Week 4: Spain in 19th ! 
Welcome to the Main Thread for the second week of the "Around the 19th Century Guitar World" challenge!
In the beginning of the 19th century the prevailing compositional style in Spain was similar to other places in Southern Europe. Over the course of the next hundred years through influential figures such as Aguado, Ferrer, and Tarrega, Spanish classical guitar will develop it’s own unique voice that will become the dominant style of classical guitar in the 20th century.
↓ Happy Sharing! ↓
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A chose Aguado for starters. Those studies are very rewarding. Great arpeggio exercises, but also musically challenging. Here nrs 5 and 6.
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Barney thank you Barney. I think Aguado is unjustly forgotten, well, not forgotten, but neglected. His studies and the instructions in his method are so valuable. And his melodic style and harmonic inventiveness are moving forward from where Sor ends.
And, thank you for your kind words. As you said, we can learn so much from just listening to and watching each-other in the challenges and masterclasses, with well known or new repertoire. Your submissions set the standard very high, I learn from them and I always enjoy listening.
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Aguado - Four Lessons from Escuela de La Guitarra
These four lessons are from Aguado's 1825 method book. I found them in an anthology I have by Frederick Noad. He lumps them together and calls them "Four Easy Studies". I respectfully disagree with his assessment of their difficulty. I found it very hard to keep things legato. It required a lot of very challenging left hand fingering. I found the third lesson (number 80) to be particularly difficult.
If you want to see the score, I have attached the method as found on IMSLP.
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Eric Phillips Those were nice and well played , Eric.
Are you using reverb (or did you remove all the furniture and floor coverings in your room)?
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Eric Phillips again a nice set of unknown studies to me. As Jack pointed out, it looks like you have a reverb applied to a reverb here compared to your other videos where the reverb is just fine
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Jack Stewart My furniture and floor covering are all in place! I am using reverb. I've been putting it on all my videos (except for the one in which I talk) for maybe 3 weeks now. It's a hassle, but I like the sound more. I hope it's not too much.
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Blaise Laflamme I don't think I applied it twice. Maybe I did by accident, I can't really remember.. My ear is so unobservant of these kind of things.
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Eric Phillips nice! I like the evenness of the voices. Tell me, how do you do that reverb? With separate soundfile and then glue together with the video? What do you use for this?
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joosje Well, here’s what I do. I’m sure it’s not the correct way. First, I record the video and sound together using the camera on my laptop. This creates an MP4 file. I then use the VLC media player on my laptop to convert it to an MP3 file which is a sound file. I then use a program called Audacity to add the reverb to the MP3 file. Then I put the video together with the sound file with reverb using DaVinci Resolve. Like I said, I’m sure there is a better way, but that’s what I do. Everything is free, except for my laptop (although I got that for free through my job).
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Eric Phillips thanks Eric. Your sound is really nice so it’s a good way for this purpose. I know it’s no rock science. I was just hoping there would be a way around DaVinci Resolve. My laptop refused working when I tried to download the software. It’s only 8 yrs old (poor thing)
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joosje I would guess that there are smaller video editors out there that would work fine for our purposes, but maybe not have as many fancy features of DaVinci. I'm fortunate that my job gives me a fairly good laptop to use for free. If only they could provide me with the services of a sound engineer as well!
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Eric Phillips Well, you made them LOOK easy at least!
Such nice pieces for studies. I really like the way you introduced variations in timbre to give them more depth. -
Steve Pederson Thank you, Steve.
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Tárrega - Prelude No 1
I've decided I would like to take the rest of the week to work on this piece. It's such a lovely piece, and I've never really worked on it before, other than just noodling around.
Here are the troubler spots that I can identify:
- I have quite a bit of string squeak. The biggest areas of concern are measures 6, 8-11, and 24-26.
- I slowed down in a few spots, and momentum was lost (ex. measures 12 and 19).
- My portamento to the high F in measure 20 was weak and inaccurate.
- I'd like the harmonics at the end to be more a tempo, as indicated in the score.
Does anyone hear other things that need improvement?
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Eric Phillips That was beautiful, Eric. I don't think I have ever heard that piece (hard to believe, I know). Even though I like much of Tarrega, I am not usually interested in playing any. However, this piece has me wanting to explore more of his music. Thanks.
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Jack Stewart Thanks, Jack. Are you away on vacation?
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Eric Phillips Actually our daughter just tested positive for Covid so we cancelled our travel plans. I'm actually sort of glad. We now have 2 dogs (we're adopting our daughter's dog) and I was dreading trying to figure out the logistics of restaurants and the like.
Of course, the down side is I no longer have a convenient excuse for not completing the Giuliani and Sor pieces.
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Eric Phillips even if the music sounds simple it looks like not that easy to play, slow and legato is hard in this kind of music, you're already doing great.
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Jack Stewart I'm sorry to hear about your daughter. I hope she's doing okay. I know what you mean about how cancelling can be a relief. We're planning a simple overnight at the end of August in Niagara Falls, Canada (about a 2 hour drive for us), and with all the logistics involved you'd swear we're going to Mars.
Now stop reading this and go practice those great Giuliani and Sor pieces!
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Blaise Laflamme Thanks, Blaise. Legato is the big challenge here, with position changes and movement on the bass strings.
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Eric Phillips If I was going to Mars, I would swear.
PS. our daughter is fine, just mild cold like symptoms.
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Jack Stewart you can finally manage to play the Grande Ouverture a bit faster than last time!
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Eric Phillips you're absolutely right, that kind of piece requires a lot of work for a result that sounds simple to the ears.
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Blaise Laflamme I haven't finished the first time.
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Eric Phillips beautiful piece and already so well played. You criticize yourself, but I think you’re on the way to a high level performance. Tempo is perfect. The squeaks , what to do, anyway it’s a natural guitar thing. Your legato is coming along. Needs to settle in a bit, your ears will be guiding the fingers. My idea would be to take slightly more freedom (rubato and breath) at the end of phrases. (But that’s my personal taste). About those harmonics at the end, I feel that phrase as in one breath and would take care to keep the pulse also on the last two notes.
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joosje Thank you so much for your thoughts, Joosje. That’s very helpful!
End of the Year Challenge: Finish Strong!
