This week, I was unable to put as much time as I would have wanted towards my project as I was preparing for the semi-finals of a competition and shifted my focus to putting in more practice hours for the week.
In order to make sure I didn't neglect my arrangements, I started using what I had for Rideaux to start my practices as a warm up. For roughly thirty minutes to an hour, I would either start with the accompaniment part which has me working on arpeggios warming up my right hand. Or I would star with the main part which has me working on my octaves and doing some stretches. Both great for the left hand. Octaves on the guitar are different than the piano where all keys of the piano are the same size making the octave the same size/distance on all keys. While on the guitar, the frets change in size the higher you are on the fretboard adding another difficulty factory with the shape and landing on it.
For my second arrangement, Armellodie, I've been doing good in continuing to work at it in small chunks. I repeated my approach from Rideaux going into Armellodie by not spending too much time on sections I was stuck on. I continued to push through and work on the returning A section, putting my focus on all the subtle differences that were added the second time around.. Helping me finish the third and final section of the piece.
The difficulties I ran into finishing the last section were very technical. With how I transcribed the A section onto the guitar, it was already a pretty dense part. Utilizing 5 strings at a time almost each measure in order to incorporate everything that's being played. Going into the repeated material, it became more demanding with extra material being added. One thing to help me as a get out of jail free card was harmonics. In order to sustain notes after they've been plucked, I found myself using my right hand to create an artificial harmonic with some of the notes that have already been held down.
