Week 3: Waltzes and Whirls 
Welcome to the Main Thread for the third week of "Song and Dance" practice challenge!
Choose a piece that is inspired or transcribed from a song or a dance. It could be a lively south-american danza, a passionate tango, a serene romantic lied, or a poignant aria transcribed for the guitar. You're welcome to explore pieces from unfamiliar composers or challenge yourself with a complex work.
Commit to daily practice and share your journey with the community. Aim to practice every day and upload at least two videos each week to illustrate your progress. This will not only help you stay committed and encouraged but will also allow you to share your musical voyage with our tonebase family.
Share your favorite piece or recording that embodies the theme of "Song and Dance." Your submission will serve as an inspiration to others and create a vibrant pool of potential pieces for other members to delve into.
↓ Happy Sharing! ↓
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Mompou Canción 10A
This is, perhaps, my final on this piece. I've started working on the corresponding dance. I think this version came out pretty well. I keep having little memory glitches but they only registered as pauses - so not too bad. I also noticed my guitar is slightly out of tune - probably from all the takes I have done today.
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Steve Pederson Thanks Steve. Mompou has a famous, and beautiful work, called Sure Compostelana. You check that out.
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Jack Stewart this is great Jack! Sounding better and better. I see you started to get used to playing nailless now. It happens to me all the time with regards to tuning. Unless it is way off otherwise, I'll just continue but is a really bad habit and annoys my teacher who has perfect pitch no end.
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Mompou Danza 10 B section A first draft
This is a very rough draft of the accompanying Danza to the previous Cancun. This is like the Cancion - there is nothing that is exceptionally difficult in isolation but it is difficult getting it all together. It is beginning to come together. Unfortunately (for me) the second part goes above the 12th fret interspersed with occasional leaps to the 3rd fret. That may take me a while to get a video of that.
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Jack Stewart the shifts are already in places, what a challenge to make that sound legato, good work!
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Jack Stewart Great start Jack! I'm impressed with what you call a "very rough draft".
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Blaise Laflamme This is such a beautiful piece and such wonderful pairing with its Cancion. I hope I can eventually pull it off.
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Steve Pederson Thanks Steve.
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Jack Stewart that would effectively make a good pairing
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Rameau Allemande II 1706 less rough draft
This is still pretty rough but I think it has improved markedly, hence the posting.
I can play most sections successfully (well, by my standards) just not continuously. There are some major blunders but I think many of the parts hold up well, at least in one of the iterations. I hope to get a final soon.
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Jack Stewart oh yes, and the ornaments are sounding well... and nailless!! Again what a challenge to play Rameau on the guitar, I used to play duet version of his music.
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Jack Stewart Almost there, Jack. I can't believe you are able to play those chords so high up on the fretboard, even adding ornaments to many of them!
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Jack Stewart Very cool, Jack. And I'm with Eric on this...I can't imaging pulling off those ornaments over the soundboard.
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Jack Stewart Sounding good Jack. I appreciate you putting your recordings out there even though they're not as "polished" as you'd like them to be. That's a call higher for me to not worry about being such a perfectionist.
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Blaise Laflamme Thanks Blaise. I actually started on an Andrew Bellows transcription in e minor that was much simpler but lost a lot of its charm. I made this transcription in the original a minor whic, I think preserves much of its charm. That way I could then personally remove all of its charm when I perform it.
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Eric Phillips Thanks Eric. I keep thinking I'm almost there but the horizon keeps receding. Get me up above the 12 fret and life becomes very difficult. Oh well, back to the woodshed.
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Steve Price Thanks Steve. Those ornaments! Sometimes i
pull them off ... and sometimes I hammer them on.
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Steve Pederson Thanks Steve. I am, if anything, a lack of perfection.
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Jack Stewart said:
That way I could then personally remove all of its charm when I perform it.haha... that makes you more creative!!
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Blaise Laflamme hmmm... why the quote has not followed the thread?
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Blaise Laflamme These forums can be a mystery.
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Jack Stewart they hide a lot of things
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Blaise Laflamme Well, they posted my videos - so they must have a pretty low bar.
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Jack Stewart bar height is relative
... I stopped thinking about this at some point or I would have simply stopped playing 
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Dear friends, the time of the Watch Party needs to be changed to June 7th (instead of June 9th! Happy Practicing!
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Danza Brasilera is a lot of fun to play, once you do the hard rhythm work. I met Jorge Morel after a concert in Carmel in 1974 and bought my copy of Virtuoso South American Guitar from him. I've recently enjoyed working on this--more speed may come, but I'm just going to relax into it.
End of the Year Challenge: Finish Strong!
