diegord

Good to know that people around the world play tango. I try to do studies and pieces, I don't know... I guess we all do more or less the same. Playing chromatic scales though is now, again, the very first thing I do. As stupid as it may sound is in fact a real finger warmer. Cheers

Good advice, thanks. The problem is sometimes we work on many pieces at the same time, and they require different techniques. In that case, I guess I'd have to look for different studies. OUT OF TOPIC: Do you play tango? In case you do, what tangos have you played? By the way, I'm Argentinian :toothygrin:

Now that you mention it, I used to play chromatic scales to warm up... I'm doing that right now, picking up my guitar for the first time in all day and seems to be doing the job :) I'm playing chromatic scales with rest stroke, free stroke, and legato. Warm! I mean, cool! :P Thanks

It may be a little bit late already to ask for warm up excercises when I've been playing for years, but the truth is I don't have any. I can warm up with many pieces or studies, but I've found out that in piano for example, I have exercises that are true warmup excercises (like the Hanon method) and really improve my playing. Does anybody know any? Thanks a lot.

I, myself, do not try to demonstrate to the listener any technical aspect. What I try to do, though, is to try to understand the source as best as possible. That's one of the things I find most interesting about being an interpreter. I can think of all the technical stuff when I'm studying the piece, but ultimately when I play I just play and give my best to achieve musicality. The thing is that, having studied certain parameters in advance, I get to play the music in a different manner. As regards counterpoint, taking the "loyalty to the source" factor out of discussion, I believe it's like film making. You may shoot long takes and let the viewer decide what to look at. Or you may do an extensive editing job to show the viewer what you want him to see. I rather not emphasize any voice and let my ears decide what to focus on. Hehe, probably it's not matching the topic's title, but I think we're still on track. :D Besides, I started the topic and I don't worry :P Thanks for the thoughts.

Don't worry, I think I had gotten your point about dynamics. Interesting. I agree with you about bringing out individual lines. But again, then the performer is limited. And therefore he should play without dynamics in order to be as loyal to the source as possible, and keep all voices equally predominant. Or apply the same dinamics to all the voices. That shouldn't be wrong. I still rather keep dynamics mostly out of the mix when I play pre-classical music. Cheers.

Excellent thoughts, I agree.. thanks. I play some piano too and I try not to use dynamics at all when I play Bach, I rather ornament my pieces by playing rubato (not excessively of course) on many parts, for example, slowering arpeggios and accelerating scales. How do you guys play music written for harpsichord as regards dynamics? Most guitarrists I've heard also play without dynamics when the music is pre-classical, which I find pointless for example for pieces written for lute, since the lute gave you the chance to use them. I don't believe that people from the barroque period couldn't play piano and forte on the lute just because they couldn't on the harpsichord.

Hello people of the forum! I can't decide on how to perform Luis Milan's pavanes, originally written for vihuela. I know how to make my guitar sound more like a vihuela, or how to get the completely opposite timber by making it sound like a lute. As guitarists now, I can achieve that by playing closer to the neck (lute) or closer to the bridge (vihuela). The thing is, I know that the pavanes were written for vihuela, but.. Is it wrong if I make it sound like a lute? Since the lute was the most popular string instrument in reinassance, I don't see why not, and I like the sound of it. What I play, after all, is an adaptation for guitar. But maybe I should be more... loyal to the source, and make it sound like a vihuela. Thoughts anyone?

Thank you very much for the advice master. My nails are shorter and that really improved my sound and volume. I'm also playing harder, but here's the problem. When I'm playing Leo Brouwer's study no.1 (from the "6 Estudios Simples"), I need to achieve some fortes and fortissimos marcato. Since the study is kinda powerful (I'm too lazy to think of a better adjective :P) , that really needs to get the all the sound out of my guitar, but I'm making it sound ugly. Regarding this, my new teacher (I'm taking classes with her for a couple of months) told me to practice playing harder everytime I play, but to play Brouwer's study thinking about the music, because I was getting louder but the sound was getting poorer. Bottom Line: do you know any studies that I can play to get louder volume? Specially with the thumb. I'll be going on a short 1 week vacation the first week of January. After that I'll try to post in youtube some videos of myself playing. Thank you very much master, have a great 2008.

Something that also works out with my young students that I forgot to mention is that, the measure before giving the cue, I show that group of performers the palm of my hand (sort of saying STOP!), to make sure they don't start playing before they are expected to. Then I indicate the previous beat with an upward motion and give the cue. Thanks everyone! penguinsbyc's link is excellent, check it out. It's just what I had been looking for.

Just go ahead and do it. Sounds fu*king awesome. I was going to say what fauzie said. Make it easy to play, and get music students to play it. No one will ever have that piece in their repertoire. Musicians will probably play their cues and then put their sheets inside a frame like a souvenir. But it will be great for one shot, and sounds like a hell of a quest to make it work. Academic music today is fed by crazy ideas like that.

I have never dared to start a thread with that question, luckily someone did! What I now so far about conducting is to give cues with one hand and show the tempo with the other, using the patterns that you use for sight reading (down-left-right-up for 4/4 , down-right-up for 3/4, etc). You probably have read Paul Hindemith, his book is great for that sort of training in order to give cues with different rhythms while you keep the tempo steady, and not only for piano playing as many people think. I'm working with a very good conductor at the school where I teach, I will be probably learning a lot more from him. I'll ask if he knows about any book. I'm really not willing to start a degree on conducting, at least not right now. Any other clue from someone else? I would like to get a good book on conducting, and/or some tips! Cheers

Well that's probably the reason why we get to go there :( Finally I will be applying for San Diego State University as first choice. Do you know anything about music there? Thanks a lot! Diego.

Well, I know that my question sounds kind of stupid, but she may have learned some voice conducting basics, and basic chord analysing at school. At least here that's the first thing you are taught about harmony. At that point you know how to conduct voicings effectively or how to write and/or analize SATB voicing, but not how use harmony for comping.

Great! Thank you so much! Really, thanks for the effort of reading all and recommending. By the way, what makes them better than the rest?