Week 4: Perfect Performance Practicing 
Welcome to Week 4 of "Change your Habits, Change your Playing" with Phil Goldenberg! This is the thread for posting your submissions and assignments for the fourth week!
Assignment:
One take challenge! Warm-up, practice, get ready to the best of your ability, and then turn on the camera and play your favorite piece all the way through in one take. Just like a concert, there are no re-dos here.
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this is my third take. I will send another video because I tried to use the same principles of practice to learn Allegro appassionata by Saint- Saens on Cello. I am very content with the progress I made with working out the spots and structuring my sessions according to your advice. Because the peace has nearly 400 bars I just recorded the first page in half the tempo it has to be in the end. So Mr. Goldenberg, it is a little different to make the spots because on Cello I habe to work mostly horizontal and so a spot contains a row of bars or even two or even one quarter of a bar, but it worked very well and brought success. The re is still alot of work left on it, but the progress was really obvious.Now it is not sounding good because the focus is not enough on the tone, this is the next step when the bow and the fingerings are more familiar.
Ok: So thank you from my whole heart, that experience was amazing and will change my ways to learn peaces forever!
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Stefanie Mosburger-Dalz Both performances were beautiful, Stefanie! You played them with a lot of emotion. Thank you for sharing your music on both instruments.
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Eric Phillips thank you, I feared, my Cello is too raw in that state of the process...
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Stefanie Mosburger-Dalz I'm so glad you have had success with the method! and thank you for sharing your music on both instruments, I would love to be able to learn to play cello someday. Great work! My only advice for the guitar piece you shared would be to make a special effort to pay attention to the way your nails connect with the strings. I think sometimes you have a beautiful tone, and sometimes things slip a little and the nail intersects with the string in a way that it gets slightly caught, and the tone suffers. If you make an effort to sort of "slice" the string with your nail (connect with the string at an angle instead of perpendicular to the string) you'll get a beautiful tone more of the time. Thanks for sharing!
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Phil Goldenberg Yes, the nails... I had to perform last week and all my nails were gone because I work as nurse now and had to do many extrahours due to corona.... So I have 3 fake nails since 2 weeks: i, m, a,... and I cant get used to it, feels so insecure. I hope to get rid of that soon;-) It took me one week to not make an ugly clack-noise with the fakenails on the dynacorestrings I think they are too thick, too hard and too smooth, sometimes they are like hanging on the string too long, you are totally right!, feels like swimming with boots on... nothing is better than the real thing....I miss the touch, but it will go bye. But great you heard it how I struggle with that!!! And it eats up the strings, too smooth for rasguados...had to file them rougher....really not my case;-) but I saw people who can play very well with that
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Stefanie Mosburger-Dalz Your performances (on both guitar and cello!) were wonderful, Stephanie. Your playing on the guitar was very expressive. I have no idea how you can play both guitar and cello. Who is the composer of the waltz?
BTW - my fingernails have become so weak on my right hand I have to use fake nails for over 2 years. You can get use to them but it is a hassle. Actually only I,ma nails are weak - the thumb and pinky are strong as are my left hand nails. Go figure.
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Jack Stewart thanks Jack! the piece is Valsa sem Nome by Baden Powell
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Sor's Andante Largo First Take
Well, this is the piece I've been working on all during this challenge, so I thought I'd use it for this performance practice first take video as well. Recording in front of my laptop with the video on is something I'm pretty used to doing without too much anxiety, so it did not really feel like playing in front of people. I am used to doing many, many takes, so going with a first take gave me some anxiety, but also a sense of freedom as well. My performance is not perfect, but it could have been much worse.
I'll be playing this tomorrow for the masterclass with Martin, so I'm sure he will help me out a lot.
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Eric Phillips it is already very beautuful and flowing! I am looking forward to see you tomorrow with the masterclass.
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Eric Phillips That was wonderful, Eric! You have this one quite solid, and is a complicated one
if it sounded like that before your Masterclass today with Martin, now it is going to get even more solid 
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Eric Phillips Woooo! Sounds great Eric! Thanks for sharing this with us. A possible thing to think about in this piece is how you'd like to use color. As of right now your right hand doesn't move at all, which may be a conscious decision or it may be a lack of decision. I think it is worth it to go through and make sure that there are no phrases where your musical statement wouldn't be enhanced by the use of specific color.
Excellent playing!
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Phil Goldenberg Thank you, Phil. As usual, I thought I was using some color variation, but in reality I wasn't. I will definitely look for places to do that more intentionally.
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Eric Phillips That was spectacular,Eric. And in 1 take! Your tone and interpretation were very good. Well done.
I have had to back off from direct participation this past month though I have still been 'lurking' around. I have adopted Phil's 3 minute focussed practice, but I haven't made any videos.
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Eric Phillips Your sound was so clean and expressive! Really enjoyed listening to it.
I am practicing the Carlevaro's Microestudios this month, the 3 min practice method helped me a lot, but not every etude was suitable for the "expressive practice", so I decided to be an audience this month. Nevertheless, the content of this month's challenge was really beneficial and valuable! -
Jack Stewart Thanks so much, Jack. I hope everything is okay with you.
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Wai Thanks, Wai. You’re doing great work on the Carlevaro studies that I’m sure will have long term benefits on your playing.
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Eric Phillips I just saw this and your message (which I responded to). For anyone else who has seen this I am fine - just a little break. Thanks
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Phil Goldenberg Another excellent lesson on Performance Practice. Here is my post performing Abel Carlevaro's "Milonga para Ling", one of Carlevaro's last published compositions. I followed your suggestions and did a thirty-minute warm up which included running through the entire piece several times. I then turned on the camera and recorded the performance in one take. Look forward to hearing what you think and any suggestions on improving my performance. Thanks, Dale
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Dale Needles Beautifully plated, Dale!
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Eric Phillips Thanks!
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Dale Needles That was great, Dale. A very impressive one take. Great piece, also.
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Jack Stewart Thanks, Jack.
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