Group 1
Mastering the art of subtle timing flexibility is crucial for delivering performances that are as expressive and speech-like as possible, captivating your audience's attention. Have you ever marveled at how the fluid manipulation of timing by your favorite performers adds depth and expressiveness to their music? If you aspire to imbue your musical expressions with similar vitality, or if you aim to perfect and evolve your ability to produce seamless legato, this course is tailored for you. We will introduce techniques designed to equip you with the skills necessary for integrating these practices into your own rehearsal routines with pieces beyond the scope of this course.
Course Highlights:
Dynamic Timing Flexibility: Delve into the nuances of timing flexibility to achieve a more expressive and speech-like performance. Discover the secrets behind the captivating, ever-changing stretch of time that adds color and expression to music, drawing listeners into your sonic world.
Legato Mastery: Explore the techniques to perfect your legato playing, ensuring seamless transitions and a fluid, singing quality in your music. This segment focuses on cultivating the ability to convey your musical ideas with the same vitality and expressiveness as your favorite performers.
Technique Enhancement: Engage in specialized exercises designed to improve your timing flexibility and legato execution. These practices are crafted to help you integrate these skills into your personal practice routine, allowing for continual growth and refinement.
Customized Feedback: Benefit from personalized feedback tailored to your unique musical journey. This course offers the opportunity to receive direct guidance and strategies from an expert, enabling you to overcome challenges and achieve your musical goals.
Collaborative Learning Community: Join a network of like-minded musicians and enthusiasts. This course fosters a nurturing environment for sharing insights, experiences, and encouragement, building a community of learners dedicated to musical excellence.
Enroll now and unlock the potential of your guitar playing like never before!
Timeline:
- Sign-Up : NOW until March 17th
- Course Period: March 18th until March 28th
- Optional check-In via Zoom: March 23rd, 10 am PST
Assignments Week 1
Note:
- Try to experiment with different tempos (bigger, smaller, etc.).
- Always listen to yourself. If what you were playing was gradually becoming clear or audible, keep at it.
- For exercises 4-7, it is important that you emphasize the melody and make the accompaniment quieter.
- In exercises 6-7, you can use appoyando to bring out the melody.
- Please send me videos of exercises 1, 2, and 3, and choose only one from 4-5 and one from 6-7.
Videos
Exercise one: https://youtu.be/GDYyqiyhuws
Exercise two: https://youtu.be/hgux2nOkEaM
Exercise three: https://youtu.be/SFDvk4CHsaI
Exercise four: https://youtu.be/gbNV-ZEJv5c
Exercise five: https://youtu.be/h9Kfdnhmm54
Exercise six: https://youtu.be/-yHXgqAruYs
Exercise seven: https://youtu.be/OShYqOe6fyo
Scores
Improve_your_time_flexibility_and_legato
Assignments Week Two
First exercise: https://youtu.be/B53r9aRax44
Second exercise: https://youtu.be/CIWz9DZQFQ4
Third exercise: https://youtu.be/CGEyEbwx6UQ
Fourth exercise: https://youtu.be/XAdOVEPx5Lc
Fifth exercise: https://youtu.be/dm9dW9WTXLU
Scores
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Here's a take of the Tarrega prelude. I tried to be a little more free than before as suggested. As I was working on this a little bit of a story took shape in my head which is something I don't usually do but I think it helped me add a little of my own take on it.
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Steve Price hi Steve,
That is a beautiful story. It absolutely came through this melancholy and better sweet feeling. Indeed it has a very deep passing away character.
You formulated it very nice only as I said it was a bit too much broken at those points where you waited a bit too long. But except this you are on a very good path to be able to express yourself how you wish for. So I am very glad that after this clinic mind setting I could achieve that you want to highlight more the beauty of each musical material. That is actually our goal or it should be to be able to express beautiful things and enjoy the beauty of the music and make ourself and others also very happy with it.
Continue with these ideas and also try to figure out always what the music says to you. Of course first you have to work on the pieces technically as we did on second week, to build it up step by step with all the issues. But then the pure joy should come with the musical formulation!
Great job thank you!
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https://us06web.zoom.us/rec/share/v95EUPuY5OFH-d_0DjAwjhP-xjo4GBtwHw46ji_NewZYTJ5Li6N_emYbTsHorjnt.czQSr3qOnu08Ij-O
Here is the link to the recording of the Zoom Check-In! -
Borbála Seres
Thank you so much for working with us during this TWI.
I will not be ready to post a video of the Tarrega because there is a lot for me to learn from the exercises. It is a great learning process for me to see how you introduced the learning objectives piece by piece in the exercises.
Your video showing shifting when squeezing the fingers together and also looking for the landing spot is the first time I have seen this illustrated. It is much different than trying to learn it from a book. As you know this is important in so many pieces!
The video on guitar position is the most important I have seen on this topic. Paying attention to the position of my left leg has helped me stablilize the guitar for all of my playing. In particular it seems to help me have a correct position for my left hand and better control for the barre.
Your regular students are so very lucky to have you as their teacher! I hope you will return to Tonebase soon for more lessons.
Martha Kreipke
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Martha Kreipke Dear Martha,
That was a great two weeks intensive for me too. I enjoyed to work with all of you. There is so much potential in each of you and I enjoy a lot when I am opening your musical minds. Solving problems, finding solution that was always a very big motivation for me, and that is always such a huge pleasure when I get the feedback that I could help in some cases. Just continue with these basic ideas instructions which you learned from me. These exercises of the second week can be a guidance for any of your new piece which you start to learn. You can separate the tasks first, practice them separately, and only then put everything together. It will make the learning process much faster. And if you use some mental techniques too, like imagining all the musical ideas only sitting with the score, that will clarify all the ideas and building the phrases and the characters much easier which you want to express . Don't forget that should be always our goal, that we want to express something with the music what we are playing. I wish you many nice musical moment for the future. I hope too that I can be back to you soon. That would be a pleasure. But as you know it doesn't depend on me...
I wish you happy Easter!
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This video is brought to you by The Easter Bunny and myself. I'd really need more time to get this flowing better under my fingers. But this is my best version today. I'm really trying to eliminate some of the unwanted noises in my performance. You can hear some of these. I'm really drawn to this piece. Can you suggest a source for the whole prelude?
This has been an exceptionally good TWI. Thanks for everything.
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Neil Macmillan Hi Neil,
Yes I find this prelude also really beautiful .
I'm not sure what you mean about source. Actually this is the whole prelude. So the score of 5th exercise is how the whole prelude sounds. There is a confusion about preludes of Tarrega, which are really he's compositions and which are not. There is a good article about it from David Prochàzka: Tracing Tarregas preludes for guitar.
If you mean by source as the original score, I would advise to look for the d'OZ edition. (Production d'OZ).
And if you mean by source a good recording of it I have made one too. You can listen to it on my YouTube channel if you want. It's a very short period so I played with the repetition and with a slightly different musical expression the second time.
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Neil Macmillan dear Neal,
You made my day as always with your cute recordings. Thanks for the bunnies they were very cute. And also you are so creative to add some extra harmonics for the closure. I enjoyed it a lot, thank you!
I can see how much work you put into this really not easy prelude. It's a beauty and if you would like to try to enjoy it a bit more musically I would recommend to take only exercise three only the melody voice, and add the musical expression ideas of fifth exercise to it. In this case you will be able to focus more on the musical flexibility and on the legato playing which will make it more enjoyable for you for now.
Thank you for your effort to work nicely on my exercises and I wish you good luck with experimenting with different musical ideas! Don't forget the bottom line is always to enjoy the music!
I Wish you happy Easter too !
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Borbála Seres Thank you so much. I actually thought this was only the first section of the prelude. "Surely there must be another section," I thought. But if that's the whole thing, I'll work on it.
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I did only one take of this Prelude, but added a repeat with slightly different tone color. I don't see enough dynamics in my performance, and unfortunately don't have time for another recording today. Please let me know your comments. Thanks!
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Barney Hi Barney,
Thank you for your video.
I find it really beautiful. That was the job to formulate that beautiful and flexible musical material of this prelude this way. Your execution is really great with all the details. And you are right about the volume progression. It could be a bit bigger. Also I enjoyed your repetition that you try to put some different musical expressions like putting the secco tonecolor. If you chose to start it with a different tone color I would have stayed a bit longer with it. At least until the middle of the prelude. But of course that is only matter of taste .
You did a really great job. Thanks for your effort and continue to enjoy the music for the future!
Thank you!
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Barney
Hello Barney,
Well done! It is always a pleasure to hear you play. And I appreciate the questions you asked during the check-in session.
Martha Kreipke
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Borbála Seres Thank you very much Borbala! I learned so much from your presentation and comments to me and others in our Tonebase community. These are lessons I will continue to carry with me into the future.
I appreciate your wonderful teachings and hope to see you again soon on Tonebase to share more of your attentive training and wisdom.
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Martha Kreipke Thank you Martha! I also appreciate your beautiful playing and very relevant questions and comments in the session.
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Barney Enjoyed both your interpretations.
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Neil Macmillan Thanks Neil!!
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Barney dear Barney,
That was a pleasure to work with you all again on this two weeks intensive. I enjoyed it a lot too.
I would be glad to come back soon, but as you know it doesn't depend on me...
I wish you many joyful moments with beautiful music!
And of course happy Easter!
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Borbála Seres Thank you Borbala. Enjoy all of your musical adventures!
Happy Easter and all the best, Barney
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Well, I thought I was using dynamics
. It's good to listen back and realize what I really sound like. I haven't been recording myself lately, but I think I'm going to do it each time I practice. It has been very useful.Is there a good trick for stopping the strings quietly at the end? I noticed I make a lot of noise just trying to silence the guitar. I've been trying to play closer to the neck with this one. The video about positioning the guitar to mitigate drifting will be useful. I hadn't watched it when I recorded this, but I was testing it out today and it really helps. Thanks for the lessons!
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Jeremy Heiss hi Jeremy,
Thank you for your video!
I find your version really nice. You highlight the main melody on the top really beautiful. The closure of the piece is lovely. I would listen to your recording back in measure 4. The end of this measure stops a bit too much and it will broke the phrase a bit more than its necessary. Try to prepare this idea with a bit earlier rit. starting. You could also sit with the score and try to figure out only in your mind how you would like to formulate it musically. That helps a lot!
About the meeting at the end. There is no good trick or at least I don't know about it. Who just have to try to listen to yourself while doing it and try to find the secure way secure position of the right hand not to make any extra noise with it. Try not to move your left hand fingers away from the strings earlier than you would stop all the resonance with your right hand. That is important!
Thank you for your nice work and enjoy the music for the future!
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Jeremy Heiss Nice version.
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Borbála Seres Thanks for the advice! So often I jump into the mechanics of a piece without giving the musicality much thought until later. I think that makes my playing more robotic than it should be sometimes. Your suggestion to plan out the score is a very good one. I'll also try to make an exercise of muting the strings.
Really enjoyed this challenge!
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Here is a run-through of Prelude 10. I tried to follow most of the dynamic/rubato markings on the score and found them very helpful. I may have held back on tempo a bit much at the penultimate chord and I would try to play that a bit more evenly in the future.
Borbala Seres thank you for your generous time and attention to all of us during this class. Your demonstration of preparation and shifting was invaluable as well as the advice on sitting position. I am now working on Prelude 11 as they go so well together. Please comeback to Tonebase as often as possible!
All the best,
Rick
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Rick Lord dear Rick,
Thank you for your video. Your version was extremely nice, so well done, all the musical flexibilities and instructions which I asked from you you executed perfectly! Indeed the basic tempo become a bit too slow and that is why on a couple of parts it became too much falled into parts. But it's not a problem, if you will take a bit faster tempo then everything will make sense and you can hold it a bit more together. You know in each working process of each piece there is a time somewhere at the beginning or at the middle when we have to learn all the small details what we want to play, so at that point we have to exaggerate everything what we want to show. But when we practice them into the piece ( I mean the musical ideas) , after this stage we don't have to show them anymore as much as before, we just have to let it go and it will be already there without concentrating on them. And that will be the perfect solution, we will have the nice end product.
I enjoyed a lot to work with all of you. And what a nice tonecolor!
I'm always very glad when I can help you with some issues.
That would be a pleasure to work with you again very soon! But as you know it doesn't depend on me...
I wish you beautiful musical moments for the future.
Happy Easter!
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Borbála Seres Many thanks for your feedback. Happy Easter!
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Hi Borbala. This has been a very interesting and useful two week intensive and I've enjoyed taking part in it. I'm sorry that I haven't yet posted any videos for the first week but here is my attempt at Prelude no 10.
Thank you very much for taking the time to present this to us and I'm looking forward to the next one (maybe on how to look good on a video :-))! I'll try to post a couple more videos for the group 1 exercises later.
End of the Year Challenge: Finish Strong!
