Week 3: Music is Music! 
Welcome to the Main Thread for the last week of the transcription challenge! This is the place for the Week 3 Submissions!
- Make sure you've read the guidelines before replying (<- click)
- Watch the kickoff livestream for help with the first section!
If you want to describe your process (optional), feel free to use the following template.
- Things you found easy:
- Things you found difficult:
- (Optional): a video of you performing it!
- (Optional:) questions
ā Reply below with your Progress Update and Questions! ā
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As I previously posted, I have been working on two arrangements of Astor Piazzolla's pieces from his Tango Opera, Maria de Buenos Aires. The first piece was Alevare which I posted last week and the second is Poema Valseado (Poetic Waltz). Poema Valseado tells the story of Maria wandering through the streets of Buenos Aires as she falls deeper into the dark side. Here is the final stanza of Poema Valseado from the libretto by Horacio Ferrer.
"I am Maria from Buenos Aires
Maria from Buenos Aires, I'm my city!
Maria tango, Maria of the slums
Maria night, Maria fatal passion,
Maria of the love of Buenos Aires
It's me!
Again, the arrangement was done by Agustin Carlevaro, who arranged at least 20 Astor Piazzolla pieces for solo guitar. The challenge in playing this piece is to capture the dark poetic nature of the music by playing it very legato while trying to minimize left hand string noise.
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Dale Needles thanks Dale for taking me to this magic travel to "that" melancholic Buenos Aires of Maria y Astor....at that time...we were tasting "un cafecito" at 3. AM with friends in "la calle Corrientes" the street that was alive all over the night...
Buenos Aires has changed a lot....
Very touching your music Dale....gracias.
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Nora Torres-Nagel Thanks Nora and so happy that the music was able to take you back to a special time in Buenos Aires, truly a special place as is the whole Rio de la Plata region.
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Finally did a recording of the first half of Dyens Revoir Paris. Definitely a long way to go before it sounds good. Hard- getting all the fingering in my brain so that I can play it with swing. Iām trying to make the melody stand out like a smooth voice after hearing the very French original. The introduction section has some tricky fingering, so itās hard to get it to sound smooth- Iāve left out a couple of less important notes on some of the chords so that the fingering works better.
Easy- having such a strong rhythm actually dictates how itās played. So a big bonus once Iāve got that sorted.-
Chris Coghill https://youtu.be/lUWeqE5vZV4
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Chris Coghill Outstanding, Chris! I felt like I was sitting outside at a French cafe listening to that.
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Eric Phillips thanks Eric! Itās such a fantastic transcription- lots of colour and little tricks to add interest. Absolutely made to play in a cafe- actually Iām on holidays and itās summer in Australia, so thereās birds in the background and insects buzzing around!
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Chris Coghill I envy you Chris! I love to play guitar outside. Unfortunately right now we have over a foot of snow on the ground and the temperature is 12 degrees F (-11 C) and going down over the next couple days. I need to move to Australia for half of the year!
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Chris Coghill really enjoyed listening. you earned your bonus on this part. Great job.
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Chris Coghill Good job!
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Chris Coghill well done Chris... Dyens stuff is not easy to play, I really enjoyed your playing! and your stage is just awesome!
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Chris Coghill That was treaty Chris. I know that Dyens has a collection of jazz standards he has arranged, is this part of that? Looking forward to hearing the rest.
I also enjoyed your accompanists.
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Jack Stewart hi jack- sorry about slow reply- this is from the āchansons francaisā v.2. Thereās about 12 transcriptions in each volume- I actually think the first volume has the better ones (or the ones I like more). I donāt have the jazz book, but I do have his āarrangements lāamiableā which is brilliant but mostly quite hard. Iāve done the usual rookie error and bought a few great sounding collections that are really above my level, but theyāre a lot of fun to work on!
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Merry Christmas Mr Lawrence
This is a beautiful piece composed by Ryuichi Sakamoto and arranged to guitar by Hirokasu Sato. It was for the 1983 movie by the same name.
As I expected, I think this will take till this Christmas to get this into shape. Still a lot of mistakes, especially when shifting position from higher frets to lower fret and the fast passage.
I have been working on it average 30 mins daily for last 3.5 weeks and I'm quite happy with the progress. It is a really fun piece to work on and am glad that there is this challenge otherwise I'll never even start this.
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don Beautiful, Don! Such lush harmonies. Your harmonics at the beginning are executed very nicely.
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don This is very nice!
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don
I know Kaori Muraji's version, and I really like it. Keep it up, you're doing a good job.
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don lovely sound Don. I didnāt know this piece. Thank you for this submission.
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don thanks for sharing this, that sounds great Don! Strangely I heard another arrangement done by Hirokasu Sato today and never heard of him before, I'll take a look at his work.
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Eric Phillips Thanks Eric, I think it will take some work to get it right but I think it is really a fun piece to learn.
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ivan paolo Yes she is one my favorite guitarist. In fact the last piece I learn is Claire De lune performed by Kaori Muraji. She always play with such sensitivity.
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Blaise Laflamme I noticed that too. There are some that performed live removing the middle section. This is the full arrangement https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5XSV2G4d9oU
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joosje That's what make such challenges fun, we all get to listen to new pieces.
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don There is another Japanese composer that I really love, maybe next time if there is another challenge...@martin for anime, game music..
Nobuo Uematsu, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2IuFlkb_HP0
They all have been transcribed to guitar but nothing beats a full orchestra but still beautiful music,
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don thanks for the reference Don.
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Hello all, Here is my newest attempt at the Gershwin. Still a few rough places, but it is forcing me to isolate those places and they have been improving I think.
End of the Year Challenge: Finish Strong!
