NEW YEAR'S RESOLUTIONS - 2022!

Steve Price I think the idea of taking one or two pieces a month and getting them performance-ready makes a lot of sense. I find I tend to learn pieces to the point where I can play them adequately for my own purposes, but not to the point where I can perform them at a level I would want to listen to. That last ten or twenty percent seems to involve more work than I am inclined to do. It's something I definitely need to change in my approach to learning!

After the fairly heavy Cançó Trista I worked up last month, I chose the lighter Zapateo (or Zapateado depending) arrangement from Leo Brouwer's Dos Aires Populares Cubanos. Like most of Brouwer's work it's idiomatic for the guitar and doesn't present any impenetrable technical challenges beyond getting it to tempo, but again like most of Brouwer's work there's a lot going on in the background that needs paying attention to. One challenge/pleasure will be deciding how to play it since nearly every version I've heard is different in regard to repeats and adhering to instructions.

Since the Zapateo is only a single page of music, I decided to add a second piece and chose Antonio Lauro's Ana Cristina. It's one of his simpler pieces but it's a beautiful song with each measure divided into the archetypal Venezuelean 8th note triplet followed by two 8th notes.

Steve Price My first month of the New Year's Resolution is complete! Eleven more to go, lol.

Not perfect but they're memorized and I can start working on better interpretations. 

For February I want to see if I can get Con Sabor by Jorge Ritter down. He's one of my favorites and I want to play all three of the pieces from the set but this one may be more in my range for now. I'd also like to get Moreno-Torroba's Alba de Tormes together. There are so many wonderful pieces in the Castles set so I wanted to get to work on some of them.

Edit 10 Feb: With the "Music You Love" challenge going on simultaneously, I'm going to push the Ritter to another month to focus on my submission in the challenge. I overdid it in January and paid the price so I need to be a little more conscious this month.

I really struggled to get a clean take of this piece. It doesn't really seem all that hard there are just a couple of places that I found really tough. Segovia's fingerings I found to be easier than some of the others so it will just take more work. Now that I have this down I can focus more on interpretation. 

I've been going in a little bit different direction lately so for March I was going to work on a transcription of Bartok's Choral from For Children sz. 42.

Steve Price Both of those were beautiful, Steve. You are sailing thru your list, and at a very high level.

Steve Price That piece  was very nice as well, Steve.

Jack Stewart Thanks, Jack. I appreciate it. It's definitely keeping me busy, but I feel more focused so that's good as opposed noodling all the time like I used to. 

I'm cheating this month and using pieces that I worked on for other challenges. I've noticed how quickly my tastes and focus can change so some things I'm interested in can quickly become less interesting in a couple of weeks or even days. But, I'm getting pieces to the point of recording which I guess is the goal overall. For April, I will try again to work up Jorge Ritter's Con Sabor.

Here are a couple of pieces I worked up for the Transcription and Spanish challenges. Although they are great learning experiences, I realized I was focusing on the challenges and not leaving enough time for the repertoire I really want to play. It's an easy enough fix just to dial it back a little and look for ways that the challenges crossover into my own work.