Week 4: Serenade Showcase
GREETINGS, ESTEEMED TONEBUDDIES!
Are you ready to embark on a musical journey through the enchanting realm of Villa-Lobos and his South-American roots? With the new release of Douglas Lora's Preludes this Friday and the whole Suite Populare Bresilienne with Fabio Zanon in the making, we are thrilled to present the revamped "Villa-Lobos Voyage Extravaganza," an extraordinary experience celebrating the works of Villa-Lobos and composers influenced by his heritage. Over the next four weeks, dive into captivating compositions, exploring the rich tapestry of sounds and rhythms.
WHEN
- Challenge Start: Official Kick-Off on July 30th
- Challenge Duration: July 30th - August 30th
- Watch Party of Selected Submissions: September 9th
HOW TO BEGIN
Select a Piece:
- Choose a mesmerizing piece from Villa-Lobos or a composer connected to his South-American heritage. Options include soulful Villa-Lobos compositions, rhythmic Brazilian-inspired works, or pieces by other artists inspired by South-American musical traditions.
Practice and Share:
- Commit to regular practice and share your progress with the community. Aim for daily practice and upload at least two videos per week to showcase your musical voyage. This keeps you motivated and allows you to share your artistic journey with our tonebase family.
Submit Your Performance:
- Share your favorite performance or recording that captures the spirit of the "Villa-Lobos Voyage Challenge." Your submission will inspire others and create a vibrant collection of potential pieces for fellow members to explore.
The heart of this challenge lies in exploring the rich cultural heritage of Villa-Lobos and his musical influences. So, pick a piece that intrigues you and embrace this journey with enthusiasm and curiosity. Together, let's celebrate the captivating sounds of Villa-Lobos and his Brazilian roots. Get ready to practice, learn, and immerse yourself in the Villa-Lobos Voyage Challenge!
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Here is the Finale, the third movement of Abel Carlevaro guitar sonata, Cronomias. This sonata was completed in 1971 and is one of Carlevaro most important works for solo guitar in my humble opinion. As I have mentioned before, Carlevaro studied with and was greatly influenced by Villa-Lobos. The Finale is the third movement of the sonata. I still need to work on smoothing out some rough edges and increasing the tempo in places. Nevertheless, I am relatively pleased with the progress to date, having worked on the Finale for only one month.
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VL Etude #5 Better .... but....
This is somewhat better, I think. Most of the rough spots have been ironed out (or at least glossed over), however there are still some annoying glitches.
Some ongoing problems I have yet to resolve:
I have not been able to separate the voices when the bass is prominent but the upper ostinato should be very soft. mm 5-6, 12-13, 31-33. and the repeated upper note mm 37 - 40.
Eliminating the 'squeakies' mm 17 - 20
navigating the E ½ dim7 (?) at the end of m 48 (to the f# dim (?) in mm 49.
Overall I still need to get a better sense of phrasing.
I just saw that Martin is going to make me practice this some more.
I think Tilman Hoppstock is my preferred interpretation of this piece.
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VL Etude #5 yet again
This is better. My voice separation is better but still needs improvement. Squeakies are still there - that's a hard one to get. Hopefully as I get more settled in playing this piece I will be able to concentrate on that. The chord shift at mm 48 to 49 is better but still not real clean.
Barney I thought I was playing this slower but I think it is still too fast for my current abilities.
I will probably have to live with this piece for a while before I can get the phrasing as I would like. I might make one more recording later this week with new strings but I am not sure that will happen.
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Posting another practice session on Prelude No 1.
I've been working on reducing the squeaks, and that's hard!I need to re-learn how to move my hand on the freetboard while lifting / placing the fingers perfectly perpendicularly to avoid the squeaks. Then how to keep the legatos and the melody fluid ?
I watched the recent lesson from Łukasz Kuropaczewski, "Practice Principles" and I am trying to apply his method of practicing slowly, with pauses , repeat 5 times each bar or difficult passage.For the recording I played with the filter on my cellphone, I thought that a retro look will be a good match for this piece :) . The sound and image are out of sync though, they are perfect on my phone, but when auto-uploaded to google photos are out of sync.
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Hi, everyone, hope everyone's well. This is my 4th attempt to play this piece with some minor improvements but also some major issues. I tried a higher tempo than previous attempts but ended up losing control over some sections (like the scale passage with slurs), plus the usual culprits like squeaks, missing notes. I did try to bring more dynamic variation, not entirely successfully. I'm also still trying to work out the harmonic balance as I think I couldn't bring out the higher notes properly. By the way, Dale Needles , I have done repeats on the diminished chords section :) this time.