Antonio Lauro: Carora (Venezuelan Waltz)
Antonio Lauro’s music has become a staple of the Latin-American guitar repertoire. His works were performed and made popular by the likes of Andrés Segovia, John Williams, and Alirio Díaz, Lauro’s Venezuelan compatriot.
Adding to his Venezuelan Waltzes, Lauro wrote Carora for Alirio Díaz in honour of the guitarist’s native city. Join Emmanuel Sowicz as he walks you through the charms and challenges of this brief yet intense display of Latin-American flair.
We are going to be using this thread to gather suggestions and questions!
- What questions do you have on this topic?
- Any particular area you would like me to focus on?
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I won't be able to attend live, but I will definitely watch it later. Your lessons are always so great, Emmanuel!
Looking at the score, I am pretty intimidated by the speed (quarter-note = 184). I will admit that I avoid fast pieces, as they tend to frustrate me. Do you have any advice for an intermediate level guitarist who avoids fast pieces but who would like to stop avoiding them (i.e. me!). If you could address that briefly in the lesson, I would love it.
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Eric Phillips Thank you Eric! I think we may have answered this in the livestream, but thought I'd pop a reply down here just in case.
I have two thoughts: one motivational and another more practical one. (1) I try to push myself to do some things I don't consider myself naturally good at. To live a bit out of the comfort zone in terms of goal-setting. Having said that, (2) in order to play something fast I would always focus on having the most efficient and secure fingerings possible. Some fingerings may seem doable or even easy at a slower speed but can fail spectacularly when you crank up the pressure. Most of my time practising is spent optimising fingerings to the point I think I am unable to make any further changes that would improve the way my body carries out my musical intentions. And only from here onwards would I actually focus on gradually stepping things up in terms of speed, which ends up being a rather enjoyable process if you have fingerings that naturally help you bring out the music.
It can take some experience and a consistent set of technical principles in order to do this effectively, but it's never too early or too late to start. As an example, one such principle which was a game-changer for me was to avoid transversal shifts (i.e. jumping with a finger from one string to another on the same fret) if wanting to play legato or fast, and very especially with weaker fingers (3 or 4). Taking it back to playing fast: you can practise a transversal shift slowly and it might sound great, but your body is naturally not going to thrive with it when speeding up. It's simply going against your body. Instead, I would from the get-go find a fingering that is far easier (i.e. use different fingers across strings if wanting to play fast or legato). This is just one detailed example but there are many, many others that can add up and help us feel that we are using our bodies in optimal ways to carry out our musical intentions.
Hope that might complement what we shared on the livestream and also wishing you a very Happy New Year!!
Emmanuel
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Emmanuel hi Emmanuel, I have just watched your livestream, however I think I may have been too late in downloading your score with suggested fingerings, is there anyway that I can access this download please, my email is [email protected] if that is any help! Thanks for the very informative livestream ideas which are very applicable to many pieces and analyses, I learn so much from everyone on Tonebase. Happy New Year to all!
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Emmanuel Thanks for your response. Appreciate you covering this beautiful piece by Lauro. Being a lower intermediate player, my concern would be when practicing a given fingering slowly for too long. Would you say it's ideal to find the best fingering at the performance tempo ASAP? I ask because I'm not sure if practicing at slower tempo for too long may ingrain muscle memory which may be difficult to break later, if one is unaware that at higher speed the same fingering may fail.
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