What Are You Practising / Composing Now?

[BBMmk2]

Sounded good. I can see with more practice, though, it will be even better!

[Joseph K]

Sounded good. I can see with more practice, though, it will be even better!

Indeed.

[BBMmk2]

Indeed.

Hope this will be encouraging for you. I was involved with the music school at the school where I worked.

[Joseph K]

Rumba strumming patterns and rasgueados.

I have practised these on and off for a while. The last time I ended up with a bloody annular finger of my picking hand through being overly zealous. The cut was just below my nail. There are still specks of blood on the strings (strangely enough although it was bleeding there was no pain). I was practising a sextuplet rasguaedo played annular-middle-index fingers, twice. Now, I play it middle, down-index, up-index fingers, which is easier and hasn't taken me long to get up to a reasonable speed, though there is still some way to go before it's at the required speed!

Gradually I will start incorporating the annular finger into my rasquaedo practising. This time, I will try to relax more and not over-analyse what I'm doing, though making sure I hit the strings with the actual nail, so I don't get cut again!

[Dave2002]

Not composing, but practising several recorder pieces. For playing in a quartet Contrapunctus 1 - from the AoF - really tricky to get the parts intertwining accurately. Some somewhat easier pieces which don't cause a complete breakdown every 10 bars or so, and also some Fantasias by Ferrabosco.

I normally play soprano or treble, but have recently been trying tenor. I don't really like tenor much, either with keys or without - I may abandon attempts to master that one. Similarly I'll probably give bass recorders a miss.

[MrGongGong]

Editing recordings of lullabies and the sounds of the sea in NE Scotland for a gig tomorrow in Portsoy, while listening to the sounds of the sea gulls and waves on the beach outside the Salmon Bothy

[Joseph K]

Tonight, I have Yoda's advice to Luke Skywalker ringing in my ears: "You must unlearn what you have learnt" … because that's precisely what I need to do! Again, my overzealousness is my downfall, I have been pulling back my middle finger far too much in tirando (free) stroke, in my desire to go faster, but obviously it hasn't helped me go faster at all, I should (and this evening, have been doing) have concentrated on economy of movement and rather than tensing or clenching this problematic finger (it's not a problem with the other fingers) relaxed it and pluck the string with a small but convincing motion. Of course, it means (once again) slowing right down and getting rid of a lot of built-up tension. It's all part of the road to good technique I suppose.

[Joseph K]

Well, I have BWV 1000 under my fingers comfortably at the slightly under-tempo of 60 BPM. Over on r3ok a while ago I pondered over which was the more difficult - BWV 1000 or the fugue from 998. I've now decided it's the latter, judging by the progress I've made with the former by comparison - with the fugue from 998 I am still at the modest speed of 50 BPM - if, that is, I want to play it all successfully. It requires more stamina than 1000.

Soon I'll make a video of 1000, though I think I need to make more space on my phone...

[Richard Tarleton]

Well, I have BWV 1000 under my fingers comfortably at the slightly under-tempo of 60 BPM. Over on r3ok a while ago I pondered over which was the more difficult - BWV 1000 or the fugue from 998. I've now decided it's the latter, judging by the progress I've made with the former by comparison - with the fugue from 998 I am still at the modest speed of 50 BPM - if, that is, I want to play it all successfully. It requires more stamina than 1000.

Soon I'll make a video of 1000, though I think I need to make more space on my phone...

Here's Julian Bream playing it - can't see a date but late 70s I'd guess. Never tried it - I'm surprised to hear it's easier than 998!

I always marvel at JB's beautiful left hand - he has proportionately long straight 4th (little) finger which stretches easily across the fingerboard, so unlike mine . And as for his right hand.....

[BBMmk2]

I’ve nearly completed the first movement of Berlioz’s Symphonie Funébre et Triomphale! Progress!

[Joseph K]

Here's Julian Bream playing it - can't see a date but late 70s I'd guess. Never tried it - I'm surprised to hear it's easier than 998!

I always marvel at JB's beautiful left hand - he has proportionately long straight 4th (little) finger which stretches easily across the fingerboard, so unlike mine . And as for his right hand.....

The edition I have is Willard and I notice Bream simplifies some of 998 and 1000 in comparison with Willard...

[Pianoman]

Bashing through Milhaud's two-piano 'Scaramouche' with a friend - I've got the best deal here playing his lovely Kawai Grand while he plays the digital keyboard....)) Still, great fun, and about to move onto Richard Rodney Bennett's 'Four Piece Suite', the first of which is dedicated to Andre Previn..

[Dave2002]

Bashing through Milhaud's two-piano 'Scaramouche' with a friend - I've got the best deal here playing his lovely Kawai Grand while he plays the digital keyboard....)) Still, great fun, and about to move onto Richard Rodney Bennett's 'Four Piece Suite', the first of which is dedicated to Andre Previn..

Is that a so called keyboard, or a digital piano? Have you tried using Midi to get more hands? It may be that you are very purist, or that you don't "get in" to technology, but that's something I'm investigating at present. Some of the higher end digital pianos - or even grand pianos - do have the ability to record and/or play from Midi files.

I'm still working at recorder pieces - mostly treble and soprano, and discovering that the recorder in its various manifestations is actually a very difficult instrument. Many people can play "it" badly - including me. The more I play the harder I find it. What makes it hard? A few things - some very awkward fingering at times, tuning (I find I have to shade the intonation by using extra fingers sometimes - but that can give rise to other problems), playing the notes at the bottom of the instrument, which may present problems with fingering, plus also requiring a very low wind pressure, playing notes in the higher registers - which require very accurate thumb pinching, plus a higher wind pressure, sometimes just carelessness - such as tailing off the wind pressure, or moving fingers closely over holes accidentally, sometimes articulation - some slurred phrases and figurations (which one might imagine would be easier than articulated phrases) can be very difficult. Music in some keys may be very difficult to play, and fully chromatic music can be very hard.

Despite all that, I struggle on, for the moment, and am currently working through some of Jacob van Eyck's collections. Maybe I should also look for my music for Lennox Berkeley's Sonatina, which I used to play years ago - but I've just not got round to that yet.

[johnb]

The edition I have is Willard and I notice Bream simplifies some of 998 and 1000 in comparison with Willard...

Back in my idle early 20s I used to play the Prelude and Fugue from BWV 998 (in the Segovia edition), though I never got round to the Allegro.

For a slightly different take, I find this very interesting. The guitar is weird but the Fugue benefits enormously from the sustained bass notes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n1zBxDC6SWE

[Richard Tarleton]

Back in my idle early 20s I used to play the Prelude and Fugue from BWV 998 (in the Segovia edition), though I never got round to the Allegro.

For a slightly different take, I find this very interesting. The guitar is weird but the Fugue benefits enormously from the sustained bass notes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n1zBxDC6SWE

Interesting, I was hoping you'd chip in, John. This was my very first classical guitar LP, circa 1965. Oscar Ghiglia was very much a Segovia pupil at the time (the usual God-has-touched-his-brow stuff that Segovia anointed his favoured pupils with at the time ) - and he too only plays the Prelude and Fugue, not the Allegro. Even more memorably for me, the LP started with the Dowland Fantasia P1 (listed as Fantasia no 7, as it was in Robert Dowland's Varietie of Lute Lessons) - a piece which has stayed with me all my life.