Week 1: Pick a Piece! 
Welcome to the Main Thread for the first week of the "Music YOU Love" practice challenge!
- Make sure you've read the guidelines before replying (<- click)
- Watch the kickoff livestream! (<- link comes soon)
↓ Happy Sharing! ↓
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Albéniz - Mallorca Feb 5
I started working on this last month, but I think it makes a good candidate for me to continue working on for this challenge. It certainly is an iconic piece that I have always loved since I first heard Bream's recording of it more than 30 years ago.
I used Stanley Yates' transcription as my starting point, but have made several of my own changes. I say "my own" but they really come from hearing others play it. Other than Bream, I particularly enjoy the YT versions of this by Tariq Harb and Matt Palmer.
I hope you like the Valentine's decorations in the background. Just to let you know, I did not do that special for this month's challenge. That is all my wife!
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Eric Phillips Beautiful as always, Eric. I have a question though. I'm curious about what's going on mentally when playing an 8-minute piece. I get halfway through my 2-minute recordings and find myself wondering when I need to renew the tags on my car. I imagine it's hard to put into words but I've always wondered how people stay focused. Are you thinking about what you're playing in the moment or thinking ahead to what's coming next? Are you thinking about what your hands are doing or are you going more on muscle memory once you've learned something? Or is there a lot of back and forth? If you get a minute I'm curious on your take.
Also, if you or martin know of any lessons on the platform that talk about focus or whatever is related to this, I'd appreciate it.
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Steve Price allow me to share from my personal experience on this topic, at some point it's the same as for a 2 or 20 minutes work... lets view it from another angle than technical, to me it's similar to when you tell something about you, like a travel you did, your life work experience, your love story... you don't focus on the words you're saying or are about to say but you have a kind of a «whole» picture of multiple aspects (emotions, timeframe, events, people, ...) that you manage to express in a continuous line that others can relate to. Playing music is a similar process but using different tools.
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Steve Price Hi Steve. Thanks for listening. I'm not sure I have any great insights on your question. I'd like to say (as Blaise wrote so well above) that I am thinking of a story that I am trying to tell. The truth is, I have never really been able to think in those terms when playing music. What is actually going on in my head (I think) is more structure of the music. I'm thinking things like, "Now comes the B section in D major," or "Here comes the bit with the descending bass line" etc. In my good moments, I really am thinking about how beautiful the music is and enjoying it. In my bad moments, I am thinking things like, "Here comes the hard part! Don't screw it up!" I honestly do not find myself thinking about other things like my car, or laundry, etc. I am generally a very bad multi-tasker, so maybe that deficiency actually helps me to focus when I play. Not sure.
I doubt that was of any help, but it's the most honest response I can give.
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Eric Phillips Have you already signed up for the TWI with Dragos?
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Steve Price I'd recommend our live streams on mental practice!
https://app.tonebase.co/guitar/live/player/roman-viazovskiy-mental-training
https://app.tonebase.co/guitar/live/player/dale-kavanagh-memorization-techniques
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martin I just signed up, I think. I followed your link above.
On another note, my reply to Steve above says "pending review". Are you able to change that?
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Eric Phillips I just published it!
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Eric Phillips Thanks for the reply. I'm terrible at multitasking myself which is why it's a problem when I lose focus. It just takes a moment and then I have no idea what I'm supposed to do next and it falls apart. Your reply was actually really helpful though since I'm pretty sure I can improve my focus, but I think it will be quite some time before I'm able to just let go into the emotion and story of the music and trust it will come out right.
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Blaise Laflamme Thanks, Blaise. That's a really interesting analogy and you've given me a lot to think about. That's what I'm been most impressed with about the lessons and community here is that it's one thing to learn technique, but something entirely different to learn music.
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martin Awesome. Thanks, Martin. I'll check them out.
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Eric Phillips wow , it is beautiful … you don’t rush, you keep the focus and my focus of where the piece is going, just polish those few little things and you are there!
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Emma Thanks, Emma. I do like taking my time on this (as usual). I hope it does not drag, though.
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I think this time I will work on an arrangement of Greensleeves by Giuseppe Torrisi.
You will find below the score (including tabs)
Also, here is the video of Giuseppe Torrisi
This will be a big challenge for me as it is fairly long and some chord changes are very tricky but I really like this music.
I hope I will be able to learn most of it and develop some new techniques during the process
Starting tonight....
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Andre Bernier What a great arrangement! Thanks for sharing - I will put that score in my Christmas folder I think. You are playing it very well already.
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Andre Bernier thank you for sharing this! I love greensleeves! Thank you for sharing the score, I did not know this arrangement and I will try to play it someday.
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Andre Bernier Great performance, Andre! I didn't know this arrangement, thank you for sharing both the performance and score.
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Moyses Lopes Eric Phillips Stefanie Mosburger-Dalz Hi all, thanks for your comments BUT it is not me in the video. This is Giuseppe Torrisi the musician that made the arrangement. By posting the video, I wanted only to give you the opportunity to watch and listen to the piece. Sorry if I let you believe It was my performance.
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Andre Bernier I noticed that this is not you;-). Tried to play it yesterday
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Andre Bernier Thanks for including the PDF to accompany your wonderful presentation. I will enjoy your future presentations, especially for part B. The group has a good discussion in progress regarding a composer being more challenging in Part B.
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Andre Bernier Really beautiful work Andre! The way it started out sounds a bit like Jeff Beck's version of Greensleeves on his album "Truth". I thought for a moment you were doing an homage to Jeff Beck, or maybe that Jeff got his arrangement from Giuseppe Torrisi. Not so the case, though. Plus, Jeff ended on a picardy third!
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Steve Pederson Stephen Holland
Thanks for your comments BUT unfortunately it is not me in the video. This is Giuseppe Torrisi the musician that made the arrangement. By posting the video, I wanted only to give you the opportunity to watch and listen to the piece. Sorry if I let you believe It was my performance.
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Andre Bernier I thought you looked a little different!
No worries mate! -
Andre Bernier Thank for the update.
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Andre Bernier Lovely arrangement! Thanks for sharing! Very singing melody and beautifully legato!
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I started working on Rondena by Regino Sainz de La Maza. Yesterday, somehow I injured my left hand, so had to stop playing for a while. I think I will "practice" the piece by reading the score without the guitar. Who knows...maybe it will help me memorize the piece.
Hopefully I will recover in time to resume Rondena for this challenge.
End of the Year Challenge: Finish Strong!
