After just over four months of blood, sweat, and severe left-hand muscle aches, I've finally memorized the chord positions for Romance!
Last week, I decided it was time I stopped feeling so defeated and sorry for myself, get right down to business, and just learn the piece. It was a royal pain in the ass, but I finally did it! Now, I begin the process of refining and adding musicality (feeling) to it.
After congratulating me on my progress, last night, my teacher noted that it's my first official piece of repertoire. I hadn't realized it until he said something, but Romance isn't an arpeggio exercise. It's a very common piece for Classical guitar, and is still played by guitarists worldwide.
Cool. :)
Lately, I've been struggling with how it's taking me to learn how to play Romance. With my steadily growing knowledge of how to read music, I feel like I should already know how to play it and simply be working toward refining it by now. Sadly, such is not yet the case.
I told my teacher about my concerns, last week, and what he told me was like having a huge weight lifted off of me. Apparently, no matter how skilled I become with the guitar, no matter how versed I become in reading music, I will never be able to read an especially complex piece and immediately know how to play it. Reading music is nothing like reading English. The more complex the piece is, the more study is required to understand how it's to be performed on whatever instrument you choose to play it with.
At this stage in my development, I'm still very much a "baby", and Romance is simply an especially complex piece that I've taken on the challenge of learning. I will, eventually, know how to play it, and play it well.
On that note, I had to cancel this week's lesson. Work just completely wiped me out.