WEEK 1: Select And Practice Your Piece! 
Welcome to the Main Thread for the first week of the End-Of-The-Year Community Concert Challenge!
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 assignments and questions! ↓
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Heard so many great submissions in this forum, really inspiring!
I present here my first take of one of the pieces I had in mind for this end of year concert: a Fantasy by David Kellner (German, a Bach contemporary). Yes, I have a tendency to choose pieces that are not so well known….This arrangement is by Hubert Käppel, but I made some changes. The arrangement is with (6) string to D, but there are moments that you’d really need the open E to sound under the Dominant chord progression. So here I go, using my 7th string in D.
difficulty lies in the different tempi, the improvising character (as in Jack’s Weiss fantasy) , separating the segments and yet creating unity of the piece.the other piece I am working on is John Dowland’s a Fancy No. 6 (Poulton) in e minor. I hope to record in the next two days - there are 2 very tricky moments in the last part, I have to practice a bit more.
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Blaise Laflamme Eric Phillips thank you. You’re very kind. Yes, I have control, and my ideas are more clear now. It’s great if you can hear that. But still I feel it’s a bit unfree. It should sound more like improvising and I am still too much ‘in the notes’….
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joosje Hi, great work! Congratulations - for the choice of the wonderful piece and for the very nice playing and sharing that with us.
I know that Kellner pieces of Hubert's edition. I met him in 2000 on a guitar festival in Germany and had a lot of nice conversations and discussions with him and learned a lot by these "sit ins" and also by listening to his masterclass(es). Great, great, great... So, finally, my Käppel edition of the Kellner pieces has a personal dedication by him and he wished me a lot of fun while practicing. :-) -
Robert thank you, Robert. Nice! Inever met the maestro. When I heard his playing I wanted to go for these fantasias. His arrangements are great, but very hard for me because of the LH stretches. I’m enjoying the process of finding ways around those, also using my extra string for the bass line. I hope you had fun practicing them, too. We could have our separate practice forum for these Kellner pieces….
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joosje I hear you, speaking for myself it takes a few days, weeks and months until everything is in place in my head and my playing similar to that!
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joosje That's really a nice piece and a nice performance. I only ever knew of Kellner's Campanella so it's always interesting to learn about new work. I know what you mean about choosing pieces that aren't so well-known. One of my favorite things about guitar is "discovering" some new composer I like.
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joosje This was a beautiful rendition of the Kellner Fantasy, Joosje. I was only vaguely aware of Kellner, this is an interesting piece. Thanks for introducing it to us.
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joosje Joosje with a "deep cut" from David Kellner! Lovely performance! Nice runs in there, lots of left-hand gymnastics. Masterfully played!
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joosje Joosje this is so beautiful music and wonderful playing, really toching my heart. And you play that so soft and flowing and warm. I never heard of Kellner. Thank you for letting us learn about it
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joosje I really enjoyed your performance of the Kellner Phantasia in the concert, Joosje! (Unfortunately, by the time my computer connected to the audio, you had already finished the first piece - a fantasia by Dowland, I believe.)
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David Krupka thank you David. Maybe you noticed a few changes I made after your comments, regarding the tempo of the adagio mainly. As for the cadenzas, I changed the fingerings a bit and tried to play with more calm and without accents, but I need more time to make it work. It’s quite challenging indeed…. Yes, the first piece was Dowland’s fancy P6 (e minor).
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Another take of my piece. I've revised the fingering and have been working on the short b section leading back to the repeat.
Thanks for all the feedback. This has really been motivational.
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Steve Price Tis is such an improvement over your last recording, Steve. Great job. Beautifully played.
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Steve Price Really great work Steve! Definitely improvement. Very inspiring! I was looking at a score of this and there were some slurs (pull-offs) in mm 7-9 that I wonder if you've considered or if your score has. For example, the A to G (m. 7), G to F# (m. 8) and C to Bb (m. 9). I tried playing those, and I think they give the line a nice falling feel.
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Steve Pederson Thanks for the feedback, Steve. I've been all over the place on how to approach some of these lines. For m7-8, I originally purposely avoided slurs since I wanted to match the picking in m5-6, but I'm torn between that and going for a more legato line with slurs. I started playing m11 with a pull-off on the first beat of m11 (in 6th position) which I really like so I need to introduce them somewhere earlier so we'll see what happens. Your guess is as good as mine on where I'll land, lol. In other places I've looked at adding slurs on the first beat of measure one since that would match the first beat in m21, the start of the "B" section, which to me is calling for a hammer-on.
To me this is the most fun part of playing guitar so keep them coming.
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Steve Price I hear you. I am doing the Back Prelude, and there are a million decisions to be made on how to perform it. I keep going back and forth on some things, and it can be quite maddening!
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Steve Price very beautiful and touching
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Steve Price that’s very nice. You made great progress, it is sounding more free and relaxed, keep going…
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Stefanie Mosburger-Dalz Thank you. I really appreciate it.
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Sor Op 6 No 12 (December 11)
Incrementally better. The music is definitely more in my fingers now. I still am messing up the same problem measures, though.
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Eric Phillips This is coming along great, Eric. You certainly have it under your fingers and your musical expression is very clear and refined.
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Eric Phillips almost ready for the concert!
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Eric Phillips Great articulation, phrasing and balancing of the voices Eric! Exceptional! Just a question, because I really don't know - what was the style of the period when it comes to rolling the chords? I think you did it very tastefully. I noticed there were some places you did it and others you didn't. Not sure if that was intentional. It wasn't distracting at all. I'm just curious because that's something I tend to fixate on - something I need to be aware of for my own performance.
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Steve Pederson Thanks, Steve. I really have no idea what the style of the period was regarding rolled chords. Maybe Sor mentioned something about it in his writing, but I am unaware. I do try to give this question a little thought when I work on a piece, with the general idea that rolling a chord gives it a certain emphasis. That said, I am probably very guilty of rolling chords too often, just because it comes so naturally to the fingers. I have to say, though, my favorite version of this piece that I have found on YT is Edson Lopes', and he does roll the chords A LOT. Uros Baric and Kevin Loh play it very beautifully as well, and they roll them less.
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Eric Phillips so beautiful - this singing quality. You make those chord changes sound so smooth, and it’s really hard to get them legato. There’s only 1 or 2 moments in the a-minor part (Im always stressed there and can’t find control in that part). Great quality for the concert, Eric!
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joosje Thanks so much, Joosje. It sounds so simple, but it's not.
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End of the Year Challenge: Finish Strong!
