Guided practice (Tracks) for the core études (Villa-Lobos, Brouwer, Sor, Carcassi) 💪
I've been really loving how Tonebase is teaching the Tárrega Capricho Árabe in the current Track, and it got me thinking that it would be amazing to see that same kind of treatment applied to the core études of the classical guitar repertoire!
I'm thinking specifically of: the 12 Études by Villa-Lobos, Leo Brouwer's Estudios Sencillos (both the first and the newer series), Carcassi's Op. 60 studies (the harder ones that usually get assigned), and Sor's 20 Études (the Segovia selection). These pieces are basically the backbone of how most of us build technique, but it's not always obvious how to approach them in a way that actually transfers to the concert/artistic repertoire, especially for people earlier in their journey.
Rafael Aguirre says in his video on Villa-Lobos's Étude No. 7, that if you haven't worked through the whole set, none of them will really "click" the way they're meant to, and that ideally you'd arrive at these études having already gone through Sor's and Brouwer's studies too. There's a real logic and progression buried in this repertoire that I think a lot of us are missing pieces of.
Having dedicated Tracks for these, something that guides you through them not just technically but in a way that teaches you how to learn a piece in general, especially a very technical one like those, would honestly be a dream 🙏
Would love to hear if others here would find this useful too, and maybe if enough of us flag it, it could catch the Tonebase team's attention!
So guitarist, let's vote! 🎶
2 replies
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Dear Marco,
Thank you for that great feedback. Creating more guided practice tracks is currently our main focus, and the pieces that you are outlining are definitely on our list. More specifically, we are having Jakob Wagner create a track for Sor's study in B minor, and I'm talking to various artists to create tracks for the Brouwer-Etudes!