Nick Cutroneo's Classical Guitar Blog

New post over at The Classical Guitar Blog, and more

2009-10-04T21:53:00.000-07:00

Well everyone, first I wanted to let you know that I've just finished up my most recently post on The Classical Guitar Blog. The post is about using Pre-Reading during practicing to help clarify sections or a piece of music before you start to work on it. It goes though some of the things I work with my students on in lesson as well as what I do in my practicing. It's a great beginning list. Here's the link:

Pre-Reading: What you need to know before you start working…

I hope you enjoy it!

Last Thursday was the Hartt Guitar Department's first Evening With Guitar. I played Rodrigo's Sonata Giocosa. Our next Evening With Guitar will be in two weeks on October 22nd. I hope to have some pictures and such which I'll post, hopefully. Plus I have performances coming up throughout October including several different 20/20 Performances, a performance at an open house at the Hartt School's Performing Arts Center, and my faculty recital up at UConn.

Inbetween all of that, I hope to complete the first of my practice articles that I'll post over at The Classical Guitar Blog, and obviously cross post it here.

Blog entry over at The Classical Guitar Blog

2009-09-27T11:26:00.012-07:00

Earlier this past week, Christopher Davis from The Classical Guitar Blog asked if I would be interested in writing on his blog as a second writer. I was quite honored to be asked and accepted his offer. Yesterday I wrote my first (of hopefully many) posts on the blog. I figured I'd keep the first article somewhat light, so the post focuses more on finding inspiration outside of one's own practicing.

Well without further ado, here's the link to my post:

Introduction... and Inspiration

Enjoy!

New websites and a few thoughts...

2009-09-22T19:34:00.001-07:00

First, I wanted to let you all know of my new website. It's the same address, just updated so take a look:

www.nickcutroneo.com

...

This September started my final year of school. I'm currently attending the Hartt School of Music for my Masters in Classical Guitar Performance and Suzuki Guitar Pedagogy. While I've always known that technique practiced needed to be part of my daily practice life, I never felt it until I started my Masters. Throughout the past 2 years how I approach technique has been constantly evolving. This week is no different.

Over the summer I had a lot more time to devote to the development and refinement of my technique. However, now with my responsibilities at school I find that doing a full hour of JUST scale work can't happen anymore. I have too many pieces to learn, performances to prepare for, and work to do for classes. So this led me to a creative solution that I've never tired before.

This is what my scale schedule was like during the summer:

2 Octave Scales (Rest/Free alternating days) - 20 minutes
3 Octave Scales (Free/Rest alternating days) - 20 minutes
Repertoire Scales - 20 minutes

In an hour, one can get a lot done. However, now I've cut my time down in half. So the first job was to figure out a schedule that was balanced. I don't want to give up working on something, but rather find a happy balance to work on everything. This brought me to a 5 day scale schedule:

Day 1)
2 Octave Scales (Rest) - 20 minutes
3 Octave Scales (Free) - 10 minutes

Day 2)
3 Octave Scales (Rest) - 20 minutes
2 Octave Scales (Free) - 10 minutes

Day 3)
3 Octave Scales (Free) - 20 minutes
2 Octave Scales (Rest) - 10 minutes

Day 4)
2 Octave Scales (Free) - 20 minutes
3 Octave Scales (Rest) - 10 minutes

Day 5)
Repertoire Scales - 30 minutes

So far, its working quite well. On the 6th day (as I only practice 6 days a week) I'll focus on some arpeggio work for the 30 minutes. While this is certainly not ideal, I find that this system may be the easiest way to get consistent technique work in a practice schedule that is jam packed as it is.

I don't recommend this kind of schedule to my own students who are learning NEW technique or developing the beginnings of their technique. Rather for those students I recommend/highly encourage them to devote half of their practice time to working on technique. However, we do have to be realistic not every amateur guitarist (or even a professional) can devote half of their practice to just technique work. My suggestion, instead of nixing technique completely find a way that allows you to cover everything you want to. Maybe start with the amount of time you are willing to spend on technique, then go from there and break down into smaller time slots. That's how I came up with my schedule. If you aren't seeing the results you want, don't be afraid to change or try something different. If you are working with a teacher, talk to them about it. They will be able to offer their experience and knowledge to help you find something that will work for you in the end.

Initial Post

2009-09-05T16:37:00.001-07:00

Hello everyone,

Over the next weeks I'll be preparing a series of articles based upon practicing. These started out as documents that I present to my students, and I figured I would share them on my website.

I'll be dedicating this Blog to all my classical guitar events, concerts, concerts that I see, and my own thoughts and ideas on certain matters.

Stay tuned...within a week or so, I'll roll out the first part of my practicing articles.

-Nick