Week 4: Prepare for Landing! 
Welcome to the Main Thread for the fourth week of the "Guitar Music of the World" practice challenge!
↓ Happy Sharing! ↓
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Frederic Hand - Elegy for a King
I am going to make this my final posting of this piece for this challenge. I'm not too happy with the section right after the harmonics, but it will have to do for now.
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Steve Price Nice! I like the analogy to marinating, which reminds me - I gotta cook something for dinner tonight!
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Eric Phillips Bravo!! Great job! I agree with Steve, is a difficult piece to get to this point in a month. If you allow me I guess the section after harmonics is not sounding bad, it's just not ready as the other sections. Maybe you need to put a bit more attention (or study time) in the fragment between the third beat of measure 32 and the first beat of measure 36. For me, it's the only fragment that is sounding less beautiful. As we said in Brasil, "tá lindo"!
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Moyses Lopes Thank you, Moyses, for the kind words and attentive listening. I appreciate your encouragement!
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Eric Phillips Beautiful, Eric - and a lovely tribute to the great civil rights activist. (I'm sorry to have missed it yesterday, when it was most appropriately 'dropped'.) As others here have said, this is not at all an easy piece, but you've done a great job with it!
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David Krupka Thanks, David. You’re the only one to pick up on the appropriateness of the day I posted that. It was somewhat planned, once I realized that this week was the last week of this challenge.
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Eric Phillips Beautiful, Eric. I agree with Blaise, this sounds very confident and expressive. Great job.
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Jack Stewart Thanks so much, Jack!
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Steve Pederson got me thinking about all the great Venezuelan guitarists so I had to try to get this one back up to speed after a years-long gap... El Negrito by Antonio Lauro.
It was rainy and loud so I used a Kremona NG1 pickup which isn't perfect but did fairly well with some aggressive eq'ing.
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Steve Price Great work, Steve! You got that going pretty fluidly in a very quick time. It's funny how difficult it can be to play pieces in the key of C major. Even in open position, it requires awkward hand movements.
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Steve Price I love this little Vals. It is coming along nicely. Do you know La Catira by Lauro? It pairs nicely with El Negrito (the Fair One and the Dark One). Both dedicated to family members of Lauro, which most of his pieces are. I had the honor to meet and even work for Lauro for a short period in the 1980s and helped him publish a couple of his compositions with Guitar Solo, here in San Francisco. Let me know if you would like a copy of La Catira and I can email you a copy. Best to email me directly at [email protected]
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Dale Needles What a great opportunity to meet those guys. Thanks, Dale. I sent the email so that would be great. Lauro has been one of my favorites from the start and while I'm currently interested in more "modern" music, he's always someone I come back to. Plus, he has his share of experimental moments as well. His music isn't easy so I'm glad to be able to be developing the skills to play more of his work gradually.
Thanks again.
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Steve Price This is fantastic Steve! Looks like we could do an entire challenge just on pieces from Venezuela!
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Steve Price It's sounding great, hermano! You made a good choice and a beautiful presentation, thank you! Your Kremona sounds better than my AKG C411, with the advantage that doesn't need phantom power. I didn't know the pickup, but you seem satisfied with it, don't do?
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Steve Price Beautiful Steve!! I'm familiar with some of Lauro's waltz's, but not this piece. Is it edited by Alirio Diaz?
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Barney Thanks a lot, Barney. The score I have is actually from John Duarte and it's paired with La Gatica. I've seen the Diaz version and I'm not sure it's different at all except for some minor fingering changes and then I changed a few on my own.
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Steve Pederson Thanks, Steve. We could absolutely do a Venezuelan challenge. Most of Lauro's music is deceptively difficult but people like Efrain Silva, Rodrigo Riera, and Jose Rafael Cisneros had some pieces that are a little easier. Raul Borges has one or two simpler ones. Unfortunately for me most of Alirio Diaz's arrangements are not super hard but he always sticks some impossible passage in the middle of them just to mess with me.
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Moyses Lopes Thanks, Moyses. The Kremona still requires the Focusrite interface but I'm pretty happy with it for the little recordings I do here. Recorded directly it sounds awful and I had to add some dramatic EQ adjustments in post just to get it to not sound so plastic. Here's a screen capture of just how much it took.
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Eric Phillips It just occurred to me that you mentioned that my post made you think of how difficult it was to play in the key of C major. I guess I have more work to do, lol.
Just kidding and I know what you mean. I think it has something to do with not having the root of the key on an open string. -
Steve Pederson Steve Price A Venezuelan Challenge would be great!
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Steve Price Understood Steve. Duarte's versions seem to be popular in several of recent postings here and some Bach pieces posted.
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Dale Needles Agreed martin .
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Steve Price Exactly! You played it well. It was just me observing how I often avoid pieces in C major. Most non-guitarists would probably think of it as an “easy” key to play.
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Steve Price Nicely done, Steve! One of my favourite Lauro waltzes - less 'flashy' than some of them, but very engaging.
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Steve Price Nicely played, Steve. I have never played any Lauro even though he has many great pieces. Probably because they look, sound, so difficult. "You did a great job with this piece.
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Steve Price Good to know! Thank you!
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End of the Year Challenge: Finish Strong!
