Practice Diary 2023 - Jim King

Here are my first videos that I have posted anywhere. 

The first video is Sicilienne composed by Matteo Carcassi.  I learned this one a little while ago but have revived it since I finally had the nerve to post videos.

The second video is Prelude in E Minor composed by Aaron Shearer.  I just learned this one and seemed to be able to pick it up quickly.

The third video is Landslag I composed by Gulli Bjornsson.  I started working on this one a while ago but then put it away as I stopped making any progress.  I have started playing again recently and been seeing some improvement.

All three of these pieces still need some work, but I thought I would share warts and all.

At this time of the year, it is appropriate to reflect upon the past year.  Here is a summary of my accomplishments of the first year (actually 13 months) of learning classical guitar.

By way of background, as noted in my first post to this diary, I first learned to play a few open chords on the guitar when I was about 12 or 13 years old.  I played at this level for a few years before putting the guitar away in the closet.  Now jump to 2020, a few months after my retirement, I decided to re-learn the guitar.  I used Guitar Tricks to re-learn the open chords and a whole lot more.  One of the things there that caught my attention was their sheet music and video lessons for playing classical guitar.  Unfortunately, the lessons did not include instruction on technique.  Accordingly, a lot of bad habits were learned here and I quickly stalled as to how to progress.

I decided that I need some proper instruction to learn to play classical guitar.  To do that, I joined Tonebase near the end Nov 2022.  Together with material I bought from the Royal Conservatory of Music (Canada), I began learning classical guitar, and undoing some of the bad habits picked up previously.  About mid-year, I felt I didn’t have a good grasp of the fundamentals and as a result, struggled with the repertoire suggested in Tonebase’s levels 1 and 2.  In July 2023, I became aware of another website, This Is Classical Guitar & Werner Guitar Editions, taught by Bradford Werner.  Since then, I have focused on his early level material as well as continuing on with the Tonebase and Royal Conservatory of Music (Canada) material.  I would estimate that currently classical guitar is about 2/3 of my practice time.

Here is a summary of my 2023 classical guitar accomplishments:

Courses/Online Instruction

·        TB Beginner Guitar Course Part 1 by Daniel De Arakal;

·        TB Beginner Guitar Course Part 2 by Micrea Gogoncea;

·        TB Reading Music on the Guitar by Micrea Gogoncea;

·        TB Music Theory Basics by Ben Laude and Micrea Gogoncea;

·        Tonebase Academy – Reading Music Course by Micrea Gogoncea; and

·        Bradford Werner’s Classical Guitar Method Book Volume 1.

Repertoire (not part of courses/online instruction above)

·        Sergio Assad Sketch No. 1

·        Guilli Bjornsson Landslog I

·        Antonio Cano Leccion No. 1

·        Johann Kaspar Mertz Study on E and Variation

·        Emilio Pujol Etude #1

·        Fernando Sor Op. 60 No. 9

·        Various pieces from the Royal Conservatory of Music (Canada)

I also participated in the recent Fernando Sor challenge, being the first Tonebase challenge that I had participated in. 

When I see it written out like this, I can better appreciate how far I have come in 2023.  I am looking forward to see where my musical journey goes to in 2024.

As previously suggested, I have practiced a couple of the pieces previously posted in this diary and today have recorded those pieces.  Attached are those recordings. 

Note, I had planned on doing Landslag I as well, but I wasn't playing as well as I know that I can do.

Being a new year, time to set up new goals.  My primary goals for 2024 for classical guitar are as follows:

1.       Improve my overall technique in playing guitar. 

Success to be measured by:

a.       Completing Bradford Werner course material Method Book Vol. 2 and Grade 1.

b.       Starting Bradford Werner course material Grade 2.

c.       Learning at least 8 new pieces of repertoire from non-course material (from such sources as Tonebase level system, Royal Conservatory of Music (Canada) graded repertoire books, and Bradford Werner sheet music and collections).

2.       Improve my musicality; i.e., those qualities greater than what is written in a piece of music; expressiveness. 

Success to be measured by completing at least 4 Tonebase video courses that discuss and illustrate the qualities of music over and above that written in sheet music.  Note this will, to some extent, overlap with the goal of improving my classical guitar technique.

3.       Do more video recordings of self playing classical guitar for posting to my practice diary and/or Tonebase challenges at least once per month.  This will increase my comfort of video recording myself.

Here's a couple of updates to pieces that I have previously posted in this diary.  The first is Aaron Shearer's Prelude in E Minor.  The primary change here is a bit of changing dynamics during the piece.  The second piece is Matteao Carcassi's Sicilienne.  The goal here was to play without error.  I notice one hesitation in this production.

I have posted an update to a previous video in the End of Year Challenge.  The piece is Lullaby No. 1 by Isaias Savio.  This is a Brazilian lullaby.  Here is the video posted today:

Here is a recent video recording I made playing Sor Opus 60 No. 1.

This is an update to an earlier posting of Landslag I.  I have been working with this piece off and on over the last several months.  Over the last couple of months, I have used this piece in a course on performance.  Here is the result.