The Work Diary

Focusing issues again because I wanted visual on my hands. 

Pro Tip: to really minimize the chance for error, you just have to choreograph and rehearse every "shift" and every right hand pattern.  What does this mean?  I've been navigating classical guitar pieces for years just more or less spontaneously hitting more clean notes than rough ones, but what do the pros do?  I theorize that they really conciously execute every left hand shift with thoroughly rehearsed movements - and unsual right hand patterns are identified and really practiced ad nauseam.  We'll come back to all this another time. 

Someone asked me why I still practice / record classical guitar if I already know I don't want to take it to a pro / performance level.  Its because freaking classical guitar is the ultimate in contorting your hand to its most uncomfortable state whilst schizophrenically trying to sustain a posture of complete relaxation to even then even try create something that lands anywhere near the intended musical target.  This is a useful and transferable skill when working on any genre of music. 

Carcassi 2

Sor 8

I've started using a new recording software called Reaper, and its way better than Garageband.  Just easier in every way and the videos you can find online aren't just random people making up a "lesson" as they go along.  Looking forward to using it more.

Recording reminds me a lot of going to guitar lessons.  You practice a lot and really think you're ready to show your teacher but for some reason when you get there, problems appear that were never an issue before.  Now you're suddenly behind the guitar and in front of it - you're the player and also part of the audience wondering whats going to happen next which is really stressful and frustrating because at home you might get to a place where you're not really thinking about anything at all when playing and the music just seems to happen but as soon as someone else is in the room (or a machine is listening), you are split into 2 people concentrating and trying to relax at the same time.  Its getting easier though because before I used to have the microphones set up for a few days trying to record a good take, but now I can get it within the hour.  Hopefully some day I'll just sit down and capture it right on the first try!

Ishida (Carcassi)

Ishida (Sor)

On day 7 this was like a Hail Mary pass. 

I thought I'd figured out on Sor #6 how to accurately prepare w/ the right hand in order to achieve better articulation / accuracy and sound more professional on recordings - so I took on a 3-page Bach Prelude.  It was going well, and I had it all memorized until I recorded myself and realized I was playing it way way too slow, and it didn't really make sense at that tempo - this was day 5.  I tried to speed it up, but that only brought back the bad habit of the Right Hand landing accurately only maybe 25% of the time which led to lots of clicks and general "nailiness" to which I want to say good bye to forever.  Yes I was striking the strings on time, but the tone of each one sounded random and amateur hour with maybe only 25% of them sounding full and rich.

So I changed to another Bach that I'd learned in college that I figure'd be recordable since its only 1 page and much slower - that was 2 days ago.  Today I realized that the second Bach was also too difficult and random to try and capture on the recorder even though I was landing maybe 60%?  This one also had a tougher left hand which tends to stress out my right hand and screws up accuracy resulting in tone that sounds like its gasping for breath.

I thought about skipping this week understanding that I'd made a mistake - but then I remembered this Carcassi study from college, and I remember it being 'super easy'.  After a few hours I was able to get this one pretty well under my fingers to record - its not perfect, but I gotta move on.  Thanks to the relatively static left hand and the always rolling in the same direction in the right hand, this one really removes a lot of the factors that were in the Bach.

Take aways

 - You can't tackle a fast piece with lots of varying right hand - or you can but it'll take a long time to get it up to tempo

Ishida