Here's a truism not limited only to nylon string guitar playing:

"When you practice your instrument, you are rowing a boat against the tide. If you stop, then the tide pushes you backwards. So never stop rowing.."

This trip down memory lane revisiting formal (G5) grade pieces, continues to throw up some unknown delights..

Just found "El Negrito", a Venezualan Waltz by Lauro. Very straight forward if you follow the fingering recommends, but another peach of a piece. Still can't stop playing "Birds Flew.." though.

Never expected to find 2 pieces for my limited repertoire in such an unlikely place. Pays to keep your mind open, and not be afraid to re-visit some old ground.

TD, did I read you right that "Canarios" is in the G6 Syllabus? That's "Canarios" by Gaspar Sanz? That's a tough piece (or at least playing those triplets to tempo is tough). John Williams (not surprisingly) plays it like a classical shredding machine! It's one of the 3 major pieces I'm going to be focussed on for the next 12 months.. Good luck to you TD if you decide to take it on!

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Fender Highway & Classic 60s Strats, Fender Toronado, Telecaster, Gretsch Projet, Charvel 3, PRS SE Soapbar II & Custom 24, Burns Batwing and many others!

Adey, you are right-it is Canarios by Gaspar Sanz. I don't know if it's a different version to the one you are thinking of, but it sounds the same as John Williams playing it (but slower, and probably not nearly as good ). It is from Instruccion de musica sobre la guitarra espanola 1674. I will try and record it at some point, but school is incredibly busy at the moment, and I have 2 music projects at the moment-one in music class, one for a video in ICT, also music exams later this school year, and physics and geography exams too.

It would be a cool way to try out recording on my iPad though-a family friend is upgrading from his iPad 1(now mine) to the new iPad 3. As I had been asking around if anyone is selling an old Ipod Touch or iPad, and the original iPads are now worth very little, he sent it to me. Recently I have been looking at buying an iPod Touch for the music/guitar software on them-trouble is, they are so expensive and it is obvious that apple is charging out of proportion prices for them-8gb at £170, then next is 32gb and £250-the difference between an 8 and 32 gb USB stick is much much smaller than that-but since no-one else sells this kind of device, Apple can charge that much. And a new iPad was out of the question-I think they start at £399, which is unfortunate as the iPad is much better for recording and music projects, because of the size etc. So I've been quite lucky this week! I will let you know how that goes, and hopefully upload some tracks to Soundcloud or YouTube or something.

I am also doing El Roble and Allegro-they are really good pieces too, but I sometimes find the constant switching between ponticello and dolce, and also forte and piano in Allegro quite frustrating-it sometimes seems to be more of a technical exercise than a piece of music. But learning it will help improve my technique though. El Roble is hands down, a great piece.

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"reach for the sky and aim for the moon, for if you miss you will end up among the stars"

Zoom MS50G
72 tele dlx RI
2011 standard strat
Blackstar HT-5R
Taylor Big Baby

http://www.youtube.com/user/Almungo/videos?flow=grid&view=0

Pardon me while I go and look up Ponticello.. lol.

I dont think Canarios is simplified - the version I have on an old LP somewhere, has Williams playing it with an orchestra.

Good luck on all those projects you're juggling - I know practice time is precious and sometimes hard won. I'm insisting on 2 hours a day at the moment, which sometimes means using my Line 6 nylon guitar unplugged after my wife goes to bed. I keep late hours anyway. As you get older you'll find you need more practice than you do when you're younger - my experience anyway. You don't learn as quickly either. In my early teens I could play a piece through 2 or 3 times and it would have been learned..

My musical collaborator and I record in our own little project studio with a big PC based system using Logic and a few other programmes. We can even rehearse our blues duo in there without disturbing anyone. We're lucky to have it, but it means we have to set up a big system for a quick bit of recording. The guy I work with musically is exploring I- Pads for those quick moments and he loves them. The range of music apps for that system is getting incredible.

I don't know El Roble - I'll look it up..

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Fender Highway & Classic 60s Strats, Fender Toronado, Telecaster, Gretsch Projet, Charvel 3, PRS SE Soapbar II & Custom 24, Burns Batwing and many others!

I didn't know the word ponticello, because only pont. is used in the books, and i thought it looked odd to write that! So I looked up what pont. stands for...

No, I don't think Canarios is simplified either-the difficulty is changed by the speed you play it at-John Williams plays it in 3, maybe 4 seconds , whilst I play it at usually slightly faster than the recommended speed, but I keep meaning to slow down and play it technically better.

It is very hard to juggle everything at the moment-especially because electric blues/rock guitar and classical guitar are the nearest to separate instruments you can get without playing the piano and the trumpet It is hard to find the time to practice them both, so I usually focus on classical, and at least that improves my electric playing too-it usually does my inspiration good to not play for a week too.

I will let you know how the iPad project goes, but I haven't ordered the iRig or another guitar input system yet, so cannot get started. But there is definitely a massive amount of apps on the store, for recording, film production (as in music video) effects, practice and also tuition-I like the Lick Of The Day app very much.

_________________
"reach for the sky and aim for the moon, for if you miss you will end up among the stars"

Zoom MS50G
72 tele dlx RI
2011 standard strat
Blackstar HT-5R
Taylor Big Baby

http://www.youtube.com/user/Almungo/videos?flow=grid&view=0