Piano World Home Page Forums I had an idea, could we do this?

I'm game.

I'd be interested in submitting something for this, though I have no recordings right now.

I don't fancy myself "good enough" to be on a CD, but I do feel that I'm part of the community, and would be interested in contributing to such a wonderful idea.

I might be able to record something if I get some help though, and depending on the time frame I'd be very interested in doing this.

I'm in 100%. I also have some experience with regard to recording. You can have my performance of the Liszt Romance in E Minor if it's good enough and any and all recording questions are welcomed. I can also put forward recordings from concerts pianists I have worked with (subject to their permission - but they're all good eggs essentially!).

Basic ideas on home recording:

1. Use a close micing technique i.e. a pair of mics (or a stereo mic) about a foot over the strings and a foot away from the hammers (but do experiment). Try the mics as close together as possible and with the diaphragms at 90 degrees (one perpendicular to the treble and one perpendicular to the base).If not a pair of mics then make do with one.

2. The mics will have to be plugged into some sort of recording device. If using two mics or a stereo mic trying using a stereo to minijack cable into a minidisc player. The resulting minidiscs can be sent to me and I will convert them to CD. Other methods could include plugging the mics into a pre-amp and then using a stereo to minijack cable directly into the soundcard on your computer and recording with a program like Cool Edit 2000. You can also buy or rent a hardisk recorder and plug the mics into that.

(Warning: LONG POST)
Thinking more about the Piano World music compilation project, this is what I think we can do for the first compilation:

• First and foremost, get a sense of how much music we will get submitted. It's hard to plan further without knowing how much music/submission we will have to deal with. SUGGESTED ACTION PLAN:
  </font><ul type="square">
• Set a deadline (say, September 30, 2004) for people to declare their intention to submit a recording. It's not a set-in-stone commitment, but people should be fairly certain that they will follow-through on what they say they intend to submit before they make that declaration.
• A new thread will be setup for the above purpose - folks who want to submit will post on that designated thread stating the title of the piece and how long the recording is expected to last.
• THEN, set a second deadline for people to actually submit their material (more on this later).

[*]Frank is certainly the authority on what Piano World should be - but I get the sense that Piano World is more a community about regular folks who care about pianos and want to share their enthusiasm about the piano with each other, not exclusive to the elites who can buy the most expensive pianos or the geniuses who can give the best performances on the piano. So my first inclination is to shoot for an inclusive approach that will accommodate every one who manage to submit a recording in time. Don't exclude people from the compilation on the get go. We can always have a vote for the "top 10" or something after the compilation discs are released. You can be creative about other voting categories too, just for fun, like "most creative submission," "most unorthodox interpretation of a classical piece," "weirdest sounding piano," - all for good fun.
[*]Even though I expressed confidence in Piano World members' abilities and willingness to fund the project, I think it's still prudent to keep the cost as low as possible. Given the all-inclusive suggestion made above, it is quite possible that the amount of material getting submitted will fill more than one Audio CD (e.g., one Chopin Op. 22 from Brendan will fill one quarter of an Audio CD, another Walstein sonata from some one else will fill up a third of an Audio CD). The cost of a multi-CD compilation would be high. So the following suggestions are made to keep cost low:

• <font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Make MP3 CDs as the base line. It's a safe assumption that every Piano World member has access to a computer, so listening to MP3 recordings won't be a problem. And people can always burn their own Audio CD's from those MP3 files if they want to. (Yes, MP3 won't be as good as true Audio CD - but we're not talking about professional recordings here.)
• Instead of making a printed CD booklet, let's include a PDF file of the booklet in the CD, so folks can print their own CD booklet. (Piano World has the option to sell hard-copies of the booklets later for further fund-raising without first committing to printing all the booklets up front to go with the CDs - can even make super-deluxe leather bound version then!)

</font></li>
[*]About actually submitting a recording:

• <font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Set a deadline (say, December 31, 2004) - people should submit all their material by this deadline.
• A submission MUST include:
  </font><ul type="square">
• The recording itself (either a CD via mail, AIFF files, or MP3)
• A release form with the submitter's real name and signature stating that they allow Piano World to use the submitted material royalty-free for the sole purpose of making the music compilation. (I can provide a sample, but I suspect it'll be a simple thing for any lawyer here to draw one up that's fair to submitters and give Frank and Piano World sufficient legal protection.)
• The basic information about the recording: Name of composer and Title of the piece (or opus number as appropriate).

</font></li>
[*]A submission MAY OPTIONALLY include:

• <font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Any textual information the submitter wants to submit to accompany their recording - this will be included into the CD booklet. So, let's say, half a page maximum. It can be a "concert note" sort of thing, it can describe your recording setup, if can explain your original composition, etc. Whatever you want it to be.
• A picture. Can be a picture of the pianist and/or the piano, or just a picture that you figure would go nicely with the piece you recorded. Just make sure you're not submitting copyrighted material that you cannot legally let Piano World reproduce.

</font></li></ul><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">
[*]Mastering of the CD's - probably not an issue if we're going with MP3's. It will be nice to have some one going through every file and adjust volumes with ID3 tags in the files, but this is definitely much simpler than mastering an Audio CD. This person will also prepare the "master discs" that will be sent to the commercial CD press to make copies. If submission volume is small enough to fit an Audio CD - then we'll worry about Audio CD mastering.
[*]Making the CD booklet - basically a small Desktop Publishing job. Need one volunteer to put the submitted information (one submission per page) into some kind of fixed (or at least consistent) format and generate a PDF file out of it.
[*]Cover page art optional - something that can be easily handled by another volunteer.
[*]Cover page art may be submitted together with "master discs" for use as labels on CD's.
[*]Needless to say, we need a central coordinator to track all submissions and dispatch the proper pieces to the proper volunteers (e.g., the "booklet volunteer," the "CD mastering" volunteer, and deal with the commercial CD press).
[*]End product will be sold on Piano World, of course! ;)</ul><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">
Even though I use the word "volunteer" in many places above, I was going by the assumption that we want to minimize cost and that there are willing volunteers, but we can certainly subcontract the tasks to professionals if we demand professional quality work and are willing to fund it. (I certainly wouldn't mind volunteering/helping out with central coordination or even mastering the CD's, but I am not so confident with the other tasks outlined above.)

Axtremus, you have my vote for central coordinator. I don't have any recording skills, but I would be willing to help in any way that's necessary.
Questions: Do you think we could raise any money after everything is said and done? If so, how would we decide what charity to donate proceeds to? A vote by members after a list of suggestions?
Should we post another thread asking for submissions and an explanation of our intentions?

Ax, you've got my vote.

With regards to how much it would cost, I don't think we can tell until we have an idea of how much material people will submit (1 CD versus 2 CDs versus more, cost will vary).

With regards to what charity to donate to, etc. Let's not count the chicken when we do not even have an egg in our hand. I am not sure if we would be able to break even.

I suppose some kind of cost estimate can be put together after we get an idea of how much material will get submitted. More can be planned then.

Piano World is Frank's baby -- so ... let's hear what Frank has to say before we jump on stuff.

Axtremus, you're the man. Great ideas! I would be more than willing to put ID3 tags on every piece and adjusting the volume. In addition, I would also be glad to submit any music. I plan on re-recording the 2nd movement of the Mozart Sonata that I recorded until it is absolutely perfect! I am really excited about this project!

I can see a number of people shedding some serious time at the keys for this one.

I'm with AX. A deadline to notify the intent to submit and another (simultaneous, or not) deadline to have the recording sent in. It would be nice, for those able to digitize in mp3 or wav, if there were a repository we could set up for uploading. I've only got the typical space with my high speed account (10MB). We'd probably need several giga-bites to get it all in one place.

Chris

Ok, I have my own site, and I have 800mb of upload space available. I would be more than happy to host the mp3's. I doubt it would be gigabytes worth, but certainly a few 100 megabytes.

I'm guessing people who want to submit MP3's should be able to do so by "uploading" over the net.

That 800 Mbytes space would be plenty because it's its only needed to temporarily cache people's upload. Actual processing of those uploaded files can be done off-line on some other machine with its own local storage (e.g., wldrumstcs can off load those files to his PC for MP3/ID3 processing there -- once off-loaded to PC, space on server becomes available again for other uploads).

We can also accept mailed-in CD-R to accomodate those who want to send in REALLY BIG files. And I can arrange for more space for upload caching if needed.

So it looks like we have the "upload repository" angle covered. Woohoo!

Super idea! Great for PW members.

I'd love to hear PW members and also to contribute something of my own for the project. I'd need to practice and practice, though. I'm an undisciplined pianist, I don't practice and make too many mistakes. I played something on the piano this week and tape recorded it. Gads. it's awful. I'd need to practice intelligently and then I may still need lots of takes until I get it right - so I could submit the best take. I'd only submit something for consideration if I thought it sounded good enough.

Re: possibly having the opportunity to record in a professional studio. How many PW members would feel comfortable doing this? I bet there'd be some, but I probably wouldn't be a good candidate. I'd need to get over some amount of nerves.

I try to consider the other person in most everything and am very conscious of not wanting to impose on others, so I wouldn't want to be taking up studio time unless I knew I could do it. (Maybe I need a confidence check or big dose of daring-do?)

As an alternative, if I couldn't get the performance right on my own, I wonder if there are any PW members out there who'd be willing to learn and play a piece of my music for the CD? It would be an original piece of music.

Again, I love this idea. I would buy a copy and donate $$ to help make this possible.

We really are growing into a real community here; heck, maybe even one big functional (disfunctional?) Family?

What am I thinking? I just realized...I haven't bought a new piano yet. I've still got the Kimbal spinet. I don't even have a decent piano to record on...

Jeanne W

If more space is needed, Piano World has "Unlimited" storage space (according to our host). It's bandwidth I get clobbered on.

Frank, please see private message.

Since this is a public forum, and since people who use it come from a variety of backgrounds and skill levels,

Sorry! Hit a key by accident!!!

Anyway...I wanted to suggest that to properly represent the forum, I think those contributing to the CD should reflect the variety of skill and talent; perhaps the pieces could be grouped (beginner, intermediate, advanced, ensemble). I think there would be some real inspiration, for example, for an adult beginner to be able to record his or her piece and have it on a CD.

Kevin

Excellent idea Kevin.
OK Axtremus, let's start talking deadlines. How about September 30, 2004 for sign up, and November 31, 2004 for uploads? You've made it perfectly clear that there isn't going to be any way to get this done in time for the holidays, so let's get the important stuff done before the holiday crunch.
Jon

That sounds like a good idea Kevin!

For the MP3's, I will get some sort of uploading system going on my website soon. If you want, we could do this all through my site. I could set the registration up, allow ppl to upload their MP3's, etc... I am pretty good at web design kind of stuff.

Frank and whoever else (I assume jdsher and Axtremus too) would like to have access to the database would be more than welcome to.

jdsher, check your PM...

Really good ides

Yes, Kevin, we'll be shooting for an all-inclusive compilation where pianists at all levels will be accommodated (see the long post somewhere near the middle of page 2 of this thread).

jdsher, Wldrumstcs, Frank, et al. ... just want to let you all know that I'm working on a set of coordinated posts to get this project started. You will see them real soon. (Yes, first dead line will be on Sep.30.)