What are you working on?
While Martin is on his family leave, several community members have expressed a desire to have a community-driven challenge as a way of connecting and sharing our musical journeys again. And so, with the authority vested in me by absolutely no one, I hereby initiate the "What are you working on?" Challenge!
So, let us all know what you're working on, and feel free to post some videos (or just sound tracks) so we can hear your progress and support one another.
-
Miguel Garcia (Padre Basilio) - Minuetto
About a week ago, I came across a video of this piece performed by Carlos Trepat. After finding a score, I decided to work on it a bit.
The composer was a guitarist and organist, as well as a Cistercian monk, from Madrid. His dates are uncertain, but Wikipedia estimates his birthdate as 1790. Apparently he was one of Dionisio Aguado's teachers. Until recently, he only had one known composition for guitar, until Carlos Trepat discovered a handful more. The score I have attached also includes his Sonata de Elami. I find his music to be very enjoyable.
As I listen to my recording, I can hear that I need to work on my slurs, making them more accurate and elegant. I also want to work on widening my dynamics.
-
Eric Phillips nice one!
-
Eric Phillips Thanks, Eric - both for starting the thread, and for introducing us to another little-known composer! It's a nice piece that reminds me of the minuets of the Peruvian guitarist Pedro Abril Tirado. Btw, I find your left hand slurs to be generally very good. (And in particular, I'm always impressed by the crispness of your ornamentation!) Perhaps one or two here aren't 'perfect', but it's hard to get everything right in a single take.
-
Eric Phillips Just a note on Garcia's year of birth - I don't think 1790 can be correct, especially if he was one of Aguado's teachers. (Also, his compositional style suggests to me something earlier.) According to the article in the French language wikipedia, he was among the first (in 1760) to adopt the then new 'guitare a six cordes'. (But I wonder is they are referring here to the six-course guitar, which pre-dated the single strung instrument.) His name was associated with the 'fandango' in particular. Apparently, Boccherini inscribed on the score of his famous work for guitar and strings "Quintettino imitando il fandango che suona sulla chitarra il Padre Basilio".
-
David Krupka I was thinking 1790 sounded a bit too late for him to teach Aguado, but I did not look up Aguado's birthdate. I was going by the Spanish Wikipedia entry. I'd look at the French, but it would all be Greek to me!
I have never heard of Tirado. I will have to look up some music by him now!
Thanks for listening to the video and for the kind words. I tend to wince at my recordings, finding it hard to get past imperfections. They are often all I can hear.
-
Eric Phillips I certainly understand your reaction to your own recordings. I feel the same way when I occasionally record my own playing. I read somewhere once that we should always wait a few days before listening to ourselves - it seems we tend to be most critical when our performance. is still fresh in the mind. On the other hand, we'll never be able to correct our mistakes if we don't notice them in the first place, so I think an immediate play-back is pedagogically useful. (It doesn't help if we get too discouraged, of course ...) I will make every effort to introduce the music of Abril Tirado in this challenge! (I'm working on something 'as we speak'.)
-
David Krupka Great! Looking forward to it!
-
Eric Phillips Well done Eric. Really enjoyed that piece. Also enjoyed following along with the sheet music for this piece.
-
Jim King Thanks Jim!
-
Eric Phillips Many thanks for starting this thread and for this beautiful piece. I've been trying to record myself more lately but I usually end up deleting the recordings! I completely understand what you mean about getting past imperfections, but from my perspective I find your recordings inspiring - I love the musicality and rarely notice any imperfections! I'm working on a piece by Ernest Shand at the moment and hope to work on more of his pieces later in the year. I recently came across a thesis by a student from Surrey University on the guitar in England between 1800 and 1924. Section 3 chapter 3 is all about Ernest Shand. I've attached a link in case it's of interest. https://openresearch.surrey.ac.uk/esploro/outputs/99515371602346
-
Ron Thanks, Ron. I'm a big Ernest Shand fan (maybe we should call ourselves Fands!). That thesis looks amazing. I downloaded it, and hopefully I'll make the time to go through it at some point. Thanks for sharing.
A couple months ago, I got the book of Shand's complete works edited by Stanley Yates. It's a great edition, with an extensive introduction. If you don't already have it, I would highly recommend it. I got it on Amazon.
I hope we get to hear you play some Shand. What pieces are you working on?
-
Eric Phillips Yes I also have Stanley Yates edition, I agree it's really good. I've been working on Espérance at the moment. I'm mid way through a coaching program and I've been using it as one of the pieces to identify and work on areas where I need to improve my technique (there are many
) -
Eric Phillips
For one, thanks for this great idea of starting this post. This will bring us back to sharing our work, success and sometimes misery
Also, your playing as always is excellent and inspiring. Great job
-
Eric Phillips A great find. I really enjoyed this - and thanks for starting waking us up.
-
Eric Phillips I love the piece! Thank you for sharing! and you play it so beautiful. I never heard of it before
-
-
There's another discussion along this line: "What's on your stand?" but this is good too.
Music by living women: Four Miniatures by Clarice Assad, Western Vista by Olga Amelina-Vera are the big ones , Dreamcatcher by Boston (Berklee College professor) Francine Trester. Also a bunch of smaller pieces for the Audubon Society Museum of American Bird Art fund raiser -- all inspired by birds, including some by John Williams. Also a collection of tunes from screen and 1960's vinyl hits. That's my current program
-
Dave McLellan That all sounds wonderful, Dave! I have always thought TB should have a challenge theme of women guitar composers. I hope we get to hear some of your progress on that music.
-
Dave McLellan We (the NYC Guitar Orchestra) are playing two of Olga's pieces in May. One is a commissioned work for orchestra and guitar soloist called Finn's River and the other is called Everything Leads to Something Else. Both are challenging pieces for the orchestra.
I should really check out some of her solo pieces. -
Marc Adler Her music is great. Western Vista is SOO wonderful to play and audiences love it. find David Russell on Youtube playing it. Good luck with the big works!
change of subject: You must know John Olson? He just joined Boston CGS board.
-
Dave McLellan Hi Dave, sorry for the delay in answering, but I had a post awaiting moderation here, and when that happens, you lose the ability to respond to other messages.
Yes, I know John, although not very well. We played at his goodbye concert last October. A whole host of all-stars came out to pay tribute to John and to play a piece ... including Rupert Boyd and Ben Verdery. -
Eric Phillips ... a question for you. As an "Ambassador", do you have the ability to approve posts here? It's a bit off-putting that I have to wait for any post to be approved, and it may dissuade people from posting new topics. Or is that a Tonebase rule for everyone?
-
Marc Adler Ambassador means that I expressed an interest long ago to invite people to join TB, and I would get some money for anyone who joined using my code. When I found out that I would have to deal with taxes doing that since it would be considered income, I decided it wasn't worth it. I actually wish they would take that word off my name, as I am not really doing it. I am happy to recommend TB to people, but I don't want to make any money off of it.
As for approving posts, no I cannot do that. I only have a select few of my posts temporarily blocked, and I always assumed it was because I used some key verbage that tripped some algorithm. Are all of yours blocked?
-
Eric Phillips The post that I made yesterday about discovering Angelo Gilardino was blocked. I looked over the post again, but I could not find any potentially offensive words. Maybe "Gilardino" confused Tonebase's AI text-scanning bot? :-)
-
-
Thank you for the initiative, Eric. Also for this nice piece and your musical playing. Your slurs are not bad at all! We should, of course, never stop working on them making them more fluid and secure, but yours are already so fine, Eric.
-
joosje Thank you, Joosje!
-
End of the Year Challenge: Finish Strong!
