WEEK THREE Updates: Main Thread - Where the magic triumphs!
Hellooo, everyone, and welcome to WEEK THREE - the final Main Thread for this challenge! 
Why is this thread necessary?
Because the Week 1 and Week 2 threads are now both officially monstrously long 
And navigating them can get tricky with the lack of multiple page display.
But Mircea - I hear you say - can we still post in the old thread?
Yes, of course! Feel free to reply to others in the old thread to your heart's content. Just make sure you post any new updates (whether text or video) in this thread instead.
"Oh no, I didn't see this thread, so I posted a new update in the old thread!"
No problem at all! Just tag me (@Mircea) and I'll move your post 
These admin powers I got here are actually pretty cool! It turns out I can move individual replies between threads.
Where are the Week 1 and Week 2 threads?
Find the Week 1 thread here! And Week 2 here!
Make sure you've read the rules before replying (<- click)
Download the music:
- Exercises 1 - 12 (← click)
- Exercises 13 - 24 (← click)
Please use the following format when commenting (feel free to copy & paste!):
- Etude you worked on:
- One thing you found easy:
- One thing you found difficult:
- (Optional): a video of you performing it!
Sample daily update:
- Etude you worked on: No. 1
- One thing you found easy: The polyphony between bass and treble flowed very naturally, I had an easy time playing each line like it belonged to its own voice.
- One thing you found difficult: I had a hard time creating enough variety throughout the repeated measures.
Feel free to make these updates as short or long as you wish!
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This is, as promised, my second chance for No. 16. I tried to be more precise in the articulation, but Sor is so inventive, its hard to get it all in place,
easy: I recorded this one last week and OK, I practiced it quite a bit, (and had less time for the other beautiful studies, unfortunately.)
difficult: you have to be so concentrated and sure of the detailed articulation it is really hard to get a realexed and natural sound all through the piece.
I so much like to play it and try some more colouring. I will keep it as one of my Sor favorites, together with 17, 18, 22 (and 3)
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joosje bravo!!! clean, with colours, warm, you make it sound so easy....
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joosje Big applause, Joosje. A very nice "output" of practicing.
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joosje Congratulations! Keeping Sor´s articulation and making it look easy at the same time is really hard. For me, perfect phrasing and breathing. Thank you.
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joosje Beautiful !!
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- Etude you worked on: Fernando Sor Op.35 No.17
- One thing you found easy: sightreading
- One thing you found difficult: to bring the piece up to tempo in the short practice time
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Olli bravo Oli!!!!
I just saw in streaming your interpretation for the masterclass, it was superb, secure and beautiful big big congratulations!!!
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Olli Mircea Well played, Olli. It is such a nice piece.
By the way: Now, it seems that there is a new "challenge" (do not want to say "fight"): who owns the title "Arpeggiator"? Is it Mircea? Or do we have "Arpeggiator No. 1" and "... No. 2" etc.?
What about my t-shirt(s) to be printed? 
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Emma thank you Emma for your Kindly words. Yes, that`s a crazy thing with masterclasses. You practice a lot to make a best possible recording and after the masterclass you have to practice much harder to change all the things you practiced before
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- Etude you worked on: Fernando Sor Op.35 No.22
- One thing you found easy: everything - playing the piece for years
- One thing you found difficult: to play in slow tempo
So this is my last contribution to the Fernando Sor Challenge.
What a great Idea to bring such a Challenge to life.
Without this Challenge I would never have invested so much time in practicing all this Studys.
Starting with Heavy-Metal Music and Electric Guitar I never dreamed about how great such a kind of music could be.
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Olli Well done, Olli. I hope that you will stick to concert guitar and enrich this community. And maybe you will show us a heavy metal transcription of one etude or all etudes
to be played on e-guitar (which I never played). -
Olli Superb Olli - well done.
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Olli Bravo!!
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Sor Op 35 no 23.
Here's my attempted version. For some reason I kept forgetting the chord sequence which led to inevitable hesitations - frustrating!. I tried to add some phrasing using 'pont and tasto' as question/answers and add dynamics to try and add musicality etc. I was happy to discover this piece as I really wanted a new technique to learn. Will be having fun for some time now trying to get better at the arpeggiations!
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- Etude you worked on: No. 22
- One thing you found easy: Overall easy to play as I've played it before
- One thing you found difficult: Getting used to some fingerings revisions I've made so that the melody line is really legato
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I'm watching the party now, couldn't get out of work earlier. Can't wait for the next one!
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I know the challenge is now over, but in case anyone is reading this, I really want to congratulate and thank everyone for participating. I'm a high school teacher in a school that has been going full on, five days a week since September, and I have to say it has been really hard. I LOVE teaching, but all the protocols and new technology make everything so difficult. Guitar has been my peace and joy through it all. Participating in the challenge has really been helpful for me on so many levels, and so thank you all for joining in, for your kind and supportive words, and for the gift of music you have shared with me.
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Mircea I am an intermediate level student in my late 60's. I have tended to ignore "etudes" in my desire to focus on "real repertoire". I picked up this mindset from a former teacher who told me these are boring. This challenge has introduced me to the value and variety of the SOR studies and the work it takes to play them with beauty worthy of the concert stage (as I think of the videos we submit) Thank you!
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Martha Kreipke I agree with you 100%. These studies are so beautiful and musical. Very rewarding to study and bring them to stage , it’s a pity we don’t hear them more often.
Thank you again, Mircea!
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Martha Kreipke It is a pity that some teachers have this opinion and therefore influence their students into that direction of ignoring those pieces (only because of the title "etude"...). That is like ignoring, for example, Chopin's etudes for piano...
As Joosje said: those studies are musical and beatiful and are "worth" to be played. And almost all of them are not boring and are real repertoire.
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End of the Year Challenge: Finish Strong!
