WEEK 1: Vamos, Compañeros 
Welcome to the Main Thread for the first week of our musical Journey to Spain!! This is the place to share submissions of the first week! 
- 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
↓ HAPPY PRACTICING, HAPPY SHARING ↓
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To end my posting for the first week, I thought I would keep to the Salamanca theme and post a simple little Pavana by Diego Pisador, a vihuelist who was born in Salamanca in 1509. The cover photo is of the main cathedral in Salamanca, again taken during my 2019 to the city.
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Eric Phillips Glad you liked it. I just came across it recently and enjoyed sight reading it so thought it would be a nice addition to the wonderful vihuela music you posted earlier.
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Dale Needles Very nice, lovely sound. I was in Salamanca -long ago. Beautiful.
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Dale Needles Very nice Dale. I've also got the book that Eric mentioned but I've only attempted a few of the pieces. I'll have to dig it out of the archives!
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Dale Needles thanks for sharing Dale, never heard it before or knew the composer, that's beautiful.
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Here my second Evocacion video. Believe it or not I recorded only twice this time...
Now I used an old Irig Mic HD plugged directly into the Iphone.
I believe the new fingering proposed by Martin works very well and I added some breathing pauses in a couple of difficult passages.
I believe i am fine with tempo now, I will work on cleanliness/smoothness of execution and musicality (more vibrato, some rubato and crescendo/decrescendo dynamics).
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Luciano Salvatore that sounds so nice, Luciano. Thanks for sharing your progress. Really good.
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Luciano Salvatore Well played Luciano. I like the piece - good choice
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Luciano Salvatore Coming along very nicely and such a lovely piece. Interesting to note that Jose Luis Merlin studied with Maestro Abel Carlevaro.
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First week coming to an end. I thought I’d have to skip this challenge, but got inspired by the great music from Spanish renaissance and baroque you guys posted. Started rediscovering. Today’s weather is so dreary that I chose of my collection of pieces, the merriest and the dreariest I could find.
the merriest first: from Diego Pisador, la Cortesía. (1552). I followed Abel Carlevaro’s fingerings (no f# tuning)
Again a simple smartphone recording.-
joosje bravo Joosje!!! Beautiful!
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joosje Nicely played Joosje
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joosje Liked the Carlevaro fingering. Nicely and beautifully played.
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joosje bravo Joosje, even on the phone you're sounding great! Never listened to Pisador and I got two pieces in a row, wow!
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Canción del Emperador, Luys de Narváez. (1538) This is so sad and intense. The song has a story, meaningful to me. Narvaez noted: “based on Mille Regretz by Josquin” (des Prez), a Flemish composer. It is said to be (emperor) CharlesV’s favorite song. That is telling us about the emperor’s mood . Charles was born and raised in the Low Countries, not far from where I now live (Gent, Mechelen/Malinas). It is known that he was very much in love with his wife Isabella (from Portugal), and was frustrated to have to leave her all the time (to fight his wars, mainly) and after her early death never married again. His last years were sad and lonely.
Musicians were in service at the courts and traveled with their royals. So, many Spanish came to the Low Countries and Josquin (original Flemish Josken, like my name) was famous all around Europe. Eventful years in our lands…
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joosje that was beautiful, I was transported by you to the Renaissance… thank you…. And what a piece. I will put it in my list. The interpretation was so good.
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joosje Very beautiful tone and really appreciated the story accompanying the piece.
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joosje Thank you Joosje, one of my favourite pieces too. I have tried it a few times but I usually give up after the first page. Another one to work on again! My list is growing all the time!
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joosje beautiful Joosje, really enjoyed the legato and voices direction you created.
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joosje Wonderful Joosje. I really felt the sorrow that inspired this piece. Really beautiful, it takes you back to the Renaissance
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joosje So beautiful, Joosje, and yes, very sad. You have such beautiful phrasing, that really brings out the sad longing of the melody.
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joosje Beautiful performance, Joosje. Very sensitive phrasing and dynamics. Thanks for sharing the historical context of the piece. Is life like that in the end - a thousand regrets? I hope not! Interesting too to learn about the name Josquin and it’s relation to your own. Maybe that’s why you play this music so well?
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Dionisio Aguado - Lesson 26
I thought I'd start off the classical era of guitar with some Aguado. Sor is the natural choice, but I'll get to him later. This is from the first part of Aguado's method, in which are found 27 "lessons". Many of them seem like more than lessons to me, and are very lovely pieces in their own right. This one is offered by Aguado as an lesson in slurs (ligados). I find it also to be a good lesson in shifting and bass note damping.
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Eric Phillips NIce Eric - I believe Segovia had an edition of 8 of Aguado's lessons (I may be wrong). I heard him play this piece - I think it is used as the background music to one of the documentaries about him.
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Eric Phillips Good work on the thumb!!
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Derek Thanks, Derek. I didn’t know that about Segovia.
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End of the Year Challenge: Finish Strong!
