Repertoire Member Challenge

Repertoire Member Challenge

Instructions

For this challenge we want you to focus on small excerpts (usually one phrase) from repertoire in the current grade you are working on. In order to participate in this challenge you really must limit yourself and work only on the measures of music we have specified for your grade.

Taking the time to really narrow your focus to only a handful of measures of music can expand the way you think about “being able to play” a passage and especially how well you can play it. But it can also be a great way to unlock your musical imagination, to craft different ways of playing with dynamics, phrasing, rubato, articulation, and more so that you can discover (and ultimately share) your own interpretation.

Each week you will be working on a different excerpt from the same piece of music from your grade. Notice you will start in the middle of the piece! This is quite intentional. Learning to start elsewhere than the beginning can help you strengthen the way you learn repertoire. The most difficult sections of a piece are almost always in the middle, not the beginning. Moreover, your memory and knowledge of a piece can be fortified by spending more time with these middle bits. So to start, we will begin in the middle.

Because the excerpt changes each week, the goal for this challenge is not to master or polish one passage of music, but rather to build up practice skills by working on smaller passages (just one phrase of music!) that you can take to any passage. So each week you will be refining the passage you are working on, but more importantly you’ll be refining your practice patterns from week to week. The overarching goal should thus be to learn and refine your problem-solving skills: building up strategic tools in your practice to tackle different problems you encounter along the way.

In the final week we would like you to take what you have learned and create a performance video of the entire piece. Because we are asking you to perform an entire piece in just one month’s time, if you think this may be difficult you may consider working one or two grades below your current grade.

Expectations

In order to participate in the challenge, each week you will post an update video to show your work on your excerpt.

• For weeks 1 and 3 each person will receive a reply in the Forum from Niki and Dave with feedback on adjustments that can be made for the next week as well as other tips.
• During weeks 2 and 4 Niki and Dave will each host Office Hours where you can come have a quick live check-in over Zoom to go over your excerpt for the week (the week 4 Office Hours will give you the chance to get tips for creating a final performance video).

We will post signups for the Office Hours in the Member Challenge #23 Forum. These sessions will be recorded so if you can’t make it you can watch back  the replay to see feedback for others who are also working on your repertoire piece.

Schedule

Week 1 (video due by August 5):

• Grade 1: Sor, Study no. 3: mm.9 – 16 (up to beat 4)
• Grade 2: Sor, Study no. 9: mm.13 – 16
• Grade 3: Aguado, Menuet: beat 3 of m.9 – m.17
• Grade 4: Bach, Largo BWV 1056: m.6 – m.9 (up to beat 2)
• Grade 5: Sor, Study in D, Op.35 No.17: pickup to m.9 – m. 16 (up to the “and” of beat 4)
• Grade 6: Carcassi, Etude 16: mm.13 – 20
• Grade 7: Barrios, El Sueño de la Muñequita: mm.41 – 48
• Grade 8: Scarlatti, Sonata K.322: pickup to m.23 – m.28 (up to beat 3)

Week 2 (video due by August 12):

• Grade 1: Sor, Study no. 3: beat 4 of m.16 – m.24
• Grade 2: Sor, Study no. 9: mm.5 – 8
• Grade 3: Aguado, Menuet: beat 3 of m.4 – m.8
• Grade 4: Bach, Largo BWV 1056: m.9 – m.13
• Grade 5: Sor, Study in D, Op.35 No.17: pickup to m.25 – m.32
• Grade 6: Carcassi, Etude 16: mm.9 – 12
• Grade 7: Barrios, El Sueño de la Muñequita: mm.8 – beat 1 of m.16
• Grade 8: Scarlatti, Sonata K.322: pickup to m.62 – m.67

Week 3 (video due by August 19):

• Grade 1: Sor, Study no. 3: mm.1 – 8
• Grade 2: Sor, Study no. 9: mm.1 – 4
• Grade 3: Aguado, Menuet: m.1 – 4
• Grade 4: Bach, Largo BWV 1056: m.1 – m.5 (up to beat 4)
• Grade 5: Sor, Study in D, Op.35 No.17: pickup to m.17 – 24 (up to the and of beat 4)
• Grade 6: Carcassi, Etude 16: mm.1 – 8
• Grade 7: Barrios, El Sueño de la Muñequita: mm. 24 – 32
• Grade 8: Scarlatti, Sonata K.322: pickup to m.68 – end

Week 4: Final performance video (video due by August 26)

Wrap-up Session: Sunday, August 27, 2023 at 4pm NYC time