Duets Member Challenge

Instructions

This challenge is all about playing music with a partner — welcome to the Duets Challenge! Throughout the month you will be working on a piece of music from your grade out of the Academy’s Graded Duets for Classical Guitar book. (You do not need the book to participate — all of the duets from the book can be found in the Duets Repertoire Library.)

For this challenge you may choose what piece you would like to work on. Whereas in other challenges we have asked you to work at your grade level, for this challenge you may want to consider working below your level unless you feel confident about working on your current grade in an ensemble setting. The goal here is to make the added challenge of working with a duet partner more manageable.

To get started, as soon as you sign up for the challenge, please start your own topic in the Duets Member Challenge Forum. (If you’re unsure how to start a new topic, please follow the instructions just below the video at the top of this page). The title of the topic should be your name (or yours and your partner’s names if you have a partner) and the title of the duet. We will assign you a partner if you need one. But if you see someone among the listed participants at your grade level who also needs a partner, consider asking them if they would like to partner with you!

Repertoire

You may choose what piece you like from the Graded Duets book. But here are our recommendations of pieces you might work on at each grade level:

  • Grade 1: Simple Gifts
  • Grade 2: Rossini, Menuetto
  • Grade 3: Sanz, Canarios
  • Grade 4: Telemann, Canon; or Tárrega, Mazurka
  • Grade 5: L’hoyer, Nocturne No.4
  • Grade 6: Bach, Invention in Am
  • Grade 7: Powis, In the Pocket
  • Grade 8: Darr, Allegretto Moderato

Schedule

  • Week 1 Video (or audio): Saturday, May 6th
  • Week 2 Video: Saturday, May 13th
  • Niki’s Office Hours: Sunday, May 14th at 4pm NYC time
  • Dave’s Office Hours: Wednesday, May 17th at 9am NYC time
  • Week 3 Video: Saturday, May 20th
  • Niki’s Office Hours: Sunday, May 21st at 2pm NYC time
  • Dave’s Office Hours: Wednesday, May 24th at 9am NYC time
  • Week 4 Video: Friday, May 26th*
  • Live Wrap-up Session: Sunday, May 28th at 4pm NYC time

*Please be sure to get your final video posted by Friday, May 26th NYC time so that we can gather your videos for the wrap-up session on Sunday, May 28!

Signup

If you are new to the Duets Member Challenges, here are a couple of resources to help you with surmounting the technological hurdles:

How to Edit Guitar Duets in Windows

One of our members graciously provided a couple of tutorials on editing video and audio for duets across distance. Go here to check out the Windows tutorial.

How to Edit Guitar Duets in iMovie

If you happen to be on a Mac device using iMovie, you’ll want to check out this tutorial.