Day 2

Now the musical pushups begin. I started off today's practice with a survey of the Daily Warmup in the Pumping Nylon book. I found out several trouble spots, which is the idea of those exercises. My ascending slurs (hammer-ons in non-classical parlance) are a little weak using the third and fourth left hand fingers. My descending slurs are a mess, lacking smoothness as I shift along. The sound is okay, but I can't hold a rhythm with them. My third and fourth fingers, again, are weak on the triplet exercise (sort of a combo platter of slur work). And, lastly, I need left hand finger independence work, esp. with those troublesome 3rd and 4th fingers. I worked on the Odair Assad independent l.h. study and the "spider" drills, and those will become permanent parts of the daily routine. I worked through the first 5 Giuliani arpeggio studies, too. It was a good start to the day.

I've isolated two small sections of "Hermanina" which have some interesting left hand issues, and I've worked those problems, but they will require more time in the coming week. I'm ignoring the tricky B section in Eflat for the time being, focusing instead on the A and Coda sections that hang out in G. I learned the last 5 measures and worked out the fingerings high up the fretboard near the end of the piece.

The Sor Study No. 2 was one that I learned a long time ago when I started taking classical lessons as an adult. Today, I worked the first 16 measures. There is still work to be done with bringing out the melody better with the right hand, but it's coming along nicely. Tomorrow I should be able to add the next section, an 8 measure part.

I blocked out the chords for an extended arpeggio section of Carcassi's Study No. 1, which is basically the main issue with that piece. It is another one that I had learned probably 6 years ago. That work went smoothly, and I was able to shift cleanly between those chords in proper time. Tomorrow, I'll add the right hand arpeggio figures to those chords, and will work from there to the end of the piece. I might be able to have this one memorized in a week.

Last, "Pourpre," the LeClerq piece. It's from a series of 6 pieces inspired by various coloeurs, and I want to learn all 6 of them. I had learned 4 of them in the past, but haven't worked them in quite a while. I've whittled down a couple of short 2 measure sections to isolate tomorrow which feature left hand issues holding down notes with one finger while the others spider around to grab new chords around it. This is another piece that I should have ready to roll inside of a week.

So, it's amazing what happens when you actually practice. Already, it's clear that I would have gotten much more out of my lessons if I had worked this hard then. I put in about 90 minutes today. So far, so good.