Week 3: Gaining Momentum 
WELCOME TO THE "A FRESH START" COMMUNITY CHALLENGE!
Embark on a musical journey with our latest challenge, "A Fresh Start". It’s time to dust off that sheet music you’ve been eyeing and dive into a brand-new piece!
CHALLENGE TIMELINE
- Challenge Start: Kick-Off on April 15th!
- Duration: April 15th to May 13th
- Watch Party: Join us on May 13th at 11 AM PST to watch selected submissions!
WEEK 3 ACTIVITIES
- Practice Updates: Keep the momentum going! Share a video or write some comments about your practice sessions over the past week. Let's motivate each other by sharing our progress and challenges.
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This piece was in my pile of music for many years. I would look at it and say one day. I heard Marco Tomayo play this on youtube and fell in love with the music. I applied a lot of new tools to learn this piece, many taught by Molly Gebrian on how the brain works. I did manage to memorize much of this piece, I felt it worthy of memorization. Here is my rendition of the entire piece with a few clams here and there, I hope to get one more recording before May 16th, but I have a lot going on the next two weeks.
Constructive criticism always welcome.
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Michael Shirk That's really beautiful. I love Rodrigo's writing, I just wish he had something more at my level. His lines are just gorgeous. Well done.
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Michael Shirk Beautiful piece and terrific playing, Michael!
I remember hearing a recording of Pepe Romero playing it, and his scale runs were so fast ( that great Flamenco mastery) that although I have the piece in my Rodrigo book, I did not feel I was up to the the challenge. You just inspired me to take another look...and it would be great practice on fast scales.
Perhaps one suggestion... the video lighting is kind of dark, so I can't see your RH fingers. Are you using Rest strokes (apoyando) on the Lyrical parts. It would add to the beauty and sound of the piece if those phrases were played a little stronger.
Thanks for sharing your interpretation of yet another great piece by Rodrigo!
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Barney Thanks Barney, I also heard Pepe play this and Marco Tomayo, their scale speed is on another planet. I can only hope to play at half their speed. I do play the cadenza apoyando and some of the middle sections. Lighting, I still have not found the right rig to do my self recording, I guess I turned the lighting down too much. Its' a great piece for sure. Thanks
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Michael Shirk very well done, Michael. It sounds so nice. You did a really great job bringing such a difficult piece to to a really good level. Thank you so much for posting. I enjoyed a lot listening to it.
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Thanks for all the nice comments, I only wish I could complete this challenge with one more video. Unfortunately my attention needs to be somewhere else for the next week and I will not be able to put in the time for practice. Once things settle down I will continue with new challenges. This piece is now part of my repertoire for sure.
End of the Year Challenge: Finish Strong!
