WEEK ONE Updates: Main Thread - Where the magic happens!
Hello and welcome to the WEEK ONE Main Thread for this challenge! 
Since Week 1 is over, this thread is now closed for update submissions
Feel free to continue replying to people's existing submissions, but if you would like to post an update, use the current Week 2 thread.
Alright my friends - this is the thread where we'll all be posting our daily updates.
Make sure you've read the rules before replying (<- click)
Twice a week between January 28th and February 19th, I hope to be reading your daily updates in this very thread right here!
Download the music:
- Exercises 1 - 12 (← click)
- Exercises 13 - 24 (← click)
Please use the following format when commenting (feel free to copy & paste!):
- Etude you worked on:
- One thing you found easy:
- One thing you found difficult:
- (Optional): a video of you performing it!
Sample daily update:
- Etude you worked on: No. 1
- One thing you found easy: The polyphony between bass and treble flowed very naturally, I had an easy time playing each line like it belonged to its own voice.
- One thing you found difficult: I had a hard time creating enough variety throughout the repeated measures.
Feel free to make these updates as short or long as you wish!
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Etude you worked on: No.3
One thing you found easy: Slow and manageable piece
One thing you found difficult: From C and G complicated to get it clean
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Emma Thanks
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- Etude you worked on: #22
- One thing you found easy: Sight reading was easy - I still have the original fingering on my Segovia edition that I used when I first played it many years ago!
- One thing you found difficult: Old muscle memory was operating rather than taking a fresh look at how I want to play it now. I really like the idea of using rest stroke on the minim melody notes and then free stroke on the crotchets
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- Etude you worked on: No. 17
- One thing you found easy: Most of the piece seems to be reasonably guitaristic (as one might expect from a guitar composer) so the fingering mostly feels natural.
- One thing you found difficult: Fluency in bar 19: I accidentally create staccato before the second high G. The high F in bar 21 is a bit of a left-hand stretch but I might just be a bit of a sissy (currently I play the F on the 2nd string. It seems some guitarists substitute the second low E in bar 30 for a low G. Which sounds quite nice. Could I do that?
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Etude you worked on: No. 22
One thing you found easy:I had already studied it and followed Martin's lesson
One thing you found difficult:I can never play it as I would like
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Giuseppe Gasparini very nice Giuseppe. A few buzzes but very well played
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Giuseppe Gasparini Hello Giuseppe, well done - this is my favorite Etude ! Also Nr. 14
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Giuseppe Gasparini Belle Canto maestro!
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Derek Thanks
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David Chidsey Thanks
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Giuseppe Gasparini Well played Giuseppe. This is one of my favourites too. I read through it the other day having not played it for many years and realised it needs a lot more work to get it sound good!
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Giuseppe Gasparini congratulations!! very musical!!! i liked it a lot
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Emma Thanks Emma
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Etudes I've worked on. Numbers 9, 10 and 13. I realised I looked at number 13 a couple of months ago when I was looking at the Segovia edition.
Numbers 9 and 10 are similar in terms of easy and hard. Both fairly easy to sight read (slowly) but with awkward movements for the 4th finger. Number 10 has some difficult stretches for the 4th finger. Could take a few days to get them anywhere near video standard
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- Etude you worked on: #17
- One thing you found easy: Again I've played this before so reading it was easy, but ...
- One thing you found difficult: ... not happy with my old fingering, need to spend some time on both and left and right hand fingering to find a solution which supports musical intent, good separation of the voices and a consistent tone for the melody.
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- Etude you worked on: #3
- One thing you found easy: Easy slow manageable piece, very nice sounding and easy harmonies to follow
- One thing you found difficult: Not happy with the end, the return is again difficult for me also the middle section with the Bbs some of the shapes are a pain.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EDES2Y_6JjU
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Kyle Throw Bravo, nice guitar, nice recording system, congratulations
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Kyle Throw Hello Kyle, nice sound ! What guitar is this ? I have never seen such an instrument before ( ok - I am living in a small town with only woods around ...
) Best Regards Olli -
Olli This is what is called a "Brahms" guitar created by Paul Galbraith and Master Luthier David Rubio in the mid 90s. It has an extra low string and an extra high string tuned to Low B and High a respectively. It is played on a cello end pin in cello position to allow for maximum freedom of movement.
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Kyle Throw Very nice Kyle. I saw Paul Galbraith play when he was only a teenager. He played a standard guitar then - a superb guitar player
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Kyle Throw great
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- Etude I worked on: #2
- One thing I found easy: short, simple structure; can be played by sightreading (on a basic level, from a technical point of view such as fingering LH etc.)
- One thing I found difficult: Looks easy, but even a short, easy looking piece is not always easy to play really 100% as you want (and recording is like using a microscope or mirror, showing all details... Sometimes it feels (for me) like being a centipede thinking about moving forward and about the order of feet instead of simply moving ahead...
). A buzz here, not being focused there, one note not 100% here and there, coordination LH/RH... So many obstacles and aspects that can go "wrong" (in the sense that it is not exactly that what you wanted to play in that moment). For me, the challenge is to bring my "musical plan", my "theory", into practice, into sound, out of the guitar. Lifelong learning... and that is the nice thing about it. Practicing, improving... - YouTube Link: https://youtu.be/nerShkiw2tA
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Robert Bravo!!
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Robert Nice Robert - if you didn't point out the problem note we wouldn't have noticed :-)
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- Etude I worked on: #3
Lovely piece, not that "small" as it looks like. - One thing I found easy: short, simple structure; can be played by sightreading (on a basic level, from a technical point of view such as fingering LH etc. I never played that before).
- One thing I found difficult: It looks easy (technical perspective; not complicated w.r.t. fingering etc). However, to make it sound interesting and really get to the point (while recording myself) was not that easy. One has to take care of dotted rhythms, the two ornaments (you need to be prepared...), the ringing and damping of notes in order to have clear sounding of voices, and also different volume and/or colour is useful and requires good focus. In addition, there is an interesting descending line in the middle voice at the beginning of the 2nd part, which can be highlighted (I did not do that much in this recording). Overall: practicing is not finished yet, and it is good for me to come down to some stuff that can be regarded as "basic" (but not easy) as well as "important". To work on this etude helped me to focus on some aspects of LH and RH and to be aware of musical shaping a piece not only in theory but also in practice (plus: while being recorded).
- YouTube Link: https://youtu.be/aiINotENTmM
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Robert Very Well
- Etude I worked on: #3
End of the Year Challenge: Finish Strong!
