Week 1 - Technical Foundation // May 3
Welcome to the Main Thread for the first week of the virtuosity challenge! This is the place to discuss the Week 1 livestream and post your Week 1 practice updates.
- Make sure you've read the guidelines before replying (<- click)
- Watch the kickoff livestream for help with the first section!
Download the sheet music: in this first week, we will be working with materials from my right-hand technique workshop. Download them here:
Right-hand exercise book (<- click)
See the pinned post below for a specific practice guide featuring all the exercises we talked about during today's livestream!
Since this challenge is all about virtuosity, video updates are more highly encouraged than usual. Feel free to upload the video in the reply OR simply link to your YouTube video.
YouTube video submissions CAN be unlisted. Just make sure they're not set on "private", so we can actually see them.
If you want to describe your process, feel free to use the following template.
- Exercise(s) you have been working on:
- Things you found easy:
- Things you found difficult:
↓ Reply below with your submissions and questions! ↓
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Hi Mircea,
I have a question. I only had formal classical guitar lessons with a teacher for three years, and that was about 30 years ago, when I was in undergraduate college. Neither of my two teachers ever taught me about right-hand preparation (or if they did, I must have ignored them!). When I try to do it, it feels almost impossibly unnatural. I literally cannot even go at half the speed I go at when I don't prepare. My tone is pretty horrible too, with my nails often catching and "twanging" the strings when I prepare the right hand. It makes me feel like a I'm three years old!
So I guess I want to know what you suggest I do. Should I do the exercises you gave with preparation and just push through it, hoping practice will make it better with time? Should I learn the basics of right-hand preparation from another source before I do this virtuosity challenge? Should I just ignore it and do the challenge without preparation? Any thoughts you have would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks,
Eric
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Eric thank you Eric! Happy to hear
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Eric Here is me playing 2B again after practicing it for about a week. It's a bit better, but I still feel like there is tension in my ring finger. When I try to bring my hand lower (toward the floor), however, I can't seem to play it at all. Any thoughts, Mircea?
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Mircea what a fantastic response.
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This is (again) a great format, a very nice workshop/challenge. I would like to participate, however at the moment (since 2+ weeks) I am not able to play or practice guitar due to a shoulder problem... So I will catch up that stuff a bit later, being active then. Meanwhile, I will be at least following the streams and threads listening and watching.
Greetings to all, and thanks for this new event.
Robert-
Robert I broke the nail of my a finger, so I will also wait for it to grow and start regular exercises from Monday. I don't like and can't use "fake" nails...
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Robert sorry to hear that, I hope your shoulder will be better soon.
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Robert ohhh so sorry to hear that , what a pity ...get well soon!
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Robert I'm so sorry to hear, Robert! Get well soon. I'd love to see your submissions later, when your shoulder is doing better. Take care of yourself and see you soon!
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I just wanted to thank all of you for your kind words! This is such a great nice community! I really appreciate that, and last but not least this shows how guitar playing and music in general is connecting people.
I am still not able to participate actively, but the shoulder and arm are much better now so I am confident that I will be able to start within the next couple of days with guitar playing, slowly but (hopefully) surely...
I am following these threads and all the stuff, and there surely will be time of active participation with submitting music.
All the best to all of you!
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Hi Mircea, what is the speed: medium and fast? Thank you
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Giuseppe Gasparini Hi Giuseppe! This depends on your level of comfort:
- medium = a tempo where you feel you can play quite comfortably
- fast = a tempo where you feel it's difficult, but not impossible, to play well and relaxed
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Hello everyone. Any metronome application suggestions?? I cannot set my metronome for 16th notes. I am also sharing my starting tempo:
- Exercise(s) you have been working on: 1A: 110, 1C: 85, 2A-B:85, 3A:70, 3B:85, 3C:70, 5A:75, 4E & 5B:none
- Things you found easy: Left hand positions
- Things you found difficult: Rest stroke. I must confess that I never practiced rest stroke
I know it is very useful for volume and speed, but I never needed it in my playing. I had to shorten my nails for managing rest stroke. I also had metronome problem, couldn't set for 16. I found exercise 5B (7/16, 5/16) a little confusing.
I am intending to increase the tempo by 5 for each exercise tomorrow. I will send my video in a few days.
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Gokce Turkmendag I remember when I was little we used to do a lot of apoyando, then somehow when I retook the guitar playing as an adult it got left somewhere in the way, and I started using it much less. But it is great way to change the colour, and if it gives us more speed all the better, we only have to practice...
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Gokce Turkmendag I also struggle with rest stroke. When I was taking lessons (30 years ago), I only did it when my teacher made me. Only recently am I starting to practice it again, but I still find it annoying because free stroke feels so much easier.
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Gokce Turkmendag same here. Back in my college days I had to do rest strokes a lot. Scales up and down the neck so even though it’s a long time ago the muscle memory is still there but my synchronization could use some improvement. In recent years I mostly play with free stroke and only the occasional rest stroke for color or emphasis.
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Gokce Turkmendag hi Gokce! The metronome markings are missing by design - there is no universal speed at which we should practice; rather, we should decide on our tempi based on how easy it is to play in them.
Keeping track of tempo like you did in your reply can be a great motivating factor though. We should never get too obsessed with absolute bpm values, but it can be nice to write them down and see how they evolve over the weeks and months that we practice. It can give us a "gym-like" satisfaction. We shouldn't make it our final purpose, but it is nice to see it get easier over time - it can make us feel like we are making progress, when practicing technique can often feel like we're not.
Like I was saying to Giuseppe, a medium tempo is one in which you feel quite comfortable playing this with no tension, and a fast tempo is one in which it is a bit difficult, but not impossible, to stay relaxed while playing the particular exercise we're working on.
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I think I am not going to be able to exchange anything with you guys. I have spent today two hours trying to load a video. I tried with Vimeo but my video was "public" and I donnot like that. Otherwise I had to pay an "upgrade"... also not my objective....too much for me !
Sorry for that. Nora
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Nora Torres-Nagel Sorry to read that. In fact this is relatively easy to do on Youtube, you just upload your .mov file, it gets optimized automatically and you set the visibility to «unlisted» and that's it... and it's free.
Do you have any problem about using Youtube?
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Nora Torres-Nagel I found the easiest way is to make a youtube video and there you can restrict the access to only those who have the link
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Blaise Laflamme
thanks Blaise! No I do not have a problem for using Youtube , also answering Emma, thanks Emma! I only want to restrict the access. OK I will look for the instructions to upload a video to youtube . Let`s see !! gracias !
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Emma
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Nora Torres-Nagel I have got it ! I am doing a mess with the replies, sorry for that . I will better with time of using the system.
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Nora Torres-Nagel congrats you did it!
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Nora Torres-Nagel Good job doing the video! The technology is always a big challenge for me as much as the guitar!
Yes, we have similar problems. I think learning planting may be a major project for me, and one that I don't really have time for at this moment (I'm a school teacher). Maybe in the summer when I'm not teaching. I'm just wondering if the benefit of retraining my right hand in this way would be worth it. I look forward to hearing from Mircea.
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Eric I will practice it more , specially with Etude 1 Villalobos where I always do a mess with am.
See you!
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End of the Year Challenge: Finish Strong!
