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Week 4: Celebrating Global Connections
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Welcome to the "Around the World in 80 Strings Challenge"! This month, we'll embark on a global musical journey, exploring classical guitar compositions from various countries. The only rule: Don’t play a composer from your home country. Let’s make this a truly international experience!
CHALLENGE TIMELINE
- Challenge Start: Kick-Off on May 15th
- Duration: May 15th - June 24th
- Watch Party: June 24th
ACTIVITIES
- Choose Your Piece: Select a new piece of music to work on. Share your choice in the thread below and inspire your fellow musicians!
- Video Submission: Submit a video of your practice this week. Highlight your favorite passage from the piece that showcases the origin of this piece!
GET INVOLVED
Let’s kick things off with enthusiasm! Share your progress, encourage others, and explore new musical horizons together. Can’t wait to see what everyone chooses!
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NO NAILS!
Well, I took the plunge (again) and cut off my right hand nails. I tried this about a year-and-a-half ago (I think), but I gave up when results weren’t coming to me quickly. After watching Brandon Acker’s livestream on playing without nails and hearing what a great sound he gets, I decided to try it again. After reading up and watching several videos about the process, I now understand that results are slow, and that I need to stick to playing easy music for a while. So, to that end, I have mentally committed to keeping the nails off for the summer, and I am starting with a couple Sor studies from Op 60. Since I am not from Spain, I figure this music can count for this challenge.
A couple things to note:
- I am tuned down a whole step. Several no nails players have suggested this at the beginning to keep string tension low. After playing like this for a couple days, I understand why. This is hard on my fingers right now, but they say it gets easier.
- Without a doubt, the hardest finger for me to get a good tone from is my ring finger. These two pieces actually do not require the use of ring finger. From what I understand, Sor’s method says to use the ring finger only when absolutely necessary.
- For the most part, I have my pinky touching the fingerboard. Again, this was recommended by several people in order to change the angle of attack and give the hand some stability. Also, it was definitely the norm in Renaissance lute technique, something I also want to develop this summer.
Speaking of the lute, I thought I’d throw in a video of a lute piece I love. I’m not sure where the composer (the very famous Anonymous) was from, but I doubt he/she was from the Unites States, so it still qualifies for the challenge, right? Joking aside, since this piece can be found in a couple Italian lute books, it’s a pretty safe guess that the composer was Italian.
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For this Challenge, I have been working on two pieces from Uruguay. The first, which I am posting today, is Carlevaro's Estudio No. 2. I posted this Estudio at the end of the last challenge as work in progress. I have continued to work on it over the past couple of weeks am posting a more polished version. While it still needs some work, mainly an increase in speed, I feel it is coming along. As I have previously mentioned, Carlevaro wrote five Estudios in homage to Villa-Lobos. Compositionally, this Estudio incorporates the traditional Uruguayan milonga/candombe rhythm combined with a modern tonal language, clearly a tribute to Villa-Lobos who mastered this compositional style.
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Well Paraguay does not sound very exotic for guitarists, but I guess it qualifies for the challenge. This is the Tango #2 by Barrios (it's not clear if there is a Tango #1 - if anyone knows of it please let me know).
Anyway, the opening phrase which repeats throughout the piece is very tricky, and will require a bit more work - although I'm not sure how to practice for improvement here - it simply is an awkward figure - a cutaway guitar would help (I think) but that sort of thing is not my scene - color me conservative.
I decided to play this because I finally acquired the 4th Stover Barrios collection, and chose this piece for its jaunty and playful nature - but as usual Barrios was never motivated to make things easy.
Only problem is that the piece kinda gets stuck in your head - I really need to displace it with something a bit more languid.