The Dance Challenge Week One
Let’s dance!
In this community-driven challenge, we will be playing dance music. So, choose a piece from any time period, location, or culture that is set to a dance rhythm. Whether it be an Italian Saltarello, an Argentinian Tango, or something in between, let’s get our toes tapping and our fingers dancing across the guitar strings.
This challenge will last four weeks, until Saturday, June 7th. A new thread will be posted each week.
If there are any beginners looking for suggested pieces, please feel free to ask the community.
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Lauro's La Negra and Aguado's Contradanse Op 8 No 1 (May 12)
Here is an update on the Lauro, with the tempo raised a bit. I needed to have the score in front of me for security at this tempo.
I thought that, while I work on the Lauro all four weeks of the challenge, I could also work my way through this opus of Aguado's that is very "dance-y" if you will. It's a collection of eight country dances and waltzes. I particularly like the brief cello-like lines in the D section on this first one.
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Eric Phillips Great work on the Lauro Waltz, Eric. It does move along nicely at this tempo.
Can't say that I am a big fan of the Aguado piece, though you perform it with your usual elegance and excellence.
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Eric Phillips The melody certainly shines through in the Lauro Waltz - great performance Eric!
I haven't heard the Aguado before - as you say some very nice lines - look forward to more of the opus!
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Jack Stewart BTW, I checked out some of Aguado's pieces on YT and have revised upward my impression of his music. He's still not Sor but some of his music is much better than I thought.
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BWV 1009 Allemande Duarte transcription
This is a revised version of the 3rd cello suite Allemande from a posting in the first challenge of the year. It is still not perfect but I think this is a bit cleaner. There are still several rough spots but perhaps fewer and less rough (?). I still need to work to refine my interpretation, I think this performance is perhaps somewhat perfunctory.
I will continue to post revisions of pieces over the next week in preparation for my attendance at the TB Music Intensive in LA the last 2 weeks of this month. I am apparently the only guitarist that signed up - lots of pianists and string players. I am a bit intimidated being the only representative of the guitar community.
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Jack Stewart Love the cello suites , although I've only ever played the prelude from suite no. 1. This Allemande is very well worked and I think your interpretation is great Jack!
Good luck at the TB Music Intensive - a bit far for me to come
. I'm sure you will represent us very well! -
Jack Stewart The Allemande is sounding good. Have fun at the Tonebase workshops. Say hello to Ashley for me.
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Ron Thanks Ron. I am particularly fond of this BWV 1009 suite. I have played most of it (sans Gigue) at one time or another. It has laid dormant for decades until last year when I resurrected the prelude. This Allemande is fun to play - when it works.
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Dale Needles Thanks Dale, It is interesting - I am feeling a bit stressed about the workshop, which I think is silly. I'll calm down when I get there and it will be a good experience. I took my name off of the first week recital which had about 20 people signed up. I am down for the second week recital as a maybe. There are only 5-6 people signed up for that one.
I will extend greetings to Ashley. I am taking her composition class and she is one of my lessons for each week.
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BWV 996 Allemande (Isbin and Koonce editions)
This is a new recording of this Allemande which I posted in a previous challenge (Feb. 2023 I believe). I think this is a bit muddy (strings?, not muting overtones?, etc). I also have some stumbles that I think I can do better on (ie; remove - not make the stumbles better). I'l try to make another recording tomorrow. But I do want to move on as I want to revise several more pieces before the middle of next week. BTW all the pieces I am revising are within recent repertoire so they are fairly well under my fingers. Even so, they still require a fair amount of work to eliminate, well... minimize, mistakes and memory lapses.
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Jack Stewart Very nice, Jack. That's probably my favorite piece from all of the suites. I think it was in my first classical book ever, Book II of Noad's solo guitar playing (of course, I would skip straight to book 2).
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Steve Price Thanks Steve. It has repeatedly drifted in and out of my repertoire for decades. It was Sharon Isbin's recording of this suite that really opened my ears to it and to the power of cross string trills and Baroque ornamentations in general. I have a very battered editiion of this suite by Isbin (w/ Rosalin Turek). The Koonce edition is very similar to her version.
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End of the Year Challenge: Finish Strong!
