BYWEEKLY UPDATES (Section Three, Main Thread) - Submissions, Questions & Discussion
Welcome to the Main Thread for the second section of Santiago de Murcia's "Marizápalos"! 
- Make sure you've read the rules before replying (<- click)
- Watch the prerecorded kickoff livestream for help with the first section!
- Watch the prerecorded Livestream for help with the second section!
- Watch the Section Three Livestream for help with the new section!
Every day between February 23th (Week 2 stream) and March 16th (watch party), we are hoping to read your daily updates in this very thread right here!
Please use the following format when commenting (feel free to copy & paste!):
- Section you worked on:
- One thing you found easy:
- One thing you found difficult:
- (Optional): a video of you performing it!
- (Optional:) questions
-
Here's the score for the last two variations, triplet madness and campanella craziness!
-
martin thanks. Great! Love to work on this. Thank you so much for bringing Santiago de Murcia to our attention. Wonderful music.
-
martin thank you very much for uploading the score. At some points i`ll do it in a different way, because in end-tempo some parts are impossible to play for me with too much fast ornamentations. At the Moment i practice the last two parts with Metronome on 60 Beats per Quarter-Note. Then, at the end there is the D.C. - When doing the Da Capo in that Speed, i fall asleep
. The last two variations need to be played so incredible fast - that`s really hard stuff. I call it "The speed of Light-Variation" 
-
martin Thanks Martin. I'm hoping to get some longer practice sessions on this this week. It's a great piece but I find it difficult sometimes to understand what the music is doing. Really enjoyable challenge though.
-
It's awesome to see how all of you are so invested into this challenge! I will probably upload an updated score until tomorrow as joosje made me through an incredibly thorough musicological analysis (you earned yourself a badge of honor there!
) aware of some rhythmical discrepancies between the transcription and the facsimile (the 8th notes in 164-165 need to be 16th notes). Olli I always go into super slow-mo if there is a confusing part, never rush through those passage and always play only as fast as your mind is able to comprehend at the moment! For me, that's sometimes something around 40bmp (my mind tends to be very slow from time to time). Sometimes, going fast means to go veeeery slow!
Derek Step by step, you did such an amazing job with your latest submission! I will try to upload a video by tomorrow just to have some kind of reference (since there is simply no recording on modern concert guitars to listen to).I am really looking forward to the grand finale this week, for the next watch party we'll have a lot of exciting submissions to watch!
-
-
IMPORTANT NOTE FOR EVERYBODY WATCHING FROM OUTSIDE THE US.
Due to the time change of PST the Watchparty will still start at 11am PST, but at 7pm CET (6pm GMT), this is one hour earlier for the rest of us.
Click here to see at what time the stream will be happening for your time zone!-
martin great, thank you...would otherwise have switched on at 8 PM
-
martin Thanks Martin, I though that might be the case - I shall be watching with my bowl of chilli!
-
-
Thanks Martin. It's certainly a really challenging challenge. I'm taking it VERY slowly trying to get my fingers to do as they're told at the moment!
-
Ron Hehe, that's why it's called a challenge
But you are right, some parts look easy at first but reveal their thorns only when we dig a little deeper! But the last section is very fun to play and incredibly addictive!
-
-
Worked on bars 145 to 152
Easy - Not a lot, although the right hand fingering is starting to work now
Difficult - getting the ornaments to sound convincing, also a G# keeps creeping into Bar 150!
-
Ron Thank you for that updated, you are fast! I will probably upload a video by tomorrow, but - to be fair - I do have a head start
-
-
Unfortunately the long practice sessions I hoped for won't happen but I've still got time to do some.
I worked on bars 145 to 152 mainly but also played through to bar 162
One thing I found easy was playing through at a very slow speed.
The hard part was playing any faster and keeping with Martin's suggested fingering. (in fact the hard part was playing faster with any fingering!)
More practice required maybe a video on Saturday!
-
Derek Great! The first half of triplet variation (...or maybe the whole variation?) has its quirks! I always compare the choice of fingering like a game of chess (or the racing line in Formula 1), one decision will always determine the next step up to a certain degree. Going slow is definitely the way to go at the beginning, but more importantly understanding why we go for certain fingerings! In my case, I wanted to accentuate the direction of the music (btw, we're having a workshop today on this topic) and avoid awkward string crossings!
-
-
Did some more work on 145 to 152. I made a couple of fingering changes which helped. Hopefully I will set the metronome a bit faster tomorrow!
Also had a first look at the campanella section. Understanding the intention was the easy bit, getting it to sit comfortably under the fingers - well let's just say it needs a lot more slow practice!
-
Ron I hope you had fun with the campanella section! It makes the guitar resonate so nicely!
-
-
Today, not much time for practice, yet did some work at bars 145-181.
easy: sight reading the notes in moderate tempo (OK up to MM80)
difficult: In var 7 (6/9 part, 145-162): incorporating the R hand fingering in the score- the printed transcription is neutral, but Martin’s sophisticated indications, with the slurs, p i m. My problem is also in the articulation/phrasing: what I feel is not always supported by this fingering, so shall I make changes?
In the fast variation 8 (163-181) I have a problem (in 169-170) with the position change to G on 5th string - with a stretch to A on 4th. Once I am in the position, agree it sounds great, but it takes so much time to get there, and then to change the 4th finger from C on 4th string to F on 3rd and back, in this tempo, is hard for me.
I tried my own fingering, where I have to change between pos III and V. Not ideal. The fingering in the score doesn’t suit me, but with a slur between C-D on 3rd string it could work. I am still working with the 3 options.
Another choice I have to make: in line with var. 5, considering to play the fast notes on 4th and 5th strings 8va higher. I think it sounds good, more campanella instead of bass string slurs, but the R hand fingering is not so convenient (weird string crossings)Lots of work ahead, but really exciting stuff.
and, bonus question ¿ What shall we do with the da capo?
-
joosje Always feel free to make changes, of course! My intention with the fingerings was to accentuate the direction of musical lines and to avoid string crossings to gain speed (modern notation often suggests a certain kind of rhythmical pattern though it's mainly just caused by beam normalization, meaning that in a 9/8th meter everything will be squeezed into 3 triplets although the individual lines might suggest a different kind of bowing).
Oh, yeah, the position shift and the stretch is awkward, but you have two options to use a phantom guide finger to help you with the shift: while the 2nd finger on the first f (bar169) is the obvious choice, it's hard to use that one as a guide finger without hearing the finger slide to the higher position. I'd recommend to use the 4th finger on the 3rd string to help us guide into the higher position, that way the 4th finger is already somewhat in position to play the f on the 3rd string (although we need to lift it again of course).
And interesting choice about 8va, I haven't personally tried that (too lazy, haha), but listening back to the recordings on baroque guitar it makes sense since those instruments will sound that way! I am sure it will accentuate the campanella as you pointed out And although I didn't play the da Capo, I really like the idea of having one last round of tutti!
-
-
Practicing hard on the last section. Everything works great, but the speed needs much improvement... Question to all participants: Will you upload the last part only, or should we try the whole piece ( I know, everyone can decide completely free how to do that, but I am very interested about the way you will do this ...)
Best Regards to all
-
Olli hey Olli, I personally would not attempt to record the entire piece without a lot more practice! And even then I would record into my DAW and edit.
-
Olli good suggestion. I don’t know if I’d have the courage to record the whole piece. Also, not much time. Work today, travel tomorrow. I’ll decide on Sunday ... Good practice, enjoy.....
-
Olli Recording the whole piece will get you a badge of honor in the Award Ceremony tomorrow
(Spoiler: I will not win that ) -
martin i will not try to record the whole piece at the moment. (Yesterday i played part I again and the fluidity is gone). This piece needs really much time and intense practicing to be played fine at "regular" speed. Maybe 100Bpm on Quarternotes would be a good tempo ?
Question: What about the idea to keep on with this challenge and create an new part in this Challenge so called:
"Marizapalos Part II - bringing everything together"
followed by a watch-party in 6 Weeks ?
So all Challenge-participants have to keep on working on that nice piece and i am sure, that would sound really great, having enough time to keep on working...
-
-
- Section you worked on: Final sections!
- One thing you found easy: hmmm, I guess ...nothing? The Triplets do have an inherent dance like charakter that get's transported very easy, but in order to do that I needed to achieve a certain speed. So I definitely went for speed over accuracy!
- One thing you found difficult: Accuracy (as mentionend before)! In order to establish the character I want I needed to have a certain speed, though I don't think that I am secure enough will all the fingerings and notes (definitely need to play this one by heart if I want to play it that fast). It's especially tricky not to stumble across your own fingers in the triplet section, in the campanella it's quite hard to end a scale properly and play the following chord rhythmically accurate!
joosje I would have liked to play the da capo chords from the beginning, but I just forgot and was too focused on getting my notes right
-
martin wow - amazing performance
End of the Year Challenge: Finish Strong!
