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:
-
Right-hand exercise book (<- click)
-
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! ↓
-
Wk. 2: Working on excerpts from sessions 3 and 4.
Keeping a steady pulse on El Abejorro is a challenge.
Posted below are Paganini Cappricio 5 and El Abejorro; both are works in progress.
-
david robinson good job. It’s a challenge indeed, these excerpts
-
david robinson That was excellent, David! Nice and even, well executed.
-
david robinson Bravo! I will start with this passage today!
-
joosje Thanks; Mircea is an inspiring teacher.
-
Eric Thanks for listening.
-
Emma Thanks, I look forward to hearing it.
-
david robinson great job David!
-
david robinson David, this is great! Thank you for posting these!!!
Let's jump into some targeted advice:
Paganini: sounding so good!!!
- Fingering-wise, check out the post I made at the top of the thread - I didn't spell this out properly in the materials, which is my bad, but - the low A at the end of every scale is supposed to be part of the scale, rather than of the arpeggio following it. So, feel free to play it with rest-stroke i, rather than with p.
- Since the low A is a long note and we have quite a bit of rhythmic freedom there, we can wait on it as long as necessary for our hand to get back in position for the next arpeggio (with all fingers prepared on the top strings). This will feel quite different from what you've been doing so far, but it will allow you to play the scale down really virtuosically!
- Your right-hand palm wobbles a bit during the scales, which is usually a sign that it "wants to help" a little bit with the individual finger movement. That's not good for very high tempi, but I think that as you speed this up, that will just naturally stop happening. So no need to worry about it too much right now - just something to keep in mind.
Abejorro: great job here too!
- Make sure your thumb doesn't move your hand toooo much when it plays. The thumb is so much more powerful than all our other fingers, Joaquin used to call it "the bastard" (because the thumb has no regards for anyone else's needs and feelings
) - I like the accent you give the thumb, since that's where our melody is in this piece, but make sure that that accent doesn't translate in destabilizing your right hand. Try to achieve the same volume without changing the position of the palm too dramatically while p plays.
-
-
Hello! I have practiced so far 6A, 6B, 9B, 7A, 7B.
Things I found easy: Preparation.
Things I found difficult: I have had the bad habit of keeping rhythm with my foot lately, so working with the metronome is taking some time to get used to again . While preparing the "a" finger was no problem at all, sometimes I have found myself preparing the small finger as well! so had to avoid that. I will start practising again these passages at a lower speed again to play them with more volume, more energy, and zero mistakes and noises.
I will start now with the 2 other passages and hope to send a video on Sunday. Thank you so much!!
-
Emma Brava!!
-
Emma Nicely done.
-
Emma great job.
-
Emma Those are great Emma! Good work!
-
Emma Everything nice and clear, Emma. Congrats.
-
Emma sounding good Emma!
-
Emma wonderful job, Emma! This is sounding great. Thanks for posting this!!! Let's jump into some targeted advice:
- Brouwer Etude 1: Love the a finger on the 1st string! Always stays there and never gets tense, wonderful! One thing though, I think you're not actually doing the "chordal" preparation I mentioned in my stream. Try it out as an alternative! It requires adding i and m on the G and B strings every time the p plays (except when the p plays twice in a row, in which case you only prepare those two on the second p).
- Villa-Lobos: Perfect!!!
- El Abejorro: Wonderful! Nothing to say here either.
- Asturias: Great job! If I were to nitpick, I would say you should pay attention to the evenness of notes - the basses tend to be juuust a bit shorter than the 2nd string accompaniment. Only by the tiniest bit, though!
- Clerch: Perfect!!
-
Mircea Hello and thank you so much for checking my work. You were so right! I was convinced that I was preparing the arpeggios of the first Brower study and I wasn't. It is a tricky one you think you are doing it and you are not or mostly missing a lot. I am repeating it to see if it is better, also Asturias I am doing it again to see if it is better measured this time. Lastly I recorded the second Brower extract with my dog interacting.
-
Emma great to hear, Emma! One thing though, make sure the last video you posted is unlisted rather than private, so we can see it on here. Currently, I can't access it.
-
Mircea here it goes again, thank you)
-
Emma Nicely played Emma
-
Emma Emma! I only now realized I totally missed your reply here. It was buried too deep in the comment thread and I only checked now, when I was going through everybody's updates for the upcoming watch party.
This is looking and sounding great! My only piece of targeted advice here would be in the Etude 7:
The slurred passage following the arpeggio sounds just a bit thin by comparison to the arpeggio, try to maintain the same quality of tone color as you had before.
Thanks for submitting this and sorry for the late reply!
-
-
Here is the Leyenda excerpt with my ring finger planted. I did it with p and i first, then p and m. P and i is definitely easier. With p and m, I seem to be lacking independence between a and m, so it's not too good while a is planted.
-
Eric sounds great, and I agree that a and m is tough.
-
Eric Great job Eric. I also use p,i, mostly because m is stronger than i and I try to make sure I don´t highlight those boring open string b notes.
-
Eric great sound. True, p-m is really tough, with the a blocked on (1) and i floating in the air....
-
End of the Year Challenge: Finish Strong!
