Getting ready to record
It's been 1 month since I came back to music classes. This year began with tough classes. You might know my teacher from the sound test videos displayed in some posts. Whenever I finish an instrument, I bring it to him. His finicky with details. That just means I'll get all the feedback needed in order to make it sound better. It is awesome.
Now, regarding music classes. Well, that's a whole different business. Professor Mariña is an excellent teacher. But his method of imitation is not for everyone. And he's not shy about telling you when you're doing something wrong. Nothing escapes his ears. I don't mind this features of learning. It isn't something I would do since I'm a teacher as well. But I understand the ideas behind it. Teaching Music is something that goes through every method of education and even outside of the box.
I remember one of my Mandolin teachers telling me stories about his Polish Violin teacher. This person wasn't a musician, but for some reason he had all this background of knowledge about the violin. He had also a keen eye. So whenever my teacher would make a mistake, he would get struck in his left pinky by a violin bow. Talking about avoiding mistakes. 😅
Flashing forward through that, my other mandolin teachers didn't tell stories like this, but the had some interesting references about music and musicians in general. The last one I had told me how he got a lot of money from Abreu (the founder of the Orchestra System in Venezuela) for CD's and other recordings. So he had an immense background of knowledge about violinists and other things. And well, this teacher is around here publishing a lot of mandolin and other kinds of things. He's an amazing musician. Once, he was even regarded as the best mandolin player in Venezuela. That's saying something. However, I think this new generation of players has surpassed the previous one. Among those, a lot of women are top players.
I've been in this classes since last October, I think. My goal is learning to play the instrument better. Thus, learning what to tweak in order to make better instruments. There's a lot of luthiers who are also musicians. There's only good things coming from those combinations. Also, there's something about this instrument that calls to me. It's been a long time since I last played mandolin. It is sitting there waiting for me to dissect its design and start making my own. However, I do not miss playing it. Maybe we all have these instruments we loved and tried to play but never managed to get to be as good as we wanted.
But it doesn't stop there. We go through a lot of learning and well, we aren't able to keep moving forward. Then, we find another calling and it is different. Similar thing to human relationships of any kind. It is a weird thing and I believe a lot of musicians have experienced this.
All this rambling has the purpose of talk about my progress in Soloist Venezuelan Cuatro. Here we have the first piece of this year. It is called "El Gavilan" it is a Pasaje (a kind of composition similar to a Waltz for faster). It was composed by Ignacio Figueredo, a famous figure from Traditional Venezuelan Music usually called "El Indio". This is a legendary Harp player from the start of the Golden Era of Traditional Venezuelan music. It is a fairly simple song.
Source
El Gavilán
En las Barrancas de Apure,
ay, de Apure,
suspiraba un gavilán (Bis)
y en el suspiro decía:
"muchachas de Camaguán".
Gavilán, pio, pio.
Gavilán, tao, tao.
Gavilán pico amarillo;
Gavilán pico rosao
Canoero del rio Arauca,
del rio Arauca,
pásame pa'l otro lao. (Bis)
que me viene persiguiendo
el gavilán colorao.
Gavilán, pio, pio...
Si el gavilán se comiera,
ay, se comiera
como se come el ganao, (Bis)
ya yo me hubiera comido
el gavilán colorao.
Gavilán, pio, pio...
Este gavilán primito,
ay, primito,
pequeño y gran volador (Bis)
que se remonta en lo alto
pa' divisar el pichón.
Gavilán, pio, pio...
El águila en las montañas,
en las montañas,
en el estero el carrao (Bis)
y en los caminos del llano
el gavilán colorao.
It is a piece that has been sung by a lot of musicians over the years.
This is a refence to understand the movement of the song. Since the song is so simple, there's the need of some ornaments in a soloist version. Here's my take taking on all the things I've learned in class. Well, all those I can actually do to be honest.
Sit and enjoy. Feel free to give any comment about the performance. It's all in a learning process after all.