WEEK ONE: Uncharted Territory!

Eric Phillips Bravo!!!

Giuseppe Gasparini Thank you, Giuseppe.

Martin Thanks, Martin. The chromatic descending bass line in A minor is a dead giveaway.

 I’m not sure if the later sketches are within my technical capabilities. I was thinking of maybe using this challenge to really focus on a few techniques posed by some of the sketches and maybe going for quality over quantity. Besides, I’ve heard Sergio Assad is not looking for a housekeeper like Tarrega was!

Eric Phillips Eric that's beautiful - well done!

Ron Thanks, Ron!

Eric Phillips Nice!

Peter Thanks, Peter.

Eric Phillips wow you were fast at posting your first one... and the fourth one... great start!

Eric Phillips Bravo

Vilio Celli Thank you, Vilio.

Paul Kennedy Thanks, Paul.

Eric Phillips I decided to work on the trouble spots. Here's a quick video of my improvement on the left hand in measure 45. (In the video I say measure 44, but it's 45 ... oops.)

Eric Phillips And now here is measures 81-84 after some practice. This time I'm concentrating on the right hand. Assad included some RH fingerings, but I wrote them all down and practiced the phrase.

Eric Phillips very thorough work, Eric! Keep up the good work! :)

Khiem Nguyen Thank you, Khiem.

Eric Phillips Eric this great I think I will write the fingerings in too as I've tripped over several times. Well done! Thanks for reminding me to focus on trouble spots too!

Ron To be honest, I almost never work out RH fingerings (I'm ashamed to say). I noticed by watching the videos how much more stable my right hand was after working out the fingering and practicing them.

Martin Thanks, Martin! I'm having lots of fun with this.

Eric Phillips here's what I cam up with...

Steve Pederson Wow! Thanks for making that video. Like you, I re-fingered it at first and was practicing it with the new fingering. Then I looked at the fingering Assad wrote and said to myself, "Here's a fingering I find challenging, and this thing we're doing is called a challenge, so why don't I just work on the difficult fingering?" I suppose if I were preparing for a performance I might go with something else, and I like your thought process around your choices a lot. What you played certainly sounds good and looks secure. 

For such a "simple" piece it sure is complicated, isn't it? I love the complexity though, and thanks so much for sharing your thoughts.

Eric Phillips yes, complicated in a beautiful way. And, I love your attitude - this IS a challenge. Let's rise to the challenge! 

Khiem Nguyen Very good work, Khiem! It's a simple melody, but it requires quite a bit of dexterity, doesn't it?

Eric Phillips thank you, I totally agree with you Eric! It requires a lot of finger independance! Stretching in the first position is not always easy since the frets are broadest :)

Khiem Nguyen Yes, why didn't he write this in 7th position! 

Eric Phillips haha, good question Eric. I think it is because the basses are in the 6th string, first position anyway (and can't be moved to the 7th frets). At the same time, it is also nice to practice stretching horizontally, isn't it? :)

Khiem Nguyen I was only kidding, Khiem. I just wanted it to be easier!

Eric Phillips Lol, okay Eric, I was thinking you were kidding also! :P

Khiem Nguyen Bravo!!!

Khiem Nguyen Very good Khiem - it's a simple but deceptive little melody and certainly requires good finger indepence!

Giuseppe Gasparini thanks Giuseppe! Ron thank you and that is true, it needs some proper thought out, careful fingering and a bit of practice to execute it fluently. I haven't achieved fluency yet with my take,; I need to practice more :) Look forward to seeing your video :)

Martin thanks Martin, I will look carefully at the elbow and the shifting again. Wow, it needs a lot of time and patience! ^_^

Khiem Nguyen great work and you're right, the bass line is not as easy as it looks like 

Blaise Laflamme yes, it needs to be practiced more to get the shift legato (I haven't achieved it yet with 30 minutes practicing). Martin , thank you, I will keep on the diligence :)

Steve Pederson Good job, Steve, and welcome to the challenge. Yes, it does sound better to let the notes ring into each other. It’s like a melody and arpeggios at the same time.

Eric Phillips Thanks Eric, and that's a great point! I never thought of it that way before. 

Steve Pederson Bravo!!! 

Steve Pederson Well done Steve - yes it does sound much richer letting the notes ring.

Steve Pederson very clear sound, really nice Steve! :)

Steve Pederson very good start, sounds clear and welcome to the challenge!

Eric Phillips Bravo!! good job

Giuseppe Gasparini Thank you, Giuseppe!

Martin Thanks so much, Martin!

Eric Phillips Hi Eric, that is an improvement compared to yesterday. That's really nice! :)

Khiem Nguyen Thank you, Khiem!

Eric Phillips yeah... sounds clear and stable... always amazing to hear you progress through the days.

Blaise Laflamme Thanks, Blaise.

Eric Phillips Beautiful work! Inspiring me to finish the rest of the etude!

Steve Pederson I’d love to hear the rest!

Eric Phillips Gosh, I'm having difficulting keeping up with all your submissions! I can tell you've honed sketch 1 - excllent and I love sketch 2 and the way you phrase and acccent it - well done!

Ron Thank you, Ron. I appreciate your willingness to listen to some of this stuff I do. I look forward to hearing you play!

Martin Thanks, Martin. That glissando sounds like I’m still doing the Tarrega challenge. Assad played a much shorter fermata on the high B, but I honestly like to hold it longer (plus that gives me more time to prepare for what's next ). Fermatas are our friends!

Eric Phillips you're doing great with the voices here... I almost never do restroke, possibly frestroke , but I prefer to manage the voices independently with volume or timbre. 

Martin You make me laugh!

Eric Phillips very fluent! Bravo Eric!

I can't achieve such a fluency in sketch II as you do yet, maybe my technique is limiting me! :)

Khiem Nguyen Thank you, Khiem. I listened to your recording of it below, and I think you're doing great. What matters is progress, which unfortunately always comes slower than we want.

Eric Phillips thank you Eric. I think I should put more hours on repeating the exercise before I can see a better fluency :)

Eric Phillips Khiem is right, this sounds very more fluid and secure... good job!

Blaise Laflamme Thanks, Blaise. This one is really growing on me. It's really beautiful, but also an amazing exercise in left hand finger independence. To me, it's like an updated Sor Op 35 No 17.

Martin Thanks you so much, Martin! It sounds really good that way. I will give that a try and get back to you (probably not until tomorrow as I'm spending the day with my family today).

Eric Phillips I've been working on this a bit. I must admit, I do not find this right hand pattern very natural, and this would take a lot of work for me (which is not a bad thing!). One follow up question: how do you achieve making the 3rd note in the pattern shorter? Are you planting with the subsequent a finger to do it?

Jenny Welcome, Jenny, and congratulations on your first post! It was great! You have a very natural sense of phrasing and musicality. Good work!

Jenny beautiful, clean tone, Jenny! :)

Jenny welcome to the challenge and to the community! you're doing great, you sound very comfortable and secure, I hope you'll submit more sketches! 

Jenny wonderful job! You could've fooled me that you just started taking lessons a couple years ago. This was fantastic! 

Jenny Jenny that's excellent, such a lovely tone, great dynamics and phrasing - well done!

Jenny wonderfull job! Congratulations on your first post! Hope to hear more of the sketches played by you. 

Eric Phillips Excllent Eric -  bravo! I'm now looking forward to trying no. 3, although I've never tried improvising before!

Ron Thanks, Ron. I look forward to hearing you play. 

Eric Phillips Great job! You are taking on this improvisation challenge! ..I’m very impressed that you had the courage to try this!

Jenny Thank you so much, Jenny! I’m not sure if it’s courage or just lack of shame.

Eric Phillips bravo eric, beautiful contrasts.

Eric Phillips bravo Eric, nice improvisation!

Daniel Beltrán Thanks Daniel.

Ron Good. The fingerings are definitely harder than I thought they’d be looking at the notes on the page.

Khiem Nguyen Thanks for posting this Khiem - you did a great job! I couldn't see your right hand, but it sounds like you're using rest stroke on the accented notes, is that correct? If so, you're ahead of me. I find it too difficult to do rest stroke with a. I just did the accents with a fuller sounding free stroke. In my opinion, I think the free stroke is fine, but maybe I'm just being lazy and not wanting to work on something new! 

Eric Phillips thank you Eric. Yes, I also was not happy that my camera angle could not show all my right hand. I have to film it better next time :) . I am using rest stroke, mainly using the "m" finger, and occassionally the "i" finger. Playing rest-stroke using the "a" finger" is also a challenge for me right now :)

Khiem Nguyen Well done Khiem. I think using rest stroke on the accented notes really brings the sketch to life - I've only sight read it through so far (VERY hesitantly!) and using a on all the accented notes is certanly tricky and unnatural in places.

Khiem Nguyen good work Khiem, I'm with you about the restroke, I understand and know how to do it, but it doesn't flow well with how I usually play and hear how the music should sound out of my guitar 

Khiem Nguyen good work! I think it might be important to do rest strokes with "a", it's a great way to stand out melodies under certain passages (I personally do it on the accented notes of Capricho Árabe) like Ron says, and perhaps gives a darker sound to that finger, which normally is the brightest of all. I don´t do it in many places of this piece to let ring some middle notes, but in some I do. And in the 4/4 part I don't do it at all, because of the speed, but I do need to accent the marked notes more    

Daniel Beltrán yes Daniel. I have seen many good players play rest stroke with "a", so it is achievable. Maybe I will be able to do it too (hopefully) if I slowly develop it. Right now I am playing rest stroke on "m" or "i" :) The "i" gives thinnest rest stroke sound compared to the "m"

Blaise Laflamme thank you Blaise. I feel the same, rest stroke seems to be easier in the slower part for amateur player like me :)

Ron thank you and I agree with you about the trickiness of using "a" for rest stroke. Look forward to seeing your videos :)

Martin Hi Martin, I would like to say in Danish "tusind tak", means, thank you thousand times! :) You are so nice by making a dedicated video to help me! :) I have practiced using your advice on playing chord shape in order to achieve better finger alteration. I am editing the videos and will post my progress ASAP, hopefully tomorrow, I hope :) 

Eric Phillips wow big improvement over your first submission! you should consider participating in the instagram challenge too! 

Blaise Laflamme I'm afraid I'm not on Instagram (or any other social media). It's just not my thing, I guess.

Eric Phillips I hear you and not that I'm a big fan myself, but I can see you there too 

Martin Thank you so much, Martin. I can definitely tell you that I was not going for a chanson-like feel from Paris, since I really have no idea what that means!   At the Watch Party, though, that's exactly what I'll tell Sergio: "Your Sketch IV reminded me very much of the chansons in Paris that inspired Aquarelle." Do you think he'll be impressed?

Eric Phillips Great sight reading Eric - I wish mine was half as good! 1st time I've heard sketch 5 as I haven't watched the progress video that far yet but it sounds really good and, yes, I see what you mean about the left hand fingering.

Loved your up tempo sketch 4 too!

Eric Phillips good work eric! you now entering the difficult ones 

Ron Thanks, Ron. This is another really nice one and great exercise in finger independence. I'll practice it and probably post again tomorrow.

In my teen years (when all I wanted to play was hard rock from tabs) I was fortunate enough to have a teacher who made me sight read every lesson, all over the fingerboard. He also taught me theory basics. He didn't teach me classical technique or repertoire, but he did give me a good musical foundation. I truly am eternally grateful for him.

Blaise Laflamme Yes, I know! I have the feeling I may be hitting a brick wall soon! 

Eric Phillips I think I always saw sight reading as something I needed to do for exams and I realised I got lazy about it over the years - I've now started to work on it again!

Eric Phillips haha! not a brick wall... but probably a bit more time on each of them 

Blaise Laflamme Oh yes!

Blaise Laflamme We all look forward to hearing you're great playing, Blaise! Get to it when you can.

Eric Phillips sure... I'm eager!

Blaise Laflamme I'm sure they will be excellent Blaise. Hope you get your vacation soon!

Ron looks like I'm almost in... woohoo!!

Blaise Laflamme great! We want to hear you playing them, Blaise! These etudes are wonderfull!     

Daniel Beltrán yeah I know... they are awesome!

Steve Pederson Good work, Steve! Your fingering seemed to work for you. You play very musically.  

Steve Pederson Well played Steve, the fingering changes certainly work 

Steve Pederson wow, clean and musical! Great interpretation Steve!

Eric Phillips indeed what an improvement, especially in the B part... a lot is going there... bravo!

Eric Phillips Beautifully played Eric! Well done!

Blaise Laflamme Thank you, Blaise. Yes, that B section would be interesting to analyze more. Maybe we can ask the composer about it at the Watch Party!

Ron Thank you, Ron.

Eric Phillips man, that´s wonderfull!  I want to learn this one know 

Daniel Beltrán Thanks so much, Daniel. I'd love to hear you play it.

Daniel Beltrán Awesome playing, Daniel! What a challenging tempo! I would find this very difficult to memorize, trying to keep the subtle differences straight between the 3/4 and 4/4 sections. I really think this one could become a standard of our repertoire because not only does it teach great left hand finger independence, but it's also just plain beautiful.

Daniel Beltrán great Daniel! I was not expecting this piece to be played as fast as you did... you did it well and clean... wow! Waiting for your next one 

Daniel Beltrán very smooth playing, good job Daniel! 

Eric Phillips Thanks, Eric! Yes, it requires practice to memorize well the differences between the 3/4 and 4/4 part. It's really beautiful indeed! I changed a little bit the fingerings to do some passages more legato. Would love to play this one and many other of the sketches in a future recital or exam!  

Blaise Laflamme Thanks, Blaise! I like to play the second part with an "agitated" tempo. Hope to hear your recordings soon  

Khiem Nguyen Thanks, Khiem!

Martin Many thanks, Martin! I think I began with this sketch on last week's monday. I was practicing it for less than an hour daily, I think, and the day before of this recording I praticed it with intensity haha (2-3 hours). But yeah, this sketch is difficult to get right on the first attemp!    

Raul Guzman Vidal That's great, Raul! I would find this one very hard to memorize as the different variations are so similar, but with small differences. Regarding your pace of learning, I personally think consistency is far more important than speed when it comes to practicing, so good job! These pieces aren't going anywhere - we can practice them for the rest of our lives.

Eric Phillips Definitely, I will need to take my time with the pieces. Thank you for the advice. I am looking forward to continue studying the rest of the sketches. 

Ron I really hope we get to hear you play! That’s great that you can do Sketch 2 with rest stroke.

I am really bad at doing videos on YouTube but with some practice I have figured out my own way to make it work. It’s probably not the best way, but if you want some help maybe we could figure out a way.

Eric Phillips Thanks Eric - any help would be very welcome

Ron Here's how I do it:

• Go to your YouTube Channel
• In the upper right hand corner are four icons, one of which looks like a camera with a plus sign in it. When you hover over it, it says "create". Click on it. A drop down menu will appear with two choices. Click on "Upload video".
• Click on "Select Files" and get your video from wherever you stored it on your computer.
• You then have to make lots of choices about your video, but I'll give the minimum choices, which is what I do.
• Give it a title - it will default to whatever you called it already, but change it if you like.
• Scroll down until you see the word "Audience" and click on "No, it's not made for kids".
• In the upper right of the box, click on "visibility".
• You have three choices - private, unlisted, or public. To post on the Tonebase thread, you must either choose public or unlisted. I always choose unlisted as I'm not interested in having the whole world see my videos, just those with whom I share the link (i.e. Tonebase users).
• Before saving, in the lower right hand is a video link which you can copy to your clipboard by clicking on the little rectangle next to it. This will allow you post the link at Tonebase.
• Then hit Save in the lower right.
• After you do this, it will take a few minutes to upload your video and check it over for copyright infringement (it won't have any of course).
• You can then go and post it in the Tonebase thread (i.e. here) by hitting Reply, typing whatever message you want, and then click on the middle icon at the bottom that is a rectangle with a triangle in it. When you hover over this box, it says "add video". Click on it and then paste in the link to your YouTube video that we copied above.

Sorry that is so wordy. I'm not exactly an I.T. guy. I hope it helps, and most of all, I hope to see your videos!

Eric Phillips Fantastic! Many thanks Eric I will give it a go this evening.

Ron Looking forward to it!

Eric Phillips Eric Phillips thanks Ron and Eric this information is also really helpful to me as well, cheers Deb from Australia 

Deb Covell Happy to help! Will we be seeing some videos from you? 

Eric Eric Phillips Phillips hope so if I can get it to work! 

Giuseppe Gasparini I hope all is well, Giuseppe. I'm glad you are able to study the sketches. All the best!

Ron This is outstanding, Ron! Your right hand is so stable, and the phrasing sounds so musical. Like you, I have noticed the strange looks on my face as I play. Yours are pretty subdued compared to mine. 

The video looks good too. What do you use?

Eric Phillips Thanks Eric - I been working on trying to reduce the tension in my hands as I know I play better if I relax.  On the strange looks, I don't think weI'll ever match the way that Julian Bream's face used to look when he played (he was the first person I ever heard play the classical guitar and my inspiration for starting to learn)

I just used my iphone for the video - I have got a Rode NT-USB mini mic but I haven't used it with the phone yet

Ron Your're right, Bream's facial expressions are priceless. I think his come from his musicality, however, whereas mine come from tension.

Your iPhone definitely looks better than mine. Mine is a bit old, only an iPhone 7.

Martin Thank you Martin. Yes, I think you may be right I just tried it both ways and I think I prefer it with the d - it gives the phrase more shape and interest.

Eric Phillips Yes his musicality was incredible. I had the priviledge of seeing him play live with John Williams which was very entertaning as Williams shows little expression on his face.

My iphone is only an 8 - my wife keeps telling me I should get a better one!

Ron Boy, I wish I could have been there to see them play!

Until last September, I actually still had a flip phone. My wife finally took me out to buy the iPhone 7. I'll probably upgrade to an 8 in about ten years or so.

Eric Phillips 

Martin Both "Together" and "Together Again" were great albums. Williams expression is still the same - I saw him a couple of years back in a "6 Hands" concert (with Gary Ryan and John Etheridge). As well as playing together they also did some solos - if you've not heard it, check out JWs album "On the Wing" (it was on sale at the concert) - after hearing him play it I had to learn Madrugada which is a beautiful little piece

Ron "Operator? I'd like to place a call to CIrcle 5-9842, please."