http://www.thecoast.ca/halifax/steve-reichs-2×5/Content?oid=3210559

So I’ve just gotten home from a few weeks on the road. Edmonton and Montreal were great. I got to hear many good players while I was out, but I’m very happy to be home again. The next thing that I’m getting ready for is another concert playing the great Steve Reich piece 2×5….time to dust off the strat again

I just posted a new video of myself and Matthew Martin playing Maximo Diego Pujol’s “Tango, Milonga y Final” on my Media page. It was recorded on Feb. 11, 2012 at the Tom Regan concert.
I hope you enjoy, we had a lot of fun playing it!

Well it’s official, I’ll be judging the 2012 Montreal Guitar Competition this year again! you can read more about that here. I’ll be playing a concert as well as a masterclass that weekend which is right after I return from adjudicating the Edmonton Kiwanis (busy April this year). Also I’ve added some non-classical-guitar gigs to my upcoming events as well including: 2×5 Steve Reich (an amazing piece for 2 rock bands….I had to dust off the ol’ strat and I’ll be playing in the Thomas Regan concert this coming weekend (Friday) with Matt Martin and playing Banjo in Kurt Weill’s Three Penny Opera on Sunday.
E

With Lilypond each time I start a new project I start with a template file….here is the code:

%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
%% Headers
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
\version “2.10.33″
\header {
title = “”
subtitle = “”
tagline = “Eugene Cormier – 2008″
}
\paper {
print-page-number = ##f
ragged-last-bottom = ##t
ragged-right = ##f
indent = 0\in
}
#(set-global-staff-size 20)

%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
%% Variables
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%

% Time
notimesig = { \override Staff.TimeSignature #’transparent = ##t }
numbertimesig = { \override Staff.TimeSignature #’style = #’() }

% Key
nokeysig = { \override Staff.KeySignature #’transparent = ##t }
nokeycancel = { \set Staff.printKeyCancellation = ##f }

% Barlines
nobarlines = { \override Staff.BarLine #’transparent = ##t }
nobarlinenumbers = { \override Score.BarNumber #’transparent = ##t }

% Clefs
noclefresize = { \override Staff.Clef #’full-size-change = ##t }
noclef = { \override Staff.Clef #’transparent = ##t }

% notes
nonoteheads = { \override NoteHead #’transparent = ##t }
nostems = { \override Stem #’transparent = ##t }
nobeams = { \override Beam #’transparent = ##t }

%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
%% Body
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%

After this all I need to do is put in the code for the music I want to enter and I have variables defined for most of the most common changes I need to make.

Note: before using this code you should:

• change the \version # to match whichever version of lilypond you are using….remember this number is very important for down the road when new versions of Lilypond are released….if some of the code is different in newer versions, this number will help Lilypond automatically update your code to work with the new version
• change the tagline to your own name

Practicing:
Obviously people fill tomes about different “practice” methods, and it’s a very complex topic. In this post I just want to write about what I find works for me right now (over the years I’ve tried many different ways of practicing).

Most of the time when I pick up a new piece (or even something I haven’t played in a long time) I find that I can sight read through at least 80-90% of the piece (this is often slow reading at times). With this in mind, I approach the challenge in the following way:

• I take any sections that I can’t read through and play them over a few times each until I can keep it up to tempo with the rest of the piece (I mean slower sight reading tempo, not performance tempo)
  *this usually takes me 3-4 days depending on the difficulty of the work
• Once that’s done, I’m ready to start playing through the piece as a whole (in the beginning stages it may take me an hour or so to get through it all if it’s a big work). From this point I start doing 2 things:
  • (1) making mental notes of problem areas, that is:
  • anything that doesn’t sound good in terms of phrasing, lines, buzz, position leaps, etc… -Remember you are looking for the “consistent” mistakes
  • anything that doesn’t feel good in the hands (this can be due to: bad fingerings and/or lack of technique, in which case I have 2 options:
  • change the fingering to utilize another technique in which I am strong (if possible)
  • if another fingering is not possible, like if the fingering change worsens legato or phrase lines, then I will take the technique, and based on how well I can already execute it, I will: start with extremely slow practice always trying to perform the action with as little effort as possible…..try to find “comfort” in the new technique; once I have the main idea of how to do it, I design a number of exercises to strengthen and improve the speed/accuracy of the technique (all the while trying it out in the context of the music)
  • (2) As I play through the piece at slow tempos I start trying out different musical ideas (interpretation). At first I find many passages are not sounding their best, but over time I come up with many good ideas…..and each time I think of a good idea, I play the passage a few times so that I wont forget it
• At this point practice for me becomes, rehearsing the piece from top to bottom and each time I hit a section that isn’t working as well as the rest, I stop for 5-15 minutes to work on making that section more comfortable (mentally and physically)

I could write so much more on this topic, but I’ll leave my first post moderately short
/e

I’ve been recently typesetting some classical guitar notation into Lilypond and wanting to get as close to the original as possible I noticed that Lilypond was handling doubled notes with different values incorrectly (for my purposes).

Here is some example code to demonstrate what I mean:

\relative c”{
<<{ g8 c g c g2 }
\\{ g4. c8 g2 }>>
}

Produces:

To get around this use the “Staff.NoteCollision” command like this:

\relative c”{
\override Staff.NoteCollision #’merge-differently-dotted = ##t
<<{ g8 c g c g2 }
\\{ g4. c8 g2 }>>
}

And the resulting output:

Please note: this is how it works on my Lilypond which is an older version (2.10.33) which ships with Ubuntu 8.10. If you are using the newest stable version (2.12.1) the command looks a little different:

\relative c”{
\mergeDifferentlyDottedOn
<<{ g8 c g c g2 }
\\{ g4. c8 g2 }>>
}

Simply use ddrescue…to install in Ubuntu:
sudo apt-get install gddrescue

To use:
ddrescue -d /dev/cdrom output.iso

It is by far the best/easiest program I’ve seen for rescuing data and it will recover everything possible. (It works great on CDs and DVDs)