professor Joaquin Clerch as Mircea and me:
That being said, the bars you've mentioned are quite hard, especially in terms of balance and intonation! For the highest notes (the 3rd chord in bar 4) I am keeping my 2nd finger on the second string to guide me into the position, that way it's easier for the 4th finger to find the c# on the 14th fret!
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Martin Martin thanks Martin, I will try that and take a look at the tutorial as well
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Here is a quick snapshot of my progress with Maria. I have been practicing since Saturday, so I guess that is four days. It's still a bit slower than I'd like, and has a few problem areas. I'm happy to have it pretty well memorized, though. It is just so fun to play!
I am also posting what I find to be the most difficult measure, specifically measure 41 which has a portamento from E to A on the first string. I play it several times slowly in the video. I'd be very interested to hear what Martin or any of you think could improve my playing of it. Right now, I'm only accurately hitting the correct notes about 50% of the time.
Martin - I did watch the video you suggested on shifting and have already begun doing the exercise you gave. Man, that is a killer! I am hopeful that practicing the exercise will help this piece and many others.
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Eric Phillips P.S. I don't want to hear anybody make fun of me that I still have a Christmas tree up! It's just one of the weird things we do in my family.
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Eric Phillips Awesome performance, that's very good progress for 4 days of practice!
I recorded some tipps and tricks for that damn measure 41 (as it's probably easier to just record a short video than to write a whole essay, haha), I hope that helps a little bit!
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End of the Year Challenge: Finish Strong!
