Editors Note: This is a guest post from Rich Fong. Rich a resident of the Seattle area, a guitarist, and a regular Classical Guitar Blog reader.

Xuefei Yang played a recital last night, November 10th, at the Illsley Ball Nordstrom Recital Hall in Seattle. Her program:

J S Bach: Lute Partita in E, BWV 1006A

Giulio Regondi: Reverie Nocturne, Op 19

Leo Brouwer: Sonata

Intermission

Stephen Goss: The Chinese Garden

Isaac Albeniz: Espana, Seis Hojas de Album, Op 165

Francisco Tarrega: Carnival of Venice

Looking resplendent in a champagne colored one shouldered floor length gown, Ms. Yang opened with a knock-out performance of the Lute Partita. From the opening figure she was in total control. Her Bach was excellently paced and phrased. I was particularly impressed with her separation of the voices in the countrapuntal passages. She articulated the ornaments in the Loure a bit differently than I’d heard in the past (my reference point being John Williams’ recording), but it was very moving and effective.

I wasn’t at all familiar with either Regondi or his Reverie, but I’m going to seek out a recording straight off. What an amazing piece. According to the program, Regondi was a prodigy known as the “Infant Paganini” but after his death his compositions were regarded as too diffiult and faded into obscurity. That didn’t phase Ms. Yang. The opening section sounds like it could have been written by Liszt, with an assist from Chopin. The second section, which the notes said might well have been the first guitar composition using tremolo, was simply gorgeous, a melody evoking a Venetian Gondolier’s song. Her tremolo was stunning, providing a shimmering melody over a wandering bass line.

She then played the Brouwer Sonata, which she’d originally planned for the second half. This piece is to me just plain fun to listen to, and she looked like she was just plain having fun playing it. There are not a lot of melodies you end up humming to yourself afterwards, but it leaves you thinking a bit about the guitar and it’s possibilities. This actually brought the subject of her guitar to mind. Was it the hall, her playing, or the guitar itself—a Smallman I believe—but I felt here she could have used more volume from the bass.

The second half of the program began with with Stephen Goss’ “The Chinese Garden,” a suite of four pieces based on traditional Chinese folk themes. Last time she was in Seattle, Ms. Yang played some different Goss compositions—then introduced him–he was sitting in the back of the Hall. Being of Chinese descent, I’ve long enjoyed hearing ethnic folk themes transcribed for the guitar. These pieces, which are on her “40 Degrees North” CD, are effective showpieces, with numerous charming tunes coming and going throughout.

Next up was the Albeniz suite, which, like the Suite Espanola, paints a number of contrasting pictures of different scenes from Spain. The highlights for me were a powerful Malaguena, and an evocative Caprichio Catalan.

She closed the program with a Tarrega’s Carnival of Venice. It’s an engaging crowd pleaser, but seems to me to be a bit like just Tarrega screwing around and showing off how many different ways he can twist a simple theme around. Still, the piece is fun to listen to, but even more fun to watch a great player perform.

Ms. Yang played two encores. The first, a piece I was hoping to hear, was her transcription of the “Yi Dance.” The Yi tribe is one of China’s ethnic minorities. The first time I heard this theme it was played by a pipa player in Isaac Stern’s excellent documentary “From Mao to Mozart,” circa late 70’s. Yi’s transcription covers a lot of ground, literally, always coming back to the haunting main theme.

The second was Gerald Garcia’s arrangement of another catchy Chinese folk tune, “Plum Blossoms in the Snow,” another piece she clearly had a great time playing. I’m struck by two things: First, how much Chinese folk tunes arranged for the guitar sound like they’d fit right in with American west, frontier type movies. Second, that they’ve been so beautifully transcribed or composed for guitar by Stephen Goss (Welsh), Dietmar Ungerrank (Austrian) and Gerald Garcia (Hong Kong born, educated and living in Oxford).

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• Xuefei Yang on BBC

p i m, Giuliani RH study no. 2. One of the most basic arpeggios, and easy to master.

original

Here’s two ways to make it more exciting.

1. Start with different fingers. This shifts the accent and completely changes the feel of the arpeggio. It’s strangely challenging even though it seems very basic.





2. Put fingers on the same string. This requires more precise sequential planting to get a good sound. In some cases (the last one), it’s very awkward, and one of those instances where you take something further than needed to the original feels easier.

These two methods of varying p i m can be applied to any arpeggio.

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• Video Lesson: Setting up your Right Hand Position

1. A lot of what a good teacher does is tell the student to do the things written on the page. All those dynamic and tempo and expression markings are important. Do them.
2. Exaggerate everything. Play Forte crazy loud and Piano very soft. Play staccato very short and legato as connected as possible. Your audience will thank you.
3. In practice, fix one thing at a time. Never try to fix a whole piece at once.
4. Practice perfect. Find the way that you can play a passage perfectly and do it. It does no good to screw something up 9 times, get it right once and quit.
5. Think small. Virtuosity is in the little things.
6. Technique practice is important, and should be done daily.
7. That said, no one comes to a concert to hear technique exercises. Don’t forget that playing any instrument is about playing music. Technical exercises are a means to an end.
8. Just thinking of a group of notes as a unit changes the way you play them. Find the groups.
9. A phrase is a group of notes. Phrases crescendo slightly towards their climax, and diminuendo away from it — phrases have a shape. Sometimes the phrases are written in for you with phrasing slurs, play them as such (see number one).
10. The most expressive thing in music is silence. Start and end a piece with a moment of poise, and be sure to “play” the rests. For guitarists that means we have to mute strings.
11. Not all phrases are created equal. Not all phrases need a huge ritard. The end of a phrase shouldn’t sound the same as the end of a section; the end of a section shouldn’t sound the same as the end of a piece. There’s always a hierarchy.
12. The most important technical aspect you can work on is relaxation. Guitar playing should feel easy.
13. The big knuckles (the one connecting your fingers to your palm) on your left hand do not absolutely have to be parallel to the guitar neck. Sometimes an angled position makes things easier. Pay attention to what works, and do whatever is easiest.
14. If you don’t notice what you’re hands do during a difficult passage, there’s no hope of fixing it. Pay attention. Analyze the movements. Break it down, and figure out what gives you trouble. Practice that. (see number five)
15. Scales get all credit for making great guitar players, but we spend most of our time playing arpeggio textures. It only makes sense to give arpeggios a fair amount of practice as well.
16. Keep a practice log. If you can’t remember what you practiced a week ago, how do you know you’ve gone anywhere at all?
17. Record yourself. It’s enlightening to hear what you really sound like.
18. Melody gets all the attention, but the bass line matters too. Pay attention to the note values and the bass line’s shape. Changing the way the bass is played can change an entire piece.
19. Play lines separately. Get a melody or bass line to sound perfect on its own, then put it back in the complete texture an try to make it sound the same.
20. Left hand fingers can be sequenced. Before plopping fingers down, ask yourself when they really need to be added. Waiting to add a left hand finger can make a hard passage easier.
21. File your nails the night before or at the start of a practice day. Never in the middle. It’s too much work to get used to the “new” nails.

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• Ascending Slurs

Matthew Slotkin is a New York City based performer and teacher. He teaches at Mansfield University, and uses his teaching gig as a base for his other creative activities.

I had the chance to catch Matt in concert with one of his very interesting chamber music ensembles, Duo Montagnard, a guitar and saxophone duo. It’s a very unique ensemble with some interesting repertoire. He also performs with a double bass player in Dez Cordas.

Part 1

-How he started playing guitar
-Playing jazz guitar
-Studying at Eastman with Paul O’Dette

Part 2

-The very interesting chamber music groups in which Matthew performs
-Amplifying for chamber music
-About his Dammann guitar

Part 3

-Commissioning new works for guitar solo, guitar + saxophone, or guitar + double bass
-Matthew’s CD, Twentieth Century Music for Guitar

Part 4

-The guitar program at Mansfield College
-Tips for guitarists
-Upcoming projects

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• An Interview with Jonathan Roth, Part 1

Guitarist Sharon Isbin, violinist Joshua Bell, and other musicians will perform live at the White House tonight at 7:15pm (eastern standard time).

The best part? You can watch it! Just go to http://www.whitehouse.gov/live at 7pm EST tonight. Here’s the story about what’s going on tonight; it includes some videos of rehearsal.

I won’t be able to watch tonight, but hopefully they release the concert footage.

Let me know in the comments if you watch it and what you thought!

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• Alice Artzt on Ida Presti’s RH Technique

Whether we go on stage to play a full hour program or for just one piece, performing is an intense (and mildly terrifying) experience. This article is about dealing with the time immediately before a performance. I assume you’ve already selected repertoire and learned it.

1.) Practice Performance

Practicing is different from practicing performance.

Practicing performance is playing a piece straight through. No stopping, and no loss of rhythmic flow. This is a test of performance outside of the nervousness inspired by playing for an audience.

The big thing, when practicing performance, is to get your head right. Mistakes suck. They’re frustrating. Get in the mindset of a performer. Observe mistakes happening, then file them away or disregard them completely. Work towards not dwelling on mistakes. This is something that has to be done during performance, so it might as well be practiced.

2.) Warm-up

About a month before the recital is a good time to start doing warm-up performances. Keep mind that you should probably plan these well in advance if you’re planning on performing an entire recital.

A warm-up performance is just playing for a few friends or your significant other or a video camera¹. In short, it’s just a way to get some experience in real performance situations before the big event happens.

The greatest indicator of how preparing a piece is is a performance. Did all the thing you practiced come out in performance? How did that hard passage go? Did your hands get tired? Asking these questions can help provide the new goals for practicing should be.

3.) Visualization

Most of us know about mental practice. Visualization is a powerful tool, and it can be used to help prepare for your performance.

Imagine yourself on stage, see yourself from the perspective of an audience member. Hear the music you’re playing. Then switch points of view. Imagine the feeling being on stage (confidence!), and image yourself playing perfectly.

More important, I think, is visualizing the time after the performance. How will it feel to be over? Capture that feeling of success before it happens. Then use that energy when you walk out on stage for real.

4.) The Day Of

Some performers have little rituals. I think there’s a lot of value in that if you perform very frequently. For those of us who perform less frequently, doing some ritual can often freak us out more.

Here’s a different approach: do whatever you normally do. Whatever your technical or warm up routine usually is, do it. Then spend a few minutes starting each piece. If you feel like playing more, stick to practicing performance (see above). My preference would be to do these things either early in the day or a few hours before the performance.

Right before would be a good time just to noodle around or start pieces to get your hands warmed up.

I would not, under any circumstance, work on drilling a difficult passage or change a fingering or do any sort of real practice the day of a performance. Doing so might lead to a loss of confidence that carries over on stage.

___________
¹ Other warm up performance ideas: playing for a elementary school class, giving a short performance a local library, performing in a retirement home, playing the prelude music at your religious institution, visiting a local college with a guitar program for a lesson with the teacher (more intense), performing for a local guitar society meeting. There’s a lot of opportunities for warm-up performances. Just think outside the box.

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• Koyunbaba on Lute

Luthier Dave Schramm put a camera inside a Greg Smallman guitar. Very cool.

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• Linkage: 6/19/09

“Virtuosos believe in making things as easy as possible.”
-Philip Hii

Today we feature lutenist Paul O’Dette performing A Fancy by John Dowland. This recording is from O’Dette’s recording of Dowlands Complete Lute Works.

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• Monday Motivation: New Year Edition

A practice technique is a method for practicing short sections. Some of the most difficult passages in pieces we play require us to practice them in all sort of ways. Aside from the usual, “go really slow,” here’s a few other ways to work on that difficult section.

Slow/Fast Alternation is just what you would thing: play it slow, then play it fast. Why play fast? After a movement is programmed in (the slow portion), it’s essential to try it at concert tempo. Contrary to popular belief, it doesn’t take months of work to play at concert tempo. Anyone can do it for a short time after very little practice. Sometimes those movements that work slow don’t work at tempo. This method will let you know if that’s the case right away.

Changing the Rhythm is a good way to step outside the usual. Playing something a, “swing,” rhythm automatically building in speed bursts, and is a great way to work on a passage. It doesn’t stop there, however. Try arranging passages into many different rhythms for a lot variety.

Practicing with a variety of Dynamics is a great way to nail down right hand patterns. Playing loudly feels different from playing softly. We can harness those differences to make a passage more secure and fluent.

Thunk Practice is when the left hand is just held over the strings muting all of them. This is a great way to hear evenness in right hand patterns. However, thunk practice can also be done where the left hand is used as normal, but never actually presses down — the fingers just lightly touch the string at the fret. The result of practicing this second way is a very light feeling left hand. Worth a try!

Are you away from a guitar on a regular basis? Try Mental Practice. Just as the name suggests, this form of practice does not involve the instrument. It’s all about visualizing and analyzing.

Stop/Go Practice is best utilized on difficult left hand shifts or events. Play up until the shift, STOP, move, hover, then place and play and go. This give you time to think and analyze the movement; it allows you practice it the same way each time, speeding up learning through correct repetition.

Not every difficult passage will require all of these techniques. Pick and choose what works best. I use a lot of stop/go and slow/fast practice. However, with big scales, I tend to change the rhythm. Try a few for each passage, and see if it works. Write it down in your practice log and go from there.

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• Practice Techniques: “Thunk” Practice

Since the Classical Guitar Blog started, I’ve written a lot on practicing. With good reason: musicians spend a lot of time practicing. And everyone is looking for the secret. The real secret is that learning an instrument it’s not about the time between lessons with a great teacher. There’s only so much a teacher can do in one hour/week. The rest of it is on us, the students.

Here’s some reading on practicing.

1. Finding Time to Practice. Everyone is busy, but finding to practice does not have to be difficult. Set aside a time every day that’s always for practicing.




2. Micro-Practice for Big Results. Who says a fifteen minute practice session is a waste of time? This post explains how to make most of short practice sessions.




3. Deconstructing a Mistake. A technical or music event is something that gives you trouble. Breaking down that event and finding the elements with in it is the key to fixing problems. That’s what practicing should be about. It’s not just pure repetition.




4. Five Reasons to Start a Practice Log (today). Practice logs make you a better guitarist. I’ve written on this multiple times. Still need convincing? Read this article.




5. Goal Oriented Guitar Practice. How to use various goals to give your practicing focus and direction.




6. Refined Laziness. Everyone is lazy sometimes. That doesn’t mean laziness is bad for practicing.




7. Guitar Practice Schedules. Figuring out exactly how to spend your time practicing is difficult. This article contains some thoughts on how to set up practice schedules. Just remember: not everything can be fixed in one day.

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• Exploring Campanella Fingering