Week 1: Our Unfinished Pieces!
Welcome to the Main Thread for the first 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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Great topic for a Challenge. I have been working this year on one of Carlevaro's major guitar works, "Introduccion y Capricho." I posted the "Introduccion" on a previous challenge but continue to struggle with the "Capricho." It is definitely one of the longer, more complex and technically challenging of Carlevaro's compositions. Therefore, I hope that this Challenge will motivate me to get it over the top. Let's see how it goes. In any case, here is my recording once again of the "Introduccion" in order to reacquaint you with the piece. As for the Capricho, I plan over the next several weeks to break it into parts and then post it in its entirety by the end of the Challenge.
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Dale Needles I'm so glad you will be working on this, Dale! The introduction is incredible, and I can't wait to hear more.
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Eric Phillips Thanks, Eric. Let's see how it goes...
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Dale Needles Wow! That is wonderful, Dale. I am excited to see your progress on this really demanding piece.
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Jack Stewart Thanks, Jack. You probably remember I hacked my way through it at one our get togethers. I am now determined to put it all together. What are planning to work on?
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Dale Needles Great Introduccion Dale, can't wait to hear the following Capricho, such a pleasure to hear you play Carlevaro's music! I hope this challenge will help me with my Carlevaro's unfinished business!
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Blaise Laflamme Thanks, Blaise, and it would be great to hear some Carlevaro from you. BTW, how is your hand/wrist injury? I am having my right hand worked on this Friday. A minor procedure where they break up some scare tissue that has grown around the tendons in the palm of the hand. Hopefully all will go well and not keep me off the guitar for more than a couple of days.
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Dale Needles it's better each day, I'm about to record a new Carbajo's video and I'll see how it goes. In my case it was a bad movement/position so not too serious. I hope the procedure will be fine and you recover fast, while being minor it looks a bit scary
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Dale Needles thank you for bringing this piece again. It’s very beautiful. So is your playing: great colouring and phrasing. I don’t know the score (I’ll look it up in the Bibilioteca Carlevaro). I notice that you create a beautiful warm tone at some passages, (stroke#?), but most of your playing is quite close to the bridge and you seem to avoid the sul tasto register. Is that a deliberate choice? Maybe you can elaborate on that in the Carlevaro section, which I follow carefully, although I didn’t post anything. That idea about the different strokes might be an interesting subject, too.
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joosje Thanks, Joosje. As for my hand position, my goal is to position it between the bridge and sound hole so that i can achieve a variety of timbres fron claro to dolce using Carlevaro's different strokes without moving my R hand. Of course this is not always achieved and when I am off my sound can become at times too metallic. Additionally, I tend to like a more clear or "claro" sound using the "dolce" timbre more sparingly and for emphasis. This is a combination of my personal preference and my love of 20th Century music which I find lends itself to clear timbres. I will write more about Carlevaro string strokes in the Carlevaro Discussion Forum.
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Blaise Laflamme Just got finished with my orthopedic procedure and it went well. She cleaned up the tendons in the palm of my R hand and I can already see the difference in my m and a fingers. The incisions were minute and should heal in a day or two. I am very pleased and look forward to seeing if it mproves my right hand flexibility.
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Dale Needles I'm happy to read that, I hope it does!
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Dale Needles Dale, your playing is so clean and precise, and I always like the warm, earthy tone that you bring to your music. It's a unique quality that I really enjoy and sets your playing apart.
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Wai Thank you, Wai. Hopefully, I will be able to work up the Capricho to the same level for this Challenge. What are your plans for the Challenge?
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Dale Needles I don't have a plan for this challenge yet, but I am still working on the Microstudios.
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Found myself having some trouble sleeping and thought I’d use the time practicing my piece for this challenge. It’s still so far from “together” that I hesitate to post it, but I do here bc I think there is some improvement even in this short time, which I think validates the Challenge (at least for me). Note: I didn’t use a footstool on this take, just crossed my legs.
Thank you, Eric for sharing the T d’A instructional video that you did. Bc of it I changed my right hand finger choices during the harmonic part and, while it’s got a long way to go still, those changes feel good in the playing.
https://vimeo.com/843089792-
Spare Machine Definitely some improvement there! For some reason, I have sound but no video on this, so I cannot see what fingers you’re using for the harmonics, but they definitely sounds much better this time. Good work!
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Eric Phillips I was playing in a pretty dark room bc of the hour. I’ll make sure you can see my hand in the next one! Thanks for listening to it!
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Spare Machine Oh, I see it now! I was watching on my phone, and it looked like there was no video at all. Guess it’s time to go see the eye doctor!
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Spare Machine That is a great start, Mark. It is a bit soft (and I haven't finished my first up of coffee) but it sounds like you have a good grasp of the music so far. I am looking forward to your seeing (hint, hint
) your progress. -
Eric Phillips
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Spare Machine was the siren or ghostly sound part of the piece? :-)
Very nice tone and slowly getting there.
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Etude #1 Stravinsky Hommage
If you can bear a bit of self indulgence. Some of you may remember I composed an Etude in Ashley's Etude Composition workshop (those were the days!). I never was able to ever work it up satisfactorily, so I thought I would try for this Challenge. This is the first section which is mostly under my fingers. Unfortunately, the second section is much harder. We'll see how well I do.
This is inspired by some of Stravinsky's elements but in no way does it actually resemble Stravinsky, despite having a quote from the Rite of Spring (of all pieces!) in the 2nd part.
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Jack Stewart that was very cool. Thank you for sharing that.
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Jack Stewart This is awesome, Jack! I’m so glad you’re coming back to one of your own pieces. I’ll be honest, when I look back to both of Ashley’s composition challenges, there is nothing I wrote from either one that I have even played once since those challenges ended. This one you played though is very much worth working on. Any chance you could post a score?
BTW, I’d like to propose an Arranging Challenge, and you could arrange Rite of Spring for solo guitar.
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Eric Phillips Thanks Eric. I have wanted to be able to play this but the 2nd section is some challenging it kept scaring me off. Maybe this time.
I have attached the current version.
Well the Rite of Spring maps so easily on guitar it is hard not to believe Stravinsky didn't originally compose it on guitar.
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