Leo Brouwer's Estudios Sencillios!

Marc Adler Nice Marc. I fat finger that passage you're talking about all the time. Currently, I'm experimenting with using 4 to play both pull-offs, but we'll see how that works out. As far as speed, I think this is where it's at. I can't remember who, but I heard some performer talking about how many of these are often played faster than they should be. Some work very fast, but ones like this, that are based on Cuban dance rhythms, lose their character when played too fast.

Steve Price You know, I had practiced that tricky part for an hour the other day, starting off slowly and working my way up to speed. I thought that I had it nailed down. But when the camera goes on, something happens to me. A rush of adrenaline. I think that when this passage approaches, my mind goes into overdrive.

I just need to keep practicing it so that it is totally ingrained in my muscle memory.

Marc Adler With etude #9, I've been struggling with keeping the tempo slow enough. I start off thinking I'm playing it slow enough, and then hit those tricky parts and realize I must have sped up or not started slow enough in the first place.  😄

Nijwm Bwiswmuthiary Really nice. This is a prime example of a piece that calls for me to have fingernails, because I feel that a small amount of surface area on your fingers helps you to be precise with the strings that you are plucking. I am also happy to see that you took your time towards the end when it comes time to slide down the fretboard to the 10th position.

Marc Adler Thanks for the feedback, Marc. Classical guitar is such a weird instrument. It requires this Goldilocks situation, where everything has to be just right🙂. I'm never sure how long or what shape my nails should be to the point that I think I might have overgrown it. For some reason, shorter nails aren't working for me. Or perhaps it's not the length per se, but the shaping, polishing and attack angle.

You'd said that you play without nails. As you can probably guess, I'm no nail expert. As Blaise and others have advised, you can probably try artificial nails if want to play with nails. There are people in the tb community who play without nails, and Brandon Acker also has a livestream or lesson on playing without nails here on TB, which you can check out.

Nijwm Bwiswmuthiary That was a beautiful performance, Nijwm. Just a perfect pace and really nice even tone throughout. I really like the transition to the second section. The shift to the E string and the next chord on the F# are the tough spots for me, too. I'm no one special, but if I could offer one piece of feedback, it would be not to lay out a list of what you see as mistakes in your introduction. I think being critical is what helps us improve, but instead of just enjoying the piece, you had me looking for mistakes, some of which didn't really exist from my perspective. I doubt anyone has ever posted something here that they think is 100% perfect. Again, excellent work on this.

Steve Price Thank you, Steve. I think sometimes I use prior self-criticism as a defence mechanism against perceived incoming criticism, even when they're not real. In fact, all I've got from members here is support and positive advice.

This reminds me of someone who once said that after a concert, a performer should acknowledge the praise from audience members rather than saying things like, " I didn't perform as I'd have liked or yeah, but I missed some notes". It was either Noa Kageyama, the host of the brilliant podcast, 'Bulletproof Musician' or Simon Powis, an Australian classical guitarist who gave that piece of advice.

Anyway, thank you for the feedback, it's an important one for me. I'll refrain from doing that before or after a performance🙂.

Nijwm Bwiswmuthiary Hi, Nijwm! great work. Steady pulse, nice sound! If you are now looking fo what to do, i'd search in the direction of broader dynamics according to the harmonical tension and, maybe, a little rubato in some phrase endings and beginnings? What do you think?  

PS: to master the change from 5th to 6th string try studying the chord change elliminating all open strings. I.e: instead of C B E A // G E B C E try just C(a) B(m) E(i) // G(p) C(m) E(i) . // means chord shift. Let me know!

Steve Price I also have tried to become more conscious of not immediately leading off my comments with self-deprecation. Maybe it's human nature, but the mind often prioritizes what went wrong over what went right. I remember that I played a marimba concerto with an orchestra back in my college days, and after I finished the performance, I could only think of the one note that I missed. 

Nijwm Bwiswmuthiary Great job on No.6 Nijwm!  The arpeggios are clean, even , and well balanced to my ears.  Beautiful performance!