Week 4 - Return of the Finisher 🏆

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

  1. Pick your piece – Choose the piece (or section) that's been haunting you. The one you've been avoiding. That's the one.
  2. Share your goal – Post in the forum thread and tell us what you're finishing and why it got abandoned in the first place.
  3. Post your progress – Share updates along the way — rough takes, slow-tempo run-throughs, the gnarly passage you finally cracked.
  4. 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. 🎸⚔️

56 replies

null
    • Dale_Needles
    • 4 days ago
    • Reported - view

    Here is Abel Carlevaro's Microestudio No. 18.  In addition to being a beautiful study, this study is great for working on slurs.  I realized going through the study, that I need to focus more on my slur technique and will definitely incorporate this study into my practice routine going forward.  Now onto Microestudio No. 19.

      • BLaflamme
      • 4 days ago
      • Reported - view

       A very interesting study Dale, seems to be effective for slurs! 

      • Dale_Needles
      • 3 days ago
      • Reported - view

       It is an interesting study and more challenging than it looks. Definitely needs some more work to clean up those slurs. 

      • Ron.3
      • 3 days ago
      • Reported - view

       Certainly a study for practicing slurs - looks very challenging to me. Well played Dale!

      • Retired
      • Jim_king
      • 3 days ago
      • Reported - view

       Well done Dale.  It sure seems like a good piece to have in one's practice.

      • Dale_Needles
      • 3 days ago
      • Reported - view

        Thanks. This is indeed a challenging piece but a good workout for the left hand.  I think it will come together over time. Today I started on Number 19 and am really enjoying it. Hopefully I will be able to post it next week. 

      • Amateur guitarist/lutenist
      • David_Krupka
      • 3 days ago
      • Reported - view

       Great start with this one, Dale! Count me among those who thought 'that study doesn't look easy at all'! Those little ornamental turns are really difficult to 'pull off' cleanly. One thought I had while listening is that the character of the study (but not the musical language) reminds me of Aguado, who often works the left hand in a similar manner. So I was intrigued to discover when I looked at the collection of scores in the Carlevaro library that the very first entry is for a collection of studies by the 19th c. maestro!

      • Dale_Needles
      • 3 days ago
      • Reported - view

       Interesting that you noted this similarity to Aguado. I strongly feel that Carlevaro as a guitarist/composer/pedagogue was a continuation of the great masters of the past.

      • Steve_Price
      • 3 days ago
      • Reported - view

       Nice, Dale. I enjoyed that one a lot. Definitely uses a modern language, but it still seems very accessible. A very pretty ending. Sometimes with studies, I'm not sure what I'm supposed to be working on, but in this one, it's very clear.

      • Dale_Needles
      • 2 days ago
      • Reported - view

       Thanks Steve. Glad you enjoyed it. Still needs some work and hope to post again before the end of the challenge but in the meantime focusing on No. 19. 

      • Retired
      • Jack_Stewart
      • 2 days ago
      • Reported - view

      Really impressive, Dale. Quite a workout! 

      • joosje
      • Yesterday
      • Reported - view

       nice study. In a more ‘classical’ idiom than most others in this set of micro studies. You handle the trills really well. It’s a tricky piece.

      • Dale_Needles
      • Yesterday
      • Reported - view

        Thanks. Yes, this study is both quite the workout and a bit tricky and a good one to add to one's practice routine. I agree, Joosje, that this is in a more "classical" idiom but still he throws in some great harmonic dissonance to keep you a little off balance. 

    • Eric
    • 3 days ago
    • Reported - view

    Barrios - Sueño de la Muñequita

    I took a little break from Standchen with this nice piece by Barrios. I have played the A section before, but the B section (with the harmonics) has always kept me from bringing it to completion. It's not that it is too difficult, but the extensive use of artificial harmonics makes it unplayable without committing it to memory, so I never took the time.

    Interestingly, I found several different scores to this piece, each with rather significant differences. Performances of it on YT likewise are very different. I ended up just picking one score and changing it, adding elements from other versions according to my liking. I bet it's a piece that Barrios himself never played the same way twice.

    Now back to Standchen ...

      • Amateur guitarist/lutenist
      • David_Krupka
      • 3 days ago
      • Reported - view

       Very fine performance, Eric. Beautiful clarity in the harmonics. I suspect you're right about Barrios not playing it (and just about everything else!) the same way every time. As I understand it, not all of Barrios's original manuscripts have survived, and modern editions are often transcribed from various recordings he made. I don't know that this is the case here, but it might explain the discrepancies you found.

      • Retired
      • Jim_king
      • 3 days ago
      • Reported - view

       Well done Eric.  Sounds beautiful.  I'm just starting that exercise of getting a score from multiple sources and comparing them and making a guess as to why the arrangers made their choices.  I'm finding it to be an very interesting way to learn some of the choices we can make.  The choices you made in this piece sound great!

      • Dale_Needles
      • 3 days ago
      • Reported - view

        Very beautifully played. Also, to add to the discussion on Barrios, it is true Barrios was not one to write down alot of his music, although he was encouraged to do so when he stayed in Uruguay under the the patronage of Martin Borda Pagola. After Barrios death in 1944, many of these original hand written manuscripts remained in Don Martin's possession, some of which were given to Abel Carlevaro who was a friend of Don Martin. Unfortunately Carlevaro never had the chance to meet Barrios but, nevertheless was a great admirer of his music. Carlevaro would often include Barrios in his concert repertoire.  Some of these original scores or copies of them can be found in the Carlevaro Online Library.

      https://bibliotecaabelcarlevaro.blogspot.com/2019/03/biblioteca-abel-carlevaro.html?m=1

      • Amateur guitarist/lutenist
      • David_Krupka
      • 3 days ago
      • Reported - view

       Thanks for linking this, Dale. I had no idea that this valuable resource existed. It's really interesting to see Carlevaro's very detailed fingering for many of the pieces. Out of curiosity, I looked to see how he approached the notorious 'stretch chord' that occurs in the 'Choro de Saudade' by Barrios. He offers an interesting solution which I don't recall having seen elsewhere - I'll definitely be giving it a try, as I never manage to get that nasty chord cleanly!

      • Dale_Needles
      • 3 days ago
      • Reported - view

       So glad you appreciate this great resource. It truly is a treasure trove of music and great thanks to Alfredo Escande and Vani Carlevaro for putting this together and offering it free to all guitarists. I hope you will find that Carlevaro was brilliant and creative in how he edited and fingered pieces.

      • Steve_Price
      • 2 days ago
      • Reported - view

       Excellent, Eric. Those harmonics really come out cleanly. Having all the different versions of pieces used to drive me crazy, like when I'd hear a recording and then get the score and realize it was very different. Now I see it as a feature, not a bug. Congrats on this. 

      • Retired
      • Jack_Stewart
      • 2 days ago
      • Reported - view

       Great performance, Eric. It sounds like the perfect respite from working on Standchen.

      • Ron.3
      • 2 days ago
      • Reported - view

       Stand out performance Eric - the harmonics are really clear. Well done!!

      • Robert_Love
      • Yesterday
      • Reported - view

       That was terrific Eric. Steady pacing, very nice tone. Solid. 

      • joosje
      • Yesterday
      • Reported - view

       what a nice performance. Well done . Like your well timed and clear harmonics.

    • Steve_Price
    • 2 days ago
    • Reported - view

    Still working on Lauro Vals numbers 2 and 3. The B section of 3 has a lot of full barres, which have caused me some grief in the past, so I'm being careful not to overdo it. Jack and Dale made me want to work on something modern, so I pulled out Annette Kruisbrink's Oda la Pablo Neruda, which I started working on during the Women Composer challenge. It's a set of short pieces based on Neruda's "Ode" poems. This is Ode to the Guitar. 

Content aside

  • 37 min agoLast active
  • 56Replies
  • 99Views
  • 11 Following