Week 2 - Practicing Passages // May 10
Hello and welcome to the Main Thread for Week 2 of the virtuosity challenge! 
This is the place to discuss the Week 2 stream and post your Week 2 practice updates.
- Make sure you've read the guidelines before replying (<- click)
- Watch the Week 2 livestream here for help with this week's exercises!
Download the sheet music: in this second week, we will be working with different excerpts from my right-hand technique workshop, as well as some new materials.
Download them both here:
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Right-hand exercise book (<- click)
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Download additional sheet music here (now with fingerings!)
Video updates are encouraged due to the technical aspect of this challenge 
Feel free to upload videos into your replies OR simply link to YouTube. YouTube video submissions CAN be unlisted. Just make sure they're not set on "private", so we can all see them.
If you want to describe your process, feel free to use the following template.
- Exercise(s) you have been working on:
- Things you found easy:
- Things you found difficult:
↓ Reply below with your submissions and questions! ↓
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Hi everyone! I m back with my 2nd posting of this week! the apoyando part: 7A and 7B (Villa Lobos 7 and Clerch). very short video, just 1 take, several repetitions in different tempi, no editing.
easy: memorizing
difficult: keeping relaxed feeling up tempo. Pinky (R side of R hand) still tensing up a bit.
I kept watching my R hand while recording, driving me crazy...
Now started working on the Paganini: great fun with the chords but struggling with the slur section at the end...
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joosje Brava!! very good
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joosje this is such a great submission, I am so impressed!!! Congratulations and thank you for taking the time to practice these and post them on here! I am very impressed by your tone as well - so well-controlled even as you increase the tempo and play these difficult passages! Just all-around wonderful!
In the Clerch, there is a biiit of tension forming on the right side of your hand as you accelerate the tempo, but that is to be expected. That is currently the main "handbrake" holding you back from making the movement even more fluid and relaxed (and implicitly, fast). But it's looking and sounding great already!
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Hello everybody! First of all, congratulations to all of you, I've liked every video that I've seen so far, all of you have a very beautiful sound and have been playing these passages pretty great!
So this week I tried Mircea's advice of moving up and down your right hand, and I think it has become very helpfull as well. And perhaps I need a bit more of time to keep on practicing raising my index finger when doing rest strokes, although I think I've progressed a bit with it.
I'm posting a video where I play exercises 6B, 6C, 7A, 7B, 8C and 9B. I forgot to play El Abejorro
. In Asturias I had a mistake executing the excerpt, accidentally I didn't memorize it well and erased the final beat of the first phrase, I apologize for it! 
and I play it with p and m, didn't found it to difficult, but I look that I move a little my hand. What I found difficult are mostly the scales, specially when playing them fast, sometimes I had my nails caught (but Mircea's advice has been helpfull thou) so now I'm lowering them a bit, since they are kinda big. I found difficult as well not getting too much string noises with my right hand when playing scales. And finally, I found that the preparation for the arpeggios made everything easier!
See you all tomorrow. I wish you all a good practice.
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Daniel well done!! congratulations! Your sound is very clean!!! By the way what support are you using?
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Daniel nice work Daniel.
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Emma thanks Emma! Well, actually it is a floating cushion used as a tool for swimming, in order to strenghten your arms, it's placed between the thighs while you swim on freestyle. It's called pull bouy. I don't really know if it might be cheaper than a Dynarette suport (perhaps yes, and it could be an advantage) but it has as well the shape of the leg and fullfills (for me) the most of its duty when working together with a foot stool; although, I would like a bit more of heigh which I think the Dynarette could give to me.
Even if it is pretty great and solves problems, I wouldn't use mine on stage
but maybe there are more "formal" models. -
Derek thanks Derek!
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Daniel Bravo!!!
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Giuseppe Gasparini thanks Giuseppe!
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Daniel Yes! I thought it was that! looks shiny and comfortable...
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Daniel awesome job, Daniel!!! Congratulations on making everything sound so good, and thank you for taking the time to practice all of this consistently and upload it on here. Let's jump into some targeted advice:
- VL Etude 7: Wonderful!
- Clerch: The a finger is throwing you off a little bit, but that's normal - that's why we're doing this exercise. Slow and targeted practice is useful here, although you're already doing a great job.
- Brouwer Etude 1: sounding great - one quick question, are you aware that on the p, you're always doing free stroke on the 5th string, but then rest stroke on the 6th? It's not a bad thing in itself - I'm just curious whether you are fully aware of that.
- VL Etude 1: Awesome. Once again, not much for me to say here other than great job!
- Asturias: No worries about the memory issue, it happens to us all. One little thing though: in the slower version, the length of notes tends to be a bit uneven. Work on making the bass melody really feel like the same length as the second-string accompaniment. The same thing happens to a lesser extent also in the faster version, though not quite as noticeably.
- Brouwer Etude 7: Great job!
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Mircea thanks a lot for your kinds words and targeted advice! Yes, the a finger is a little bit difficult for me in that etude and other pieces, it drags me down a bit. But I'll keep on practicing the passage like you told me
. In Brouwer Etude 1, I'm aware of the rest strokes on the 6th string, on one hand, I think I do them to ensure the next note on the 5th string and on purpouse for a stronger volume there. And in Asturias, when I play my recording I think I can hear the un-eveness. I'll practice it and will try to get it as even as I can with a metronome. Huge thanks and best regards!
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Hi guys!
Now , my last two exercises for this week:
8B Paganini-capriccio : the most difficult was to position the right hand for the open A with the thumb after each descending scale and to reach the position XII correctly after the very high A.
Villalobos-concerto : the most difficult to memorize the right hand of bar 22, where the preparation of pa helps a lot.
See you later, today I will be in the lifestream.
Nora
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Nora Torres-Nagel good job Nora! beautiful sound!
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Nora Torres-Nagel Brava!!! beautiful sound!
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Nora Torres-Nagel Bravo Dora! Muy bien!!!
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Nora Torres-Nagel great job, Nora! This is all sounding so beautifully. Let's jump into some targeted advice here:
Villa-Lobos Concerto Excerpt: You're once again not doing the p,i,m,a preparation - but once again, it is sounding great!
I don't know if I should really be insisting on preparation at this point, where you can sound really well without it and it doesn't seem to come natural to you.
But if you do want to practice it, just group the notes in the first few arpeggio patterns into sets of 4 and play them as block chords instead of arpeggios.
That might be a good intermediate step to achieve preparation at a later stage. Only if you feel like challenging yourself with this, though! Otherwise, you're doing a great job making this sound really beautifully.
Paganini: Same note about the preparation, it is not happening with the exception of the first chord, and even there, the m and a fingers leave the strings before you play them, negating a large part of the benefit of preparation.
Great job on the scales though! And on making everything sound fluid, consistent, and with a great tone.
One thing, look at the update I pinned at the top of this thread, right underneath the opening post. It will be easier if you play the low A at the end of every scale as part of the scale before it (so, with the i finger as a rest stroke), rather than with the p as part of the next arpeggio.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kA9hHtiJ2ik
This is really not ready for you guys, but wanted to post progress status before today's livestream. Several false starts and errors. Some preparations not done where needed.
Generally needs a lot more practice which will continue. Watching your own videos is certainly a great diagnostic tool, and these exercises are great!
Looking forward to today's session with new challenge selections for the practice routine.
Mircea, please provide your focused comments/suggestions which are extremely helpful. Thanks!!
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Barney Bravo!!! very good
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Barney great work all around, Barney! Congratulations on making everything sound so great, and putting in the time and effort to practice this - the results are so clear! Alright, here is my targeted advice for these excerpts:
- El Abejorro: Sounding so great! No preparation or a finger planting though. If you feel like challenging yourself by adding those techniques to your arsenal, do so - but start slowly. You've already been practicing this without preparation for a while now, so if you switch at this point, you might find it hard to do at full tempo.
- Asturias: Wonderful job! And this time, I think you are doing the a finger planting here, right? I can't see it very well since it's at the bottom of the frame - perhaps you were doing it in the previous exercise too and I just couldn't see it.
- VL Etude 7: Sounding great! Interestingly, you seem to convert from full rest stroke to more of a free stroke as you reach the 4th string. I am not 100% sure why, it might have to do with either the thumb leaving the strings or simply with the change of forearm position required by going so far down to the bass strings. Either way, be aware of this and try to convince your fingers to maintain that steady rest stroke feel from the upper strings.
- Brouwer Etude 7: Make sure you keep the tempo steady, don't let the arpeggio be faster than the slured notes following it. You did a better job at this in the second run though!
- Brouwer Etude 1: Great job on the preparation!
- Paganini: Wonderful job all around!!! I especially want to congratulate you for playing the last (low) A as part of the scale, rather than of the arpeggio following it. Sometimes, the chord preparation for some of the arpeggios was not complete, but you did mention this in your post, so I know you are aware of this.
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Mircea Thanks Mircea for your advice (as always)! Yes, on the Leyenda, I did do the a finger planting. Did you notice how I was doing the hinged bar on strings 4 &5? This is the way my original teacher learned it from Rey de la Torre (student of Llobet) who passed the fingerings down to me. It reduces left hand motion in that passage and is very stable.
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Hi everyone, I haven't been able to record anything, but I'm working to be able to speed up the exercises
, have faith
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Giuseppe Gasparini keep working, you can do it! You still have time before the watch party, looking forward to your video.
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Giuseppe Gasparini I believe in you, Giuseppe
remember you can always post updates after the challenge is over, too. Looking forward to everything!
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Thank you Giuseppe! These are more challenging to get up to speed with good tone. I need to practice these more and correctly. Mircea gives good advice that helps.
I'm confident ( and have faith ) that you will do very well with it, as usual, and will watch for your posting.
