Week 3 - The Empire Strikes Back ⚔️

LIVE
martin.3
5 days ago
85replies

Hello tonebuddies! 🎶

A long time ago, in a practice room far, far away... you picked up a piece. You were excited. You cracked it open, worked through the first page, maybe the second — and then something happened. Life struck back. A new piece caught your eye. The fingering felt impossible. The score quietly migrated to the bottom of a stack where it's been sitting ever since. 🎸

This May, we're bringing back the Unfinished Business Challenge — and we're kicking things off on May the 4th, because what better day to summon the Force and finally finish what you started? Every guitarist has an abandoned piece (or three). This is your chance to rescue one from the Sarlacc pit of your music folder and bring it home.

This challenge is open to all levels. Whether you left off at bar 8 or bar 80, whether it's a Bach fugue or a beginner study that got away — if there's a piece waiting for its return, it belongs here.

🌟 The Challenge

Revisit a composition you started but never finished — and this time, see it through. It might be:

🎯 A piece you abandoned because it felt too hard
🎯 Something you got halfway through before a new obsession took over
🎯 A passage or section you never quite nailed
🎯 A piece you learned years ago but never polished or performed

Share the story of why it got left behind and what it means to finally complete it. That's half the magic of this challenge.

📅 Challenge Dates

Start: May 4
End: June 12
Watch Party: June 12

🎥 How to Participate

Pick your piece – Choose the piece (or section) that's been haunting you. The one you've been avoiding. That's the one.
Share your goal – Post in the forum thread and tell us what you're finishing and why it got abandoned in the first place.
Post your progress – Share updates along the way — rough takes, slow-tempo run-throughs, the gnarly passage you finally cracked.
Engage with your fellow rebels – Cheer each other on, leave constructive feedback, and celebrate every piece that makes it across the finish line.

Bonus points: Share a recording of your favorite performance of the piece you're revisiting — the version that first made you fall in love with it.

🎬 Watch Party — June 12

The Watch Party on June 12 will feature recorded submissions from everyone who completed their Unfinished Business. Make sure to submit your final performance videos so we can celebrate your finished piece together! 🎉

💡 Need a Little Help from a Jedi Master?

If the reason you left the piece unfinished is still giving you trouble, tonebase is full of lessons, masterclasses, and courses from world-class guitarists ready to help you through the tricky parts. Search for the piece, the composer, or the technique — chances are, there's a Master ready to help.

May the 4th be with you, tonebuddies. Let's finish what we started. 🎸⚔️

- Civil law notary with a passion for music
- Bart_Versteeg
- 4 days ago
- Reported - view
Well, I planned to make a new recording of the Rondo op 48 by Sor, but… I brought the piece to my lesson with Irina and there is so much to change. Overwhelming. So I take another week or 2 and will post it first week of June.
- joosje
  
  2 days ago
  
  Reported - view
  thats what happens if you are working with a really good musician as a coach. Looking forward to hearing your new version.
- Steve_Price
- 3 days ago
- Reported - view
Lauro Vals 2, complete, and Vals 3, first half.

I think Vals 2 will be something I can get comfortable with, but Vals 3 is more of a beast than I thought. I'm definitely happy with where I'm at, but considering this is only the first half, and then everything repeats, I might have bitten off more than I could chew. It's very fun to work on, so we'll see what happens.
- Amateur guitarist/lutenist
  
  David_Krupka
  
  3 days ago
  
  Reported - view
  You've made great progress with these so far, Steve. I don't see that you won't manage to complete the second piece here, although I agree that it is considerably more difficult than the first. (As you say, it's quite the beast!)
- Steve_Price
  
  3 days ago
  
  Reported - view
  Thanks, David. I appreciate the encouragement. For this challenge, I decided to try a completely different approach to learning these than what I normally do, so I am feeling a little more optimistic than normal.
- Amateur guitarist/lutenist
  
  David_Krupka
  
  3 days ago
  
  Reported - view
  That's interesting, Steve. If you don't mind elaborating, In what way is your approach different this time?
- Steve_Price
  
  3 days ago
  
  Reported - view
  Sure. Basically, I decided to actually do all of the things that I heard from teachers, watched in masterclasses, read in books, and learned on Tonebase that I've blown off for forty+ years, lol. Who knew all that stuff really worked?
  
  I mostly play while reading, but because of all the big shifts in these, I decided to memorize them first. I only worked on small sections at a time and identified the trouble spots at the start. I did SUPER slow practice on the individual sections, being careful to include overlapping material. Also, I normally bounce between a lot of different pieces, so I decided to focus almost entirely on these. It's definitely been an interesting experiment. Better late than never.
- Amateur guitarist/lutenist
  
  David_Krupka
  
  3 days ago
  
  Reported - view
  I do a lot of bouncing around myself! Mostly just reading through stuff that I never get around to learning. But I do try to apply practice habits like the ones you've described when I'm committed to 'mastering' (apprenticing?) some particular piece. I do find focusing on the difficult passages is essential. (Though not necessarily a great deal of fun ...)
- Retired
  
  Jim_king
  
  3 days ago
  
  Reported - view
  You're making great progress Steve. Vals 3 sound like, as you put it, a beast, but you seem to be well on your way with that one.
  
  I was fascinated by your description of how you are approaching these pieces. What you have described is what is advocated by several music teaching sites -- memorize at the start, work on trouble spots, break down into small sections and work on them very slowly, and so on. Let us know how well your experiment works for you.
- Retired
  
  Jack_Stewart
  
  2 days ago
  
  Reported - view
  Really impressive progress on these Vals', Steve. You have a great command of the character of both pieces with nice tone and effective phrasing. They are sounding very good.
  
  Looking forward to your next posting.
- Eric
  
  2 days ago
  
  Reported - view
  Vals 2 is sounding really great, Steve. You're playing it at a pretty good clip. Your process seems very effective, so I am sure Vals 3 will come along nicely.
- Dale_Needles
  
  2 days ago
  
  Reported - view
  Vals 2 is sounding good and you capture well the flow of the Venezuelan vals. I agree Vals 1 is more challenging but you are well on the way and I look forward to following your progress on it.
- Steve_Price
  
  2 days ago
  
  Reported - view
  Thanks a lot, Jim. I think the new approach has helped so far, so I'll definitely keep it up.
- Steve_Price
  
  2 days ago
  
  Reported - view
  Thanks a lot for checking these out. It's been a fun challenge and something a little different for me.
- Retired
  
  Andre_Bernier
  
  2 days ago
  
  Reported - view
  Very nice Steve. Beautiful music. 👍
- Ron.3
  
  2 days ago
  
  Reported - view
  Great progress Steve. Vals 2 is really sounding good and I'm sure with the approach you're taking you will conquer the beast of Vals 3!
- joosje
  
  2 days ago
  
  Reported - view
  that’s so nice. You are really making some progress here, Steve. I love the pieces.
- BLaflamme
  
  Yesterday
  
  Reported - view
  Great progress on these Steve! I think you're doing the right thing with these, I normally read through the piece multiple times up until I get the feel of it, then separate what's going to be «my» problems, then work on this slowly, but always have a time where I play the whole piece at a speed that I play everything in a flowing way to ensure consistency, and then up to the right tempo (but the right tempo is very late in my goals when I work on something).
- Steve_Price
  
  Yesterday
  
  Reported - view
  Thanks for the response. The encouragement is really helpful.
- Steve_Price
  
  Yesterday
  
  Reported - view
  Thanks for sharing your process, Blaise. I always worked in a very haphazard way, but following some stricter steps seems to be paying off.
  
  To Blaise and everyone else: Where in the process do you start looking at things like articulation, dynamics, and interpretation choices?
- BLaflamme
  
  Yesterday
  
  Reported - view
  Good question Steve... I would say (for me) from the beginning, the first reading, the first notes, and for everything that is obvious, or otherwise something that seems to make sense, to then refine and adapt throughout the process. I try as much as possible to inhabit and give meaning to what I do (and what I play) and to make the mechanical work elements to their simplest expression to prevent the elements of phrases and musical structures from being devoid of purpose, meaning and expression. That's how it works for me, I can't just apply the elements of interpretation to the music after, like a filter to a picture, it has to be part of the process as it also influences my technical choices.
- Steve_Price
  
  1 hr ago
  
  Reported - view
  That's really interesting. The photo filter analogy is perfect. That about sums up where I am at the moment, although when deciding on fingerings, I'll sometimes have an idea that I want something sweeter, so I'll learn it in a higher position. I often get a little overwhelmed with the technical aspects early on, but I might play around with introducing those more artistic elements earlier.
- Retired
- mgshirk
- 3 days ago
- Reported - view
Unfortunately, I have been remiss in posting any videos over the past two weeks as I've been on the road traveling. Hope to be back at it this weekend.
- Amateur guitarist/lutenist
  
  David_Krupka
  
  3 days ago
  
  Reported - view
  On the road again ... alright, alright - but don't expect that to wash every time! (Says the guy who doesn't even make videos, let alone post them ...)
- Retired
  
  mgshirk
  
  2 days ago
  
  Reported - view
  lol, it was a brutal road trip: 5 days in a car from Arizona to Pa, and thinking the whole time I need to practice. Crazy how this instrument takes over your life, and then I just saw a video of somebody that typed into ChatGPT "create a classical guitar piece like Tarraga in the key of E minor," and lo and behold, there it was. It was kind of Depressing. Are we witnessing the Skynet judgment day? lol