Thanks David. This piece is on my list for about two years, perhaps it’s the time now 
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Riders of Rohan, part two (my favorite part of the whole piece). This time with a bit more bang .
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So evocative. Sounding good, Radek.
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Ha tell me about it, I am hoping to grow and reshape my thumb nail for the same reason. Love watching you play, as the techniques are similar to my Blues adventures. Good to watch and learn while listening to different genres. Could not agree more in the Rohan soundscape very evocative and yes one of the top LOTR sound tracks. Boy there are some great tracks from those movies !
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Thank you kindly David 
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Keeping fingernails in good shape is a challenge on its own . This year I broke my thumb fingernail twice, Index finger twice as well. Hope you will grow your fingernails soon! Btw., having a fine file or piece of sandpaper (about 2000) while practicing is very handy.
Your blues pieces are sounding great, glad you found a genere which you enjoy.
There is so many great songs in LOTR (other movies as well) I would like to play some day. But it needs to start somewhere and since I was sitting on this for about two years the choice is obvious .
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Congrats on working out the piece you want to play Radek!
Figure out something just now so hope it could help a bit =]
I think to be able to play the whole piece in one go takes slightly different approach, such that it is okay to make some mistakes, but to make sure the entire song flow is good enough. The goal is to play till the end, so endurance matters more than precision. It would then takes months of playing the same song to get the smooth playing you want.
Experiences would then reduce the amount of time needed from zero to mastering, a great example would be Sungha Jung 
Happy learning!
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Thank you Vincent. Yes, I can play the whole Rohan theme as whole with some mistakes. These mistakes however turn me off from recording it until it is good enough. I recorded 1st and 2nd part but struggling with the 3rd where the flow is different. It is getting better but not good enough, maybe it will get into shape next month, hard to tell.
I generally slowing down now with the recordings, it feels like I need some quiet time without selfmade pressure.
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October challenge moved to November challenge. It’s been a difficult month, broken fingernails, thumb injury but somehow I managed to record no 9 (overall practice time 8h). What I have noticed that most of this classical / traditional pieces are easy to memorise but quite tricky to play clean. I’ve been plagued with accidental string hits and left hand inaccuracies, I think these are my biggest challenges at the moment.
Plans for November, record either one more challenge or finally record Rohan theme as whole, whatever comes first.
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Challenge 9 
Look for to the Rohan theme, Radek
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Thanks David!
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I was so happy to see you say that Radek, its straight out of my Acoustic Blues playbook and applies to the last 6 tracks. My head knows what to do my fingers don’t !! Really enjoyed this one even though I am not a festive person these days. Sounded good and delicately played. As for the Rohan theme ? Bring it on !!
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Ulli Bögershausen (German fingerstyle legend) comments that for him learning a new piece takes few months. This said by the person who played fingerstyle entire life gives some perspective what to expect and why to not be so critical about our progress. Some pieces can be learned in the span of few weeks but some will take years, I have few pieces that I practiced longer then 2 years and are still in no shape to be recorded.
Thanks Toby, glad you liked it. The tabs looked innocent and simple but this repeatable stretch 1-4 was giving me some problems (now I’m practicing something with 1-5 stretch ).
Working on it every day, still bit rough around the edges 
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December 2023 update
It’s been over a month since the last update.
I think due to the monotony and my impression of lack of progress with the long/mid term songs I thought about dropping whole guitar hobby and walking away. It is hard to accept my own limitation, the effort of producing something of decent quality is always great, my dream to just pick the guitar and play something “nice” in one go is just out of reach.
Easy classical challenge made me aware what I can do and what I cannot, I can play simple classical arrangements but comparing it with level 2 pieces - it is a very long way to go.
Plans for the next year, record most of the long/mid term songs, maybe start the new challenge, improve ever failing accuracy, accept my own limitations due to starting fingerstyle late in life and stop setting unrealistic goals.
Will I be still playing about the same time next year is still open question, I’ll keep going until I no longer can find motivation.
And finally, challenge no 10, Waltz in E Major. I enjoyed it’s little dynamics, managed to record in the new reality of no long fingernails and took more time to smooth it out ignoring previously set time limit of four weeks per piece.
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January 2024 update
A whole month just flew by but it was a busy one. I refocused and reorganised my practice sessions, I removed all previous distractions (YouTube channels running in the background, partly finished songs, fingerstyle exercises etc.) and left bare minimum, warm up and spider exercise, everything else is song practice. I realised I took way too much than I can carry, it was pulling me down and making my sessions really tiring. This resulted in shorter daily practice, now they are between 2 and 2.5 h each and I’m taking one day off monthly (apart from standard Friday’s off days). This helps me to keep a more sustainable approach to my playing.
Small gear update, I got guitar support for Christmas. It is Ergoplay Model Michael Tröster and I like it quite much. It helped me to get rid of my back pain which was quite severe due to working hours and long practice sessions afterwards. It requires some adjusting and experimentation, I can’t say I have found the best setting yet but I keep trying.
I started growing back my fingernails but kept them and minimal practical length (about 1 mm). I had too many dead notes to ignore it. Not looking for the previous dracula’s nails, very impractical in my case.
Recording wise it was a good month, two videos released, one from my daily practice list and one from the classical challenge. The challenge is almost finished, one more song to go but I must say I quite like classical pieces and will be coming back from time to time. This year I would like to play more movie themes and pop songs.
As for the January recordings, “Indiana Jones” proved to be challenging due to my imperfect left hand index finger angle, small F barre was very often coming up muddy. In general I think I could play it slower too. “Scarborough Fair” is so far my favourite from the challenge list, I took extra time practising it and the whole recording took me about 2h. Not entirely happy with the pace here and there, pauses could have been better too. But this one is a keeper and I’ll be practising it on a regular basis.
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Hi Radek! Great to read about your updates! Take it a bit easy on yourself, you are doing great =]
I learn this from Andy Mckee (pretty recently 
) You could think of those alternating bass notes as metronome, and I think it could help to improve your time feel significantly.
Felt a bit stupid to ask this, what is your goal of learning classical arrangements on guitar thou?
Thanks for your sharing Radek!
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And in a while you will record another video and enjoy the progress 
… but it is certainly nice to listen to for now also Radek 
Greetings
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Thanks Vincent, I’m learning the hard way what to do and what to avoid efficiency wise.
Thanks, interesting concept, I’ll try to keep it in mind.
There are no stupid questions . This whole adventure suppose to educate me musically and generally improve my playing consistency and accuracy. I think it did just this, to certain degree, plus I discovered many wonderful melodies and set long term goals, learn to play Asturias for example . The course I follow is ranked 1 star, now after almost completing it I feel more confident and can take on 2 star songs slightly more relaxed.
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Thank you Roger, I did enjoy the learning process but recording is a different story . I really hope, at some point and many years from now, this uptight look will be gone.
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It’s been a long time since I recorded any short on my YouTube. But here it is, a fragment from the in progress song, “Way Back Home” by Korean musician and composer Shaun.
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Sounding terrific Radek, I’m already looking forward to your finished piece 
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