Week 3: Turning Points: Overcoming Hurdles 
End of the Year Challenge: "Finish Strong!" 
As the year comes to a close, it's the perfect time to look back on your guitar journey, celebrate your progress, and set the stage for a powerful finish! Whether you've been steadily refining a piece all year, revisiting past favorites, or holding onto that "one day" project, now’s the time to bring it to life. Let’s wrap up this year with a final push, together!
Challenge Theme: Complete, Conquer, and Celebrate!
Goal:
Choose one guitar piece or project that has been on your list this year. This might be a piece you’ve been working on in lessons, something you’ve always wanted to learn but never started, or a performance you’d like to polish. Dedicate the final weeks of the year to bringing it to completion—whatever "finished" means for you!
Challenge Options:
Complete a Piece: If you’ve been working on a piece throughout the year, let’s aim to bring it to the finish line. Focus on refining tricky sections, memorizing it, or even recording it as a performance!
Start & Finish a New Piece: Is there a piece that’s been sitting on your "someday" list? Dive in! Start fresh, put in dedicated practice time, and see how far you can get by the end of the year.
Polish for Performance: Got a piece you can already play but want to perfect? Use this time to iron out the details and maybe even perform it for friends, family, or the tonebase community!
Challenge Guidelines:
Set Your Goals: Decide on the piece or project and set a few concrete goals (e.g., "play smoothly at tempo," "record a full video," or "memorize all sections").
Share Your Journey: Post your progress, questions, and reflections with the community! Let us know what you're working on, why you chose it, and any hurdles you’re overcoming.
Celebrate the Wins: At the end of the challenge, share your "finished" version! Whether it’s a recording, a progress update, or simply sharing your reflections, let’s celebrate together.
Dates:
This challenge runs from now until December 30th. Finish the year with a sense of accomplishment and the motivation to take on new pieces in the coming year!
Why Join?
This isn’t just about completing a piece; it’s about proving to yourself what you can achieve with focus and support. Join us for a fun, collaborative way to end the year on a high note. 
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Someday I would like to participate in this, but I have yet to figure out how to effectively record my playing on my phone. Can anyone recommend some help for that?
Thank you Tonebase for all your fine work!
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Heidi I would say try with what you have and what seems appropriate, then iterate with small changes and keep the good, then slowly upgrade your equipment as you get better... that's what I've been doing for almost 4 years now! You can read and watch the «Recording Course» here or the «How to Record Yourself with a Smartphone» stream here or the «Recording Yourself: What do you actually need?» stream here. Hope that helps!
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Heidi , +1 to Blaise Laflamme 's advice.
Btw Blaise, your videos look quite beautifully made ( beside your playing which is great) . Do you get help from some professional, or you have upgraded your tools and got very good at it? -
Heidi don’t worry too much, Heidi. Some of us have all this great hardware and the skills to make beautiful videos. But these challenges are more a means for us all to record our playing, to learn from that experience and to share our progress. Not more than that - and not less. Go for it….
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Calin Lupa Thanks Calin, I'm doing all by myself and I'm using the same tool (FCP) since I started in mid-2021. I'm following a few guys on YT to get some tips and occasionally buy plugins to ease some tasks. To ensure I'm getting better I try to optimize my time and mostly produce final videos, but I'm also looking for a simpler setup to produce reel-like video for quick sharing, but I still want to keep some quality!
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Claro! Aqui está o texto corrigido:
I agree entirely with this challenge approach. This year, for the first time in five years of weekly classes with my teacher, I decided to make a semi-professional video of the five pieces I worked on throughout the year, as a way to document my progress and, at the same time, give myself an extra dose of enthusiasm for the next year of study.
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Flávio Cordeiro any plans to share with us here?
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Regondi Etude 1 Nov 28
Here's another update. It's a couple baby steps ahead of my last post.
Today is Thanksgiving here in the U.S., so I just want to say how thankful I am to this community and for the joy of sharing our music with one another!
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Eric Phillips happy thanksgiving to all! Great rendition already, Eric. I so much love this piece and I think you have absolutely the right approach. It sounds very lyrical and sweet.
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Eric Phillips Happy Thanksgiving! As Joosje said, this is already a great rendition, I think you've covered most of what needs to be done technically and the musical ideas are already pretty much in place.
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Eric Phillips Grear work, Eric. You are developing an ease of playing and expressive phrasing. You are also very close to nailing the coda as well.
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Eric Phillips Bravo Eric one of my favourites also
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I had the courage today to record the B part of the Vivaldi allegro. It’s still work in progress, and I’m now working more intensively on the first movement of the sonata., a slow movement but that doesn’t mean it’s easier.
I note the sound quality of this video is less clean than the previous one. I’ll try to find out why (same hardware - mics and interface) first was made with PC camera software, second with Movavi (and system camera)
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joosje Well done, Joosje! You really capture the baroque aesthetic, it seems to me.
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Eric Phillips thank you for your encouragement, Eric. It’s slowly coming together. Despite the apparent simplicity of this music (it’s Vivaldi) it’s actually pretty hard to bring the solo and continuo parts together. Then, it should sound much lighter, more dancing, and, yes, more ‘easy’. Work to do….
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joosje Great work, Joosje. This is coming along really well considering how difficult it is. I continue to look forward to your next postings.
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joosje Wow, the sound was so crisp and lively! I really enjoy your playing; it's always graceful and joyous. I can't wait to hear the final version.
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Jack Stewart Wai thank you!
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joosje Brava Joosje
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Schumann Winterzeit II op. 68.39 very rough first draft
This is my transcription of Winterzeit II, the companion piece to Winterzeit I from Schumann's 'Album fur die Jugend', with an assist from the Collection, Das Schumann Buch fur Gitarre.
This is proving to be much more difficult than I thought. After 2 weeks this is where I am at with this piece. I am having a lot of trouble with some of the chord shifts and transitions, of which there are several. I also seem to gradually (or maybe not gradually) disintegrate the further I go.
Hopefully I can can get a decent recording of this and Winterzeit I in the next couple of weeks. I'm leaving town in the middle of December for 3 weeks so I will have to be done by then.
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Jack Stewart wonderful, Jack Great job for this transcription! I love the rich harmonies . Those chord changes really are hard work to perform on the six strings of a guitar. These two pieces are a great set in a concert program. Can’t wait to hear your next submissions.
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Jack Stewart Great job Jack
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joosje Thanks Joosje. I really like this pair of pieces. I hope I can get them together in the next week or so.
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Vilio Celli Thanks Villa.
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Jack Stewart This is truly remarkable, Jack! I am no arranger, but it strikes as a very effective arrangement. The emotional arc of the music comes through very clearly. Embarrassingly, I know nothing about the piece. Can you tell us something about it, and what has led you to arrange it for guitar?
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