Still at it, I scored a little over an hour today. I did some Pumping Nylon exercises (slurs) earlier in the day along with some scales, and then later tonight, I did the Spider and Odair finger independence exercises for quite a while, along with some didactic pieces meant to work on specific left and right hand issues. My third and fourth left hand fingers are still a little clumsy compared to the other two, but they'll come around. I've just never worked to get them to be more fluid. I dug deeper into the initial 10 Giuliani arpeggio studies. The first two or three aren't that big of a deal, but I got hung up occasionally on some of the next 5. I'm marking down those that don't come super easily to me, and will build up a set of exercises that work on specific problem areas.
As for repertoire, I spent some time making sure of the 4 measures early in the "Hermanina" piece that were tricky, and then added the next two measures, which are also slightly tricky. After some careful work there, I moved to the end of the piece, and reviewed the last 5 measures. Once done with that, I added two more measures to the end section, which required quite a bit of work figuring out left hand fingerings very high up on the fretboard. I also figured out a misprint in the music, based on Cruz's own left hand fingering notations in the piece. I tried it both as written and as it seemed to be, and chose the one that fit best.
It was relatively easy to get the last 20 measures or so of the Carcassi Etude under my fingers, and I almost have them memorized, I think. Tomorrow, I'll add another phrase or two working backwards from that ending section. The Sor Study offered up some interesting challenges, but I've at least figured out the fingerings in both hands for the entire piece, and I think I did a good job on bringing out the melody with the right hand. On "Pourpre," I added the "B" section, but I've got a little more work to do to get that under control. I will start with that piece tomorrow.
So, this practice thing is working for me, I think. Tomorrow, in addition to the classical work, I think I'll try my hand at some steel string playing (scales with a pick and some boom-chick-a-boom strumming patterns) for some variety.
Tuesday, April 22, 2008
Monday, April 21, 2008
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.
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.
Sunday, April 20, 2008
Day 1 - Classical
Today, I spent some time choosing some pieces to work on in the coming weeks and months. Some of them are pieces that I once learned while taking lessons here in Austin, and the rest will be brand new to me. I also looked through some technique books to choose exercises and such that I will work on in the time to come.
The most work today was done on a piece by Mark Cruz entitled "Hermanina." It's a slowish piece from a collection entitled "Pequeñas Piezas para Mi Padre" that I purchased yesterday at the Festival. It's going to take a while to get it under my fingers, but that's the general idea of my new project. I played through most of it, hacking my way through a more difficult middle section in E flat, and making a mess of a section in the coda that will require a good deal of work. I like the piece, though. I have the first 10 measures or so well under control, so that's a good start.
Tomorrow, I'll start the more didactic part of the project, beginning my practice day with work in the Pumping Nylon book by Scott Tennant. This is a great book, and it contains enough stuff to work on to occupy me for months and months to come. I will also start work on some pieces that I learned long ago, in order to help me get my technique back and beyond my current limitations.
It was a good day of practice. I worked nearly 2 hours on all things, which won't be the norm. So far, so good.
The most work today was done on a piece by Mark Cruz entitled "Hermanina." It's a slowish piece from a collection entitled "Pequeñas Piezas para Mi Padre" that I purchased yesterday at the Festival. It's going to take a while to get it under my fingers, but that's the general idea of my new project. I played through most of it, hacking my way through a more difficult middle section in E flat, and making a mess of a section in the coda that will require a good deal of work. I like the piece, though. I have the first 10 measures or so well under control, so that's a good start.
Tomorrow, I'll start the more didactic part of the project, beginning my practice day with work in the Pumping Nylon book by Scott Tennant. This is a great book, and it contains enough stuff to work on to occupy me for months and months to come. I will also start work on some pieces that I learned long ago, in order to help me get my technique back and beyond my current limitations.
It was a good day of practice. I worked nearly 2 hours on all things, which won't be the norm. So far, so good.
What Is This About?
Yesterday, I participated with an adult classical guitar ensemble in a festival here in Austin. It is called "Guitars Galore," and featured performances by each of 9 ensembles, along with a guest speaker and a finale performance by about 50 of us on two pieces that we learned together. It was great fun, and our group performed pretty well, so that was a relief. The big finale performance went well, too, so the entire day was pretty satisfying, in a musical sense.
The big deal to me, however, was how I was affected by the guest speaker's presentation. His name is Glenn Kurtz, and he's written a book entitled "Practicing: A Musician's Return to Music." I picked up a copy of the book, but I haven't read it yet. That's not the most important thing in this story, however. Dr. Kurtz (he's a Professor of Comparative Literature) was a talented classical guitarist as a young man, and graduated from the New England Conservatory intending to pursue his dream of being a concert guitarist. When he realized that his talents weren't sufficient to achieve the lofty goals he had set for himself as a younger man, he grew disillusioned and quit the guitar and music entirely for some 10 years. After receiving his Masters and PhD in Literature, he eventually returned to the guitar to see if he could enjoy it and his relationship with music and the guitar on a totally different level than he had in his younger days. He discusses these conflicts in his book, as well as what the notion of "practice" means.
What I took from that presentation was that I've coasted along for quite a while as a guitarist on some basic level of ability, a decent musical ear, and the remnants of technique that I learned in about 4 years of guitar lessons that I took as an adult. I have never really practiced in any organized or regular fashion, and I certainly haven't done any musical "pushups" in that time. Those would be things like scales, arpeggio studies, and other didactic pieces. I know that they would help me along my musical journey, but have shunned them.
So, I've decided to set out and see if regular practice will help improve my musical lot in life. Today was Day One. What's my plan?
I established my goal as a minimum of 30 minutes of guitar practice per day. That's not so much. If I last longer on any given day, that's great. I might play either classical or steel string guitar, but most days, I anticipate this being a classical music endeavour.
I've picked out a bunch of classical guitar pieces to learn, or re-learn in some cases, in order to make my musical brain and muscles work in a focused way. The pieces are ones that I anticipate I'll be done with in a week, some in 2 weeks, or a month, or in some cases, 3 months (a couple of Bach pieces from his Cello Suites). I've also gotten out some of the collection of technique books and studies that I've bought in the past, and I plan to start each practice day with some of the nuts and bolts work that I should have been doing all along.
As for steel string guitar, I will mostly work with a pick, to get my chops up when I am not fingerpicking on that sort of instrument. Scales again, as well as some other patterns. I will improve on fingerpicking through the classical work, so I won't repeat too much of that outside of classical.
I will try to set goals for each practice session, in order to create some structure for myself. Whether I achieve any or all of my goals for a given day isn't as important as the focused attempt to do so. If I don't "block out chord changes for measures 30-45 of Carcassi number ##," I'll just put it on the goal list for the next day.
As always, I have an additional side project to learn the lyrics and chords to various popular songs so that if called upon at a party, I can actually play something. It's awfully embarrassing when you can only remember the intro and one verse and chorus of a song and have to mumble through the rest of it or just quit. So, we'll see how that goes as well.
I'll try and keep all of those various projects updated here.
The big deal to me, however, was how I was affected by the guest speaker's presentation. His name is Glenn Kurtz, and he's written a book entitled "Practicing: A Musician's Return to Music." I picked up a copy of the book, but I haven't read it yet. That's not the most important thing in this story, however. Dr. Kurtz (he's a Professor of Comparative Literature) was a talented classical guitarist as a young man, and graduated from the New England Conservatory intending to pursue his dream of being a concert guitarist. When he realized that his talents weren't sufficient to achieve the lofty goals he had set for himself as a younger man, he grew disillusioned and quit the guitar and music entirely for some 10 years. After receiving his Masters and PhD in Literature, he eventually returned to the guitar to see if he could enjoy it and his relationship with music and the guitar on a totally different level than he had in his younger days. He discusses these conflicts in his book, as well as what the notion of "practice" means.
What I took from that presentation was that I've coasted along for quite a while as a guitarist on some basic level of ability, a decent musical ear, and the remnants of technique that I learned in about 4 years of guitar lessons that I took as an adult. I have never really practiced in any organized or regular fashion, and I certainly haven't done any musical "pushups" in that time. Those would be things like scales, arpeggio studies, and other didactic pieces. I know that they would help me along my musical journey, but have shunned them.
So, I've decided to set out and see if regular practice will help improve my musical lot in life. Today was Day One. What's my plan?
I established my goal as a minimum of 30 minutes of guitar practice per day. That's not so much. If I last longer on any given day, that's great. I might play either classical or steel string guitar, but most days, I anticipate this being a classical music endeavour.
I've picked out a bunch of classical guitar pieces to learn, or re-learn in some cases, in order to make my musical brain and muscles work in a focused way. The pieces are ones that I anticipate I'll be done with in a week, some in 2 weeks, or a month, or in some cases, 3 months (a couple of Bach pieces from his Cello Suites). I've also gotten out some of the collection of technique books and studies that I've bought in the past, and I plan to start each practice day with some of the nuts and bolts work that I should have been doing all along.
As for steel string guitar, I will mostly work with a pick, to get my chops up when I am not fingerpicking on that sort of instrument. Scales again, as well as some other patterns. I will improve on fingerpicking through the classical work, so I won't repeat too much of that outside of classical.
I will try to set goals for each practice session, in order to create some structure for myself. Whether I achieve any or all of my goals for a given day isn't as important as the focused attempt to do so. If I don't "block out chord changes for measures 30-45 of Carcassi number ##," I'll just put it on the goal list for the next day.
As always, I have an additional side project to learn the lyrics and chords to various popular songs so that if called upon at a party, I can actually play something. It's awfully embarrassing when you can only remember the intro and one verse and chorus of a song and have to mumble through the rest of it or just quit. So, we'll see how that goes as well.
I'll try and keep all of those various projects updated here.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)