Before starting my project, I set out to create a list of pieces of my favorite pieces from all three albums before deciding and getting an idea of which pieces might work or not. The first list I compiled looked like this.
Solo Piano I: Manifesto, Dot, Armellodie, The Tourist & Oregano
Solo Piano II: Rideaux Lunaries, Othello, Train of Thought & La Bulle
Solo Piano III: Pretenderness, Nimbus, Be Natural. Present Tense, October 3rd & Kopfinko
After some thought and consideration towards what could work or not, this is what I landed on.
Solo Piano I: Manifesto & Armellodie.
Solo Piano II: Rideaux Lunaries & Othello.
Solo Piano III: Pretenderness & October 3rd.
I landed on these pieces after considering 3 major components with the classical guitar. Stage presence, range, and technical limitations. For stage presence, the classical guitar has a much smaller sound so I picked pieces that would compliment and give the guitar a chance to show off its strengths such as its range of color in order to make up for its lack of sound. As for the range, there would instances during some of Chilly's pieces that would have the melody too close to the harmony or too far apart. The guitar has a much shorter range while having the risk of sounding "muddy" when the melody and harmony are stacked too close on our instrument. And lastly, technical limitations. For some of the pieces found on the third album, there were moments like in "Kopfinko," where one hand held ostinatos while the other hand would continue to play other material. This would be challenging to replicate on the guitar due to the possibility of the repeated idea, ostinato, occupying both hands to be played taking away the ability to play the secondary idea. Simply with the approach to creating sound on the guitar is, generally, the LH is meant to hold a note note and the RH is responsible for creating the sound. Unlike the piano where both hands are responsible and can create sound independently.
After choosing the pieces for my project, I started the process with "Rideaux Lunaries. In the beginning, I set out dictate the entire RH as I had set out to do in a timeline where I mapped out the weekly process in order for me to reach my goal of transcribing two pieces per album. As well as figuring out other components of the song such as the time signature, key and orientation. The process was very repetitive and slow. I would find myself repeating sections multiple times and slow them down with YouTube's playback speed option. Things started to not looks so good when I ran into a section incorporated something that compliments the piano very well about 1 minute into the piece. I found myself stuck working on this small section, trying to come up with different ways to implement it on the guitar to only end up missing my goal for the week.
