Recording: Pokemon Gold/Silver/Crystal - Dark Cave

Nicely done!

Damn man, good job! You've really grown as a player, and I can tell you've had good instruction. I recently started going back to school for guitar performance as well. Who is your instructor? I'm willing to bet that mine has heard of him/her.

I'll treat this as a little mini-studio class. If anything I say you feel is incorrect, obviously listen to your instructor before me.

You're probably one of the better classical style players I've seen on gametabs. Your technique is pretty good, and I can tell you've polished it with a lot of traditional rep. I saw your villa-lobos etude 11 on your youtube channel and it was great.

You're doing everything right for where you're at. Your dynamic variance is great and your phrasing is very smooth. I can tell that you understand the music and aren't just playing or emulating someone else. You swell when it makes sense and back off when you need to, causing a nice contrast. I'd like to see a bit more, though. I'd practice being a little ridiculous about it. Practicing as loud as you can while keeping your tone in check and as softly as you can while still making sound is a great exercise in dynamics. Do this in the context of the piece. Obviously don't play this way in a performance, but it allows you to have that skill when you need to.

The separation of your melody was very good. Keep that up.

The little ritardando towards the end was a bit jarring for me. Try to smooth that out a bit. Also, adding a tiny accelerando before you slow down can give it a bit of extra emphasis (something David Russel spoke about in a recent master class that I attended but didn't play in). It really makes a difference.

Your vibrato wasn't really there as much as it could have been. I found it to be pretty sparse. I've recently been pushed to thinking of vibrato as "always on", but how much depends on the situation. Conversely, the lack of vibrato can emphasize a cranky, dissonant chord just as well as a slow wide vibrato can make something beautiful. Setting aside 10 minutes for pure vibrato practice is a great habit (and something I've been very bad at lol). Different speeds, slowing, increasing, etc.

The pizzicato stuff was pretty awesome, and I liked the percussion... you kept it nice and subtle.

Your technique seems pretty good. Your connectivity is outstanding. I noticed your right hand thumb was sometimes controlled by your arm. Unless this is specifically what you are trying to do, try to keep its movement independent... this will help to stabilize the hand, which will help to create a consistent tone. Your pinky sticks out a bit on your left hand. If possible try to limit that and keep it prepared for whatever you need to. It'll help with your already great connectivity.

I liked your floating right hand. It allowed you to do easy but subtle color changes. However, don't discount the importance of thumb rest strokes and keeping that thumb planted occasionally to help stabilize the hand for a consistent tone. Working on thumb rest strokes without arm movement will drastically help stability. A good way is P-I-M-A arpeggios with thumb rest stroke and pre-planting on the I,M, and A and following through with a free stroke. The Giuliani 120 studies every day with full and sequential planting and minimal arm movement is a great start. (For anyone else, I'll just clarify that I'm not talking about planting on the soundboard but pre-planting on the strings for a perfect attack every time. Eventually the pre-planting can be minimized as you become used to hitting the string with the same angle, contact point, etc. Planting on the soundboard is generally a bad habit despite many great playing pinky planters.)

I dunno, good job... you're gonna go places if you keep this same progress. As an aside, I'm curious as to how much practice you get a day on average. It seems to be working out for you.