Week 1: A Guitar has Six Strings, Right? 🎸
Welcome to the Main Thread for the first week of the transcription challenge! This is the place to discuss the Week 1 livestream.
- Make sure you've read the guidelines before replying (<- click)
- Watch the kickoff livestream for help with the first section!
If you want to describe your process (optional), feel free to use the following template.
- Things you found easy:
- Things you found difficult:
- (Optional): a video of you performing it!
- (Optional:) questions
↓ Reply below with your Progress Update and Questions! ↓
255 replies
-
Here's my first attempt at Chopin's Prelude op 28 no 7 arranged by S Ranieri. Just started looking at it the other day. It's short but quite a challenge to play it smoothly. Will keep working on it.
-
Hey guys, I'm going to work on Granada by Issac Albeniz (for Piano), transcribed by Andres Segovia. Will try to get some useful input from Emmanuel's Masterclass to hopefully improve my performance of this beautiful piece.
-
I’ve decided this challenge is a great opportunity to try one of Dyens transcriptions- but they’re pretty tricky for me- started on Revoir Paris, I think one of the easier ones. Just reading through it and working through the fingering today. Hard- the complex 3 on 2 rhythms throughout, a few tricky stretches, maintaining rhythm in the tricky sections.
Easy- not very much unfortunately- it’s easy to like the fantastic chords and I especially like the descending glissando at the end! -
Looking forward to this one and forcing myself to learn Prelude No. 2 by Gershwin
-
OK, so I've selected one of Gershwin's 3 Preludes: No. 2 to be exact. These were originally written for the piano, and in keeping with his style, there is a bit of a jazzy/bluesy rhythm that is presenting a challenge for me to grasp, but I will continue to work with it.
Things you found easy: This is a typical ABA piece and the A part is quite straight forward (apart from the rhythms as already discussed -- clearly, I ain't got rhythm).
Things you found difficult: The B part is a little more challenging to understand the flow, but getting there, albeit slowly
(Optional): a video of you performing it! This is forthcoming....in a day or two
-
Scarlatti Sonata K32
Scarlatti sonatas are frequently transcribed for the guitar. Here is one that is fairly easy to play. I definitely recommend listening to it on harpsichord and piano as well, as it is so beautiful on those instruments.
Although written in D minor, the versions I've heard on guitar have transposed it to E minor. I decided to record it in E minor and D minor. I'll let you decide which one is more effective on the guitar. I have included Scarlatti's score, a score for guitar in E minor, and a tablature for my version in D minor.
In addition, I also decided to play it on the lute. Please bear in mind that I am not a lutenist (at least not yet). I'm really just doing it for fun here. With the tuning I have on my lute, I suppose it sounds like it's in Db minor. To my guitar hands and brain, however, it feels like B minor. (BTW, in a few weeks, I plan to cut my nails and give a serious go at learning the lute more properly. This is my first time saying this publicly, so I guess I'm at least semi-committed to doing it. I will be playing guitar for a small group on January 19, so I prefer to wait until after that is done. Yikes!)
