Ki ho'alu artist and teacher Ozzie Kotani released his second instructional DVD just a few weeks ago and I received it today. This means a cheerful change in plans.
I had already finished all of the pieces in his first DVD and was going to work on Ray Kane's arrangement of La Paloma as my next ki ho'alu study. I'll instead set that aside to begin work on Music for Dreaming by William Namahoe, which is the first piece in this new DVD.
There's more than two hours of instruction and seven works to absorb in volume two. That will keep me busy for a while.
Bach going well
Thus far, I've memorized 32 measures of Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring. That's 57% of the piece but the last 43% will take a lot of work.
Technically, I've found this arrangement to be easy. There are no challenging barres or stretch chords as I found in Dowland's The Parlement or Falckenhagen's Minuet in E. It still requires slow and careful practice to build speed in certain chord changes.
The David Qualey Arrangement
I came across David Qualey's arrangement of Jesu on YouTube. This was probably one of the first guitar performances that planted the seed of wanting to learn classical guitar. That was perhaps a whole decade ago. Here it is for your enjoyment.
I will play this arrangement someday.
