WEEK TWO: The Musical Voyage!

Martin thanks Martin, yeah with two voices and try to keep the legato...  «a la Carlevaro» ... for the second one I totally miss the end part obviously, I should have practice more, but yes my intent was to have the upper note as the «melody» but I miserably failed 

Blaise Laflamme Sounds Great! I found it difficult to memorize this piece also, and I don't know why, I kept hearing soothing ocean waves sound in my head when I was practicing this tune. Then I mixed the wave sound with my recording and found they matched perfectly XD

Wai Ng thank you... haha nice trick, at least it sounds like in your head, you should share us the result! I found that after working regularly on a piece for a few hours/days/weeks, including sight reading the whole piece at a tempo I can master most of it at the end of a working session, it gets memorized without effort in the end, compared to when I try to memorize it as soon as possible. It also has the benefit of memorizing through the process of building my understanding of the form, style, harmony, rythme, patterns, fingerings, ... and the story it tells me. 

Blaise Laflamme Thank you for the tip for memorization. Here is my recording of the first piece of Sketch, I played it very loosely and as I said before, I added some ocean waves sound in the background and I really like the atmosphere of the wave sound & the melody combined. 
https://soundcloud.com/gokokui/10-sketches-01-sergio-assad
(I did not take a video of my playing, that's why I didn't join the challenge. Anyway, I really feel that this piece fits the wave sound well, lol. I am going to start practicing the 2nd Sketch, see what kind of atmosphere it is going to give me)

Wai Ng wow this is super cool! I want to point out that you don't have to post any video of yourself playing, that's a bonus... it would have been great to have your audio recording in this challenge... hope you'll consider participating in any upcoming challenges, like the Carcassi one starting next Monday.

Khiem Nguyen Good work, Khiem. I have the same problem with open strings. When I do them well, I just give them a little extra right hand attention to keep them from sounding thin or too loud. It's just hard to always be mindful of that while the notes are going by.

Khiem Nguyen Well done Khiem, nicely played. I too find the open strings can sound very thin compared with the stopped notes unless I change my angle of attack. I look foward to B and A'

Eric Phillips and Ron , thank you a lot! :) When we record our playing, we will notice where we have a thin, louder open string notes than pressed notes. 

Khiem Nguyen Yes listening to our own recordings we can learn a lot.

Khiem Nguyen good work! your open strings don't sound as bad as you may think. I would suggest you to think about making non-open string notes less warm, instead of the opposite, and mostly to think about the whole melody and make it sound consistent instead of thinking «by note - by string». Changing the way you listen to what you do enhance a lot the end result.

Blaise Laflamme Hi Blaise, yes,  my  open strings do not sound as bad as in some other pieces that I played (not posted here). It is indeed a great tips from you. Thank you for sharing your tips! :)

Martin Hi Martin, thank you for your feedback. Tomorrow I will check EMMANUEL workshop out.

Please find my resubmission, take 2 or Sketch III, full version. I am trying to play the double stops at the same time. I hope this is getting a bit closer to be considered as being at the same time :)

Martin , I have just watched the whole EMMANUEL's workshop on Expression Through Contrast: Continuity and Anomaly and I really have a lot of wow, aha moments. I find it especially detailed and easy to understand. Now I have more tools/ideas on how to express a piece better through contrast. Thank you for pointing me to the right direction! ^_^

Martin Hi Martin, this is my 3rd take of Sketch III. I still have a notable problem with the double stops are not played at the same time. I find it difficult to change my habit when playing on a piece. Maybe it is easier when I play a seperate Etude focusing on executing the double stops at the same time. Can you give me a piece of advice?

Steve Pederson hi Steve, thanks for your suggestion. I will try your suggestion at some point :)

Blaise Laflamme beautiful sound Blaise! Yes, I agree with you that it is challenging to make it legato. I believe these first few excercises are very good for training our left hand dexterity and finger independence  :)