REJECT Steel-String and EMBRACE CLASSICAL

Added: 2026-05-05

[00:00:02]Hey, this is Cameron and welcome to the practice log. Whoa, whoa, whoa. We got a lot of stuff to get into today. Uh, do we though? Do we? No, not really. Here's how this is going to go. And maybe before I actually get too far into how this is going to go, I should explain what it is you're even watching right now. This is a practice log, which consists of three things. First, small talk. That's when I talk about how busy I am with grad school and how I haven't had time to make as many videos as I want and how just generally behind I am on everything in my life. It's all falling apart. I have no control over anything. Oh my god. Second, I'm going to answer some common questions which man has been interesting. Uh the Angene D14 videos that I've made have invited a whole slew of brand new viewers of Soreands. Pretty reminiscent of the Marson fans when I first started making Marson videos. And you know what? Same thing that happened with the Marson fans where they click on and then they just hate me for a while. Then you know what?

[00:00:55]You kind of start warming up to me because familiarity just makes you warm up after a while. So I'm waiting for the Angie and D14 fans to come around. Not super optimistic honestly, but that's fine. Uh in fact, their rage gets me more revenue. R equals R. That's what I like to go by here on Sorens. Yeah, I've been told I need to do a little bit more RNR. Haven't got enough RNR recently.

[00:01:16]Rage and revenue, baby. And then third thing, I'm going to play something for you which today I actually have something very special for you. I played in a little guitar concert. I just played one piece and it was for my school specifically for all the donors at the school music library and for that I played lobe der trenin and it was in a really nice space. It was actually in the school's uh main library and man the acoustics in there were great. Honestly kind of my favorite recital space so far. So you're going to hear my lobe der trenin there and I think I actually got a picture of it. They have a first edition lobe to Trinidan. And you can tell cuz of how uh brown and grimy it looks. That's a first edition. Whatever that means. I guess it was like the first like year of printing or something. Should probably know what that means, but I don't. Please post in the comments what does a first edition print of a score actually mean. It's been busy. It's been really good, too. I I feel like I've learned a lot from this year of grad school. Like you guys have heard like I've been sort of like disgruntled about it sometimes. I feel like when I'm taking any classes, I never really get the full benefit until after I've taken them and I can really like apply what I've learned to things that I really care about and I can really see doing that like in the future. And in fact, I have a lot of summer plans just for like additional uh extracurricular studying and I kind of have a better idea of how to like study like better than I did before grad school. being pretty vague right now. I know it doesn't matter, but I'm just saying that it's been a good experience and it's worth the money. Even though it's not even a tax write off, which I just learned about actually, I spent $13,000 this year thinking that I would be able to write off all that money and all I got was a $1,500 tax credit, which if you guys are kids watching and maybe you haven't done taxes, that sucks.

[00:02:54]$1,500 is not a $13,000 writeoff. But, you know, that's life and money's kind of overrated anyways. I don't need money. It's fine. You know, I'll give it all away to the government or whatever.

[00:03:05]Hey, that's small talk. Uh, I guess we should go ahead and get into some common questions and then we'll get the show on the road and then we'll all go home.

[00:03:14]Whoa, whoa, whoa. Let me get my phone.

[00:03:16]Man, it's getting pretty cold in this undisclosed location that I'm in. Windy, too. And uh, pretty normal humidity.

[00:03:22]Don't use that to geollocate me. It's not going to work. It won't work. It never does. Oh, additionally, before we get into some common questions, just uh you know, letting you into my life a little bit. My birthday has passed. I'm not going to tell you which day it was, but it was in the past week, and I am now a 28-year-old child prodigy. Whoa, whoa, whoa. I'm just kidding. I'm not a child prodigy, but I am 28. So, now that means that there is an additional year separating Marson and I. How old is Marson again? He's 25. Dang, dude. 3 years. 3 years is a lot of gray hairs.

[00:03:53]When I was 25, I was a young man. I'll tell you what, 28 now. I am like decrepit at this point. That's not my chair. These are my bones creaking. So, basically what I'm saying is uh the whole Marson paradigm of the Sorhands YouTube channel is 25year-old boy bullied by 28-year-old grown man. Man, 28. I remember starting this. I think I was like 26 when I started this channel, which doesn't seem like that much time.

[00:04:17]Was I 26? I feel like I was 24, but it can't it can't be. I started this channel 2 years ago in October. I think I was 26. That's wild. I felt so young when I was 26. Like I felt young. I think it's just being in school, being in the same facility with a bunch of like 18 to 22 year olds. It just makes me feel like old. But it's okay. I take comfort in knowing this is the youngest I'll ever be. And every day that goes by, I'll just get older and older. The gray hairs are becoming too abundant to even pick out. I'd just be bald if I did. Not that I'm not going bald, guys, before you leave a comment. Anywh who, let's stop talking about that and let's answer some comment questions, shall we?

[00:04:53]And we'll do some quick ones really quick. Uh, this one's from Mick Foley 9572, friend of the channel. How's it going? And this is on the classical guitarist reacts to Angie and D Pine.

[00:05:03]How are all of your takes so bad? Are you just doing it as rage bait? Do you even play music? How are all my takes so bad? I don't know. I I just kind of sit in front of the camera and I just start talking about whatever it is I'm watching. If my takes are bad, I like to at least think that they're evolving.

[00:05:19]And I do try to be thoughtful at least about what I say. And especially once I'm editing it afterwards, I'm also thoughtful about that, too. I don't just send out anything. And if I do send out just anything, it's because I'm like experimenting and I just want to see how people relate with like this one thing that I said. And sometimes that comes out as like bad takes and sometimes it doesn't. I'm like very aware of that right now because the academic equivalent of a reaction video is just a peer-reviewed article of some kind. And it's hard for me to not compare like when I am talking about something maybe more technical or at least I'm trying to be more technical. It's hard for me to not compare myself to that because I'm so not that like uh like this is all just like off-the- cuff just whatever comes to my mind. And I'm also trying to be entertaining. That's the main thing like over anything. For every one like factoid or thing that you might learn on Sword Hands, I want there to be like five or six jokes. That's sort of like the ratio that I'm going for. So I don't know. My takes might be bad, but I promise you I'm working on it and I'm open to learning and uh you know, I'm trying to further my own education and that's pretty much it. So, you know, whatever, dog. Okay, here we go. This is a serious question from Alpha Numeric 123, friend of the channel. How's it going? I don't know how to ask questions that get picked up, but do you have any recommendations for how to best practice if you only have 30 to 60 minutes a day?

[00:06:40]Well, first off, you get your questions picked up by just asking good questions or bad questions or if you just say something like really mean. It's hard for me to ignore those sometimes. I've made whole videos on just mean comments cuz maybe it just gives me power to like address them, especially when they really hurt my feelings. Another good way is to address me by name. Call me like, "Hey, Cameron, I have a question for you." And don't call me something stupid like Mr. Hands. I hate it when you guys call me Mr. Hands. It's really inappropriate and uh I don't like it and it makes me upset every single time. So, please don't call me that. Is there a good way to make the most uh in the most of a 30 to 60 minute practice session?

[00:07:16]Such as being focused or perhaps going in with a deliberate plan, especially if you only have 30 to 60 minutes a day, which is plenty of time to practice the guitar, by the way. That's like a perfect amount of time to pursue any hobby really. You want that to be focused. By that I mean no YouTube, no Netflix, like just you and your music and the guitar, which if you're not used to doing that is going to be a little hard. I know a lot of people practice with other media going on. I personally don't do that unless it's at night or something. Sometimes at night if I'm just banging out like some arpeggios, I'll practice with like YouTube playing or I'll watch a movie or something. But for the first like 4 hours or so of my like daily practice, it's very focused with no other distraction. So definitely do that for your 60 minutes. For those of us who are not in a master's program where we can devote several hours a day and wake up super early well yeah a master's program isn't for everyone for sure and it's a big sacrifice financial and like time sacrifice and in fact you might have less time to practice if you go into a master's program depending on how heavy the academics are but everyone's able to wake up early some people are maybe better at it than others I think personally I don't need that much sleep like if I get 5 to 6 hours of sleep I'm good for the day and Maybe every four or 5 days or so I'll sleep like 8 or 9 hours after that. But most days I can get away with 5 or 6 hours of sleep. So I will go to bed around 11:00 or midnight and I'll wake up at like 5 or 6 and uh I can get my first couple hours in. But you can do that too unless you work super duper early. But it's just about habits and priorities. Now the plan, what are you actually going to practice for that time? Cuz I feel like I've been rambling a little bit in an unspecific way. The classical guitar can be broken down into a few things, scales and arpeggios.

[00:09:01]Depending on where your interests lie, you can pursue those things in a few different ways. There are the Siggoia scales. Those are pretty famous. And if you just look up Siggoia scales, you can find a PDF of those on imslp.com. And they're essentially just two to three octave long scales in each key, major and minor, on the guitar. Those are cool. Those are very reminiscent of how the orchestral instruments practice scales where there's one way to go up and one way to go down. Like if you're playing a piano, for example, and you play a four octave E major scale, there's one way to play each of those notes and there's a fingering for it.

[00:09:34]And there's kind of just one way to do it. But on guitar, there's more than one way to play an E major scale. And in fact, there's an E on every single string of the guitar that could be your starting place for your E major scale.

[00:09:44]And there are multiple different like fingering positions to play it. In fact, I'll get my guitar really quick. Hold on. This is a really unusual day cuz I haven't played guitar yet and it's like 4:00. This video is coming out late. I'm sorry.

[00:09:58]So, like what I mean by that is we have like an E here.

[00:10:03]We have the same E here, same E here.

[00:10:08]And each one of those is the same exact notes in the same scale, but played differently with different positions.

[00:10:13]So, when it comes to scales on the guitar, regardless of genre, cuz I didn't learn these scales when I was playing classical. I learned these scales when I was learning rock. Knowing the five positions of major scale and minor scale on the guitar is like the most helpful thing you'll ever learn.

[00:10:26]And then beyond also knowing the five positions of the scales, knowing the arpeggios that start on each root of each note of the scale and being able to fluently go through them, particularly the tonic, the first arpeggio, and the dominant arpeggio. When you're reading music, like when you're reading Bach, when you're reading anything, Rodrigo, you're going to see those patterns come up so much and it's going to make memorizing so much easier if you do that. And now I'm kind of counting all that for scales because classical guitar approaches arpeggios differently than any other genre that I've played. A genre where you might play scales like this, like I'm playing with like my fingers a pick.

[00:11:05]like the way you play arpeggios is kind of the same because it's still just using the pick like this.

[00:11:13]It kind of just feels like scales, you know? It's just scales where you're skipping notes. But arpeggios on classical guitar, we're actually always string crossing and uh usually using different fingers for each note.

[00:11:29]So, that's just what an arpeggio is.

[00:11:30]Even if the notes I'm playing aren't an arpeggio, like say I play like the C major scale, C D E F, but I'm going that is an arpeggio.

[00:11:40]That's an arpeggio on guitar. Even though like I'm playing a scale, it it's just like what we call the right hand always going to a new string with a different finger. Those are arpeggios.

[00:11:50]And the best way to learn those on classical guitar, I'd say your first resource is going to be the Giuliani 120 arpeggios. And just focus on the first nine or so. And that's going to give you basically every combination of finger.

[00:12:01]And if you practice those for like 15 minutes a day for a year, you will be an actual classical guitarist versus not doing that. Like it that's how powerful these things are. It'll apply to like every piece you learn going forward. And if you do that along with learning your five scale positions in like one key and then like figuring out how to play them in multiple keys and just kind of live and breathe that for a little bit, you will know how the guitar works at that point. So that's a good thing to do.

[00:12:26]That's 30 minutes a day right there. Go through those systematically. Start with the uh position of the major scale that starts with the root on the six string, second finger. Practice that for 15 minutes. You might not get it the first day. You might not get it the first week. It might take a month. Say it takes a month to learn that. Say it takes a month to learn all five positions. You spent five months doing that. All right, that's it, though.

[00:12:46]That's like your main scales that you're going to be playing. And then same thing with the arpeggios. Spend the week playing uh arpeggio one of Giuliani's arpeggio. Now, it's going to take a while if you've never done something like that to figure out the left hand because it's a little getting that synchronization to happen.

[00:13:03]Also, figuring out how to tune your guitar is hard, too. But getting that synchronization to happen, if you've never done that, it's going to be hard.

[00:13:09]But all the arpeggios follow that same chord progression. So, once you got it, you got it. And then it's just adding in different right- hand patterns. And like I said, the first nine or so will go through like every combination like PIM, uh, P MI, PM MA, P A M, like, uh, and so on. String crossing like IM, where it's like first string, second string, and then it'll just be second string, MI, IM, goes through everything that you might encounter as a classical guitarist. Those are your exercises. If you do that, like, you'll be in pretty good shape. And this also isn't a supplement for a teacher cuz there's a lot of subtleties with the form here and like your technique. Like if you find yourself a good classical teacher, they'll tell you the difference between like planting individual fingers at a time, which like I wouldn't usually play that arpeggio like that, but like P and then like I am go down together.

[00:14:01]And that kind of stuff will just set up your technique to be more uh reliable for when you're playing stuff. And that's not intuitive. So it might be helpful to have a teacher teach you that stuff. And that's the sort of payto-win aspect of guitar that isn't obvious sometimes. You kind of pay to win. Pay for better teachers that show you shortcuts and you will win. From there, if you don't want to just do exercises, you could work on etudes. And I'll actually pull from one book in particular. Speaking of first editions, this is actually a first edition of one of my former teachers from undergrad, Christopher Berg. If you buy his book, The Classical Guitar Companion, it won't look like this. It won't be like binded like this. But this is a pretty good place to find like a vast array of etudes that are also organized. And he not only has that, he also has like cadences in each key that are helpful to read through. He also has all the like siggoiaish long scales. I think he he changes the fingerings a little bit as well as the five finger scales. And uh he didn't give me money to talk about this book. I just I just know this book so I'm talking about it. Yeah. So he breaks up etudes into these categories.

[00:15:03]So they're scale exercises. He has a lot of like caruli right-hand fingering, carcassi, giuliani, sore, aquado, cost, mers. He goes through all their different fingering practices for playing scales, which is kind of cool to know. You see like everybody's stuff.

[00:15:16]And he has like he breaks it up into scale exercises in etudes and lower positions and then upper position etudes. And he has like a bunch of carcass and tar stuff there. just random etudes that throughout his teaching career I guess he has found to be like the most useful and also the most musically interesting I imagine which is going to be like you know etudes with like repeated note kind of stuff. Oh yeah, like the first one here like a Carcassi Opus 60 number two. Uh you guys know the one that one's kind of a banger, right? Uh classical guitar uh certified banger. The next category is slurs. Pretty obvious. Harmony, arpeggios, which is kind of like harmony but broken up, right? Melody and accompaniment. So you can imagine an etude that might help you with a piece like Lo to Trinan, which is one that you're going to hear where there's a very clear melody and then accompaniment below it. Counterpoint Bach. You guys like Counterpoint, right? And then there's FID/ver Virtuoso etudes. So, you know, you need those, right? And I would say what you would want to do if you were just trying to generally practice classical guitar is pick a scale etude and pick an arpeggio etude. And that's like your first step. For example, a classic scale etude would be like Carcassi Opus 60 number one, which should be in that book because that is a classical guitar certified banger.

[00:16:37]You guys know the one, right? I don't play it. I I know it's in here, but I'm not looking at it. It's just my memory of it and I don't play it. Don't judge me, please. And then an arpeggio etude on top of that would be like you could do the repeated note etude that I play.

[00:16:48]That's like sort of an arpeggio aude that it's a repeated note because it has that repeated figure in it. Here's the thing. If you only have an hour, I'm saying to break up all that stuff into 15 minutes each, you kind of have to figure out what it is you want to do with your guitar playing. Like, do you want to be someone who has like sick technique? Maybe you should practice a lot of scales and arpeggios. If you want to be somebody who has repertoire to play and just understand that it's going to be a while before that repertoire is like really high quality and polished, you might just want to spend 30 minutes on a scale and then 30 minutes on an arpeggio etude each day. But also, you could get bored playing the same stuff every day. And I find that when I get sucked into a piece, I can't just practice it for 30 minutes. I have to spend like an hour, 2 hours, 3 hours on a piece. Sometimes it's helpful to cycle pieces. So, you might want to do like scales one day, arpeggios the next day.

[00:17:36]Sort of like a pushpull uh gym routine.

[00:17:38]And then you could even have like a rest day if you want. Or maybe a technique day like uh scales, arpeggios, and then technique scales and arpeggios. And you do that. And that's a good way to just keep everything fresh. And of course, if you're a psycho and you have like three, four, five hours to dedicate, you can just practice all those things for an hour, 2 hours each day. But once you get beyond five hours or so, you're going to approach diminishing returns and you're going to find that your practice isn't as focused as it was in the first couple hours. If you can practice that stuff for like an hour a day, even cycling through. So, you hit each of those like twice a week, you will be different after that year. An hour a day of practice for a year will change you. You will be so different. Most people don't do that and most people say the same and they wish they did that. And don't end up like those people. If you're daunted by my five hours a day of practice, you don't have to do that. An hour a day will change you. Five hours a day will change you, too. But an hour a day will change you just fine. And I didn't start off practicing 5 hours a day. That's something that you do in phases of your life. I think like I've gone through phases where I practice for 1 hour a day and then you find the time and motivation and then you hit it 5 hours a day for like several months. Maybe you're preparing for a competition or recital and then you chill out and just do an hour a day. But if you can just maintain that hour a day for life and you'll be like pretty good after like 10 years especially, you'll be fine. And also one more thing when you're learning those etudes, don't just learn them and then be content with what you've learned and just drill them every day forever and ever. Practice actually performing them. Ask yourself, can I actually perform this for someone or even a camera or something like that? So film yourself playing through your music.

[00:19:16]Where are the mistakes? And can you improve that over time? And you might find you start getting into a rut where you're not learning new music. You're just kind of doing the same stuff over and over. It's time to learn a new scale piece or a new arpeggio piece. Develop new skills from that. And then you can even come back to your older music and see how much better you can get it. But don't just stay with the same stuff for years and years. You're not like Mr. Carassi 60 number one and that's all you play forever. Don't be afraid to learn new music. The more new music you learn, the faster you'll learn it and the faster you'll get to that reward point of being able to actually perform it. So yeah, like hopefully that answers your question for what an effective 30 minute to an hour practice routine might look like. Hopefully you've been practicing throughout this whole video, but hopefully you're on like hour 4 and you're not on hour one right now cuz why are you watching YouTube on hour one?

[00:19:58]Turn this video off. But actually not yet because I'm about to play for you Lo to Trinan in front of real life people in a place. So hope you enjoy.

[00:24:00]That's the best kind of reverb pedal.

[00:24:01]Just go to a place that has it for you already, right? We talked about practice routines and all that. Hopefully, you have a place to start. I need to get to my practice routine. But first, I have to edit this video for you so you can even hear what I'm talking about. So, how about we go ahead and wrap this up and I'll put out another stupid farty video for you tomorrow or the next day.

[00:24:19]probably the next day if we're being honest. All right, let's go ahead and wrap this up. Of course, if you made it this far, be sure to subscribe and leave a like. Hey, speaking of performing in front of people, I will be starting a recital class pretty soon and I will announce it. It's not happening yet, so don't look for it. But you should be getting excited about it, especially if you're in these categories. A classical musician, classical guitarist, ideally, but if you play like cello or violin or piano or whatever, and you have art music repertoire that you've been practicing and you want to see if it's working or not in a performance setting, you're welcome to come. You don't just have to be a guitarist. If you're a guitarist, I'll have the most to say to you. Not that it's like a master class where you're looking for feedback. It's really just a performance opportunity experience. But, you know, if I have something to say, I'm going to say it.

[00:25:02]Especially if there's not that many people. I have no idea how many people are actually going to show up to this thing because I'm just starting it. But that's a good place to really put it on the line. You know, I'm not just saying that because it's my thing and I will be charging money for it. Not that much money though, mind you, but just like a little bit just to make it like worth something. If you can find that same experience anywhere else, I implore you to do that and find as many as you can.

[00:25:21]But part of why I want to do this is because I find that those experiences are few and far between. And even if it's just a Zoom performance experience, getting a bunch of people to actually just sit and listen to you attentively, uh it's hard to do, especially when we're playing what the masses would consider boring and generally unappealing. It's hard to get people to actually listen to you. So, this will be a place where uh people will actually listen to you and you know, we'll spike that cortisol a little bit, get a little nervous, and I'll be playing in it, too.

[00:25:48]Lord knows I will be. And that's like part of my motivation for doing it, just so I can have a recital class that I show up to every week. So, I'll be announcing that. Not doing it yet though. After this semester, it'll be summer camp. Sorhands summer camp. Jacob Collier has a summer camp. Sore hands will have an online summer camp kind of.

[00:26:04]It'll be way more pretentious though, trust me. Of course, there's Rutins Delight if you want some merch. But and of course, if you have any other comment questions, feel free to leave them. I feel like this is a pretty productive one. Feel like we uh got something out of this. Hey, and like I said, next video is going to be a reaction video.

[00:26:18]Got another performance on the 23rd. I'm going to show you guys that when that happens, too. That'll be another practice log. All right, I'll see you in the next one.