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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OK, here is one more from "Castles of Spain"; Alba de Tormes - F. Torroba
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Paul Kennedy That is very nice Paul. I was confused at first, then I realized this is Castles of Spain - not Spanish Castle Magic.
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Jack Stewart
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Eric Phillips Yeah that's it. Does that count as Spanish?
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Paul Kennedy Yeah!! I thought it's from the "Suite Castellana" first, but the "Castillas de Espana" is it's own cycle! Beautifully done, keep up the good work!
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Jack Stewart Well, Jack, he did play with a 'band of gypsies'. What could be more Spanish than that?
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Gaspar Sanz - Villanos
I was looking at the score for this one and I thought, "That sounds really familiar." Then it dawned on me - Fantasia para un Gentilhombre by Rodrigo! I had forgotten that it was based on music by Gaspar Sanz. This Villanos is the basis of the first movement.
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Eric Phillips oh yeah... then the Rodrigo version is up next
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Blaise Laflamme I’ll leave that up to you!
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Eric Phillips Why don't you guys do it together? One of you can take the soloist's part, the other can fill in for the orchestra ...
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Eric Phillips David Krupka but we'd need to have all the voices, haha. My girlfriend (she's a pianist) sometimes plays the orchestral part for soloists, and I get the feeling that sometimes that is the harder job to do, haha!
Beautiful and spirited, yet somehow very calming! That's the perfect music to enjoy my morning coffee with, thank you Eric Phillips
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Eric Phillips That was really nice. It brought me back to my early days on classical guitar. Listening to the Rodrigo concerto Gentilhombre was part of my daily music experience.
(That was back when they recorded music on large stones and you had to drag a pointed stick around it to hear it.) Those were the days.
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Jack Stewart
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Eric Phillips We couldn't afford the HiFi model.
(where do you find these things?)
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Jack Stewart Google images! Typed in "Flintstones Record Player".
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Eric Phillips great work Eric. I haven't got the score for that piece. I think it might be quite good to put together all of the original Sanz pieces thar Rodrigo used.
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Derek That sounds like a good challenge for Derek!
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What do I love in spanish music:
The mood, the fast Phrygian scales, the rasgueados, the 'odd' harmonies
The challenge
( these 3-4 weeks are not very inclusive for me :-), I am a lucky man with wife , 3 kids, 7 grandkids and a busy job as an interventional cardiologist at a teaching hospital. im usually too tired to practice most days. maybe I just need to pull myself together, but the first 30 min of practice most I usually very frustrating.
I give it a shot And my ambition is to send updates and finals with new strings DAW recording and well rehearsed. but lets see. these videos are best of two
1. M de Falla. Danza del Molinero. his could have been a transcription challenge. Orchestra to solo guitar.
struggles with the run the rhythm in the end and confidence and consistency
2. J Rodrigo. Tiento Antiguo. hot slow spanish village in a dream like state. have to work with tension resolution and as above- and forgot the ending
3. J Turina. Rafaga. That long run is really a killer.
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Lars Kjøller-Hansen Wow, glad to have here!!!
I really enjoyed the Danza del Molinero, you have a very strong sense of the rhythm, the melodic passages and the ostinato underneath! As you said, it is an orchestral transcription, but you really made it sound orchestral with all your different textures and timbres!
I really love the Tiento Antigua, I need to see if I have the score laying around somewhere, so atmospheric!
Rafaga is quite a killer, you're absolutely right! I believe it's meant to imitate the coming of a storm, it's very hard to control the enormous dynamic range of that piece!
How did you record these? If you recorded with external mics, I'd recommend to turn the gain knob a bit back, you're distorting a bit in the rasgueados. Super dynamic
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Lars Kjøller-Hansen Amazing! So glad to have you join in. Your technique and feel for this music is very impressive. I have attempted all three of those pieces and eventually gave up because I just could not make them sound good at all. Very well done!
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Lars Kjøller-Hansen that was great Lars, what a start! I can't wait to see and hear the final result!
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Thank you, hope I can improve
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Eric Phillips Thank you. appreciate your comments from a class player.
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Martin Thank you. Hope I will improve and make efforts.
Recording was with a Zoom H2 USB and MacBook and Quicktime
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Lars Kjøller-Hansen Wow! That was really impressive. Each of those is very challenging. Looking forward to seeing your progress.
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Lars Kjøller-Hansen Really enjoyed all three posts and particularly loved the de Falla piece. It looks like you may have studied some flamenco with such strong rasgados and your fast scale passages. Well done!
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End of the Year Challenge: Finish Strong!
