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Mark...it's probably more appropriate to post feedback in the recital thread, but I had to sneak in and listen to your Bach, and I have to say: Very well done!!!

Ingrid

(just out of curiosity...how long have you been playing? You take lessons? Interested in feedback to make it sound even more impressive? I had some extensive discussions on my own playing of this piece with my teacher. I play it by no means perfect myself, but I'd love to exchange some ideas on how you worked on this one, and what aspects you were more/less happy with. Hmm. I don't want to make this sound like I want to criticize your playing. Like I said, it was pretty good. But still....discussion is always fun. I know there was all this sensitivity about critical discussion wanted or not..anyway..hope it comes across what I mean!)

edited to add: Oops, I read in your submission that you do plan to work on it further, and that you DO like technical feedback. Should I post it in the recital thread?? I feel a bit weird doing that since I listened to your piece just because you are a book-3-colleague, and because I've been playing the piece myself, and I wasn't really planning on commenting on all 60-something pieces. Just let me know what you like, or what's more appropriate. I don't want to dis-obey any forum rules/etiquette.....

I do take lessons and as you can tell have problems with timing which I have been working to fix. Since its a Alfred three piece it really can be discussed here if you like...

Hi all, I'm still plugging along. I can't believe that I am taking this long for learning this Bach piece, on side of the coin, on the other side, however, i am glad that I am taking this long (considering that my instructor told me that it took her 6 months to learn "Toccata" to play on the organ!

Mark, I am looking forward to hearing your Bach piece!
I'll get to one of these months recitals evenually!
take care all!

Here is my Bach piece, warts and all...

Prelude in C Major

Really nice work on the Bach Prelude Mark - you're playing better than ever - keep up the good work - Ingrid was right about how nice a piece it is - now I'm looking forward more than ever to getting to it and into it.

Regards, JF

Thanks JF, I was playing pretty tight with the Red Dot going. Its a piece that needs much more attention to get a better flow. Every once in a while you can get lost in it and it sounds much better. Its a keeper for anyone's repertory. You will really like it, especially if you liked Prelude in D minor.

Mark, this is beautiful! You did an awesome job playing this!

Aaah, Mark,

sorry, I was away for the weekend. hence my late reply. Glad you posted your recording here as well. Like I said, I think you did real well, but do you agree with me that this is a piece where indeed 'flow' is of the utmost importance? I don't know any other piece of music where it is so crucial to keep the tempo very very constant. If I try to do so too consciously, though, I seem to lose some 'musicality'. The 'art' of the whole thing is (in my beginners opinion) to keep the tempo and the 'flow' without making it sound like a hanon exercise. (your's did not sound like an exercise at all by the way) My feeling (and my teacher confirmed this) is that playing with the 'volume' is half of the trick. A lot of the emotion of the piece comes from the changes in loudness, the real soft 'intermezzo's, and of course the long crescendo starting on the bottom of page 2. On that part, I think you can improve a bit if you want. The climax of the piece, somwhere halfway page 3 can be a lot louder then you played it. And also in other spots I am sure it would sound even better with more volume-dynamics...

Did I mention to you before that my teacher asked me to focus on the left hand in this piece?? Like thinking that the left hand kind of is the melody of the piece, with the right hand just adding some detail to that?? That's also where the soft/loud differences should come from. From the left!

Again. I think you did a great job, and it's so nice to read your comments/experience with the piece, they are so similar to mine!!! (including the 'getting lost in it, or getting caught in the flow completely, especially when the recording device is not running of course...hahaha!

Ingrid

Thanks Ingrid, your assessment is right on!

I will work on those volume issues. I also have to get much smoother, so I don't have that holding back flow problem too.

Being a joy to play, this piece can only get better in time.


Loved the feedback...


Mark

Hey Mark,

Giving feedback is easier then incorporating these kind of things in ones own playing. I'm also pretty good at pinpointing the critical 'to work on' area's in my own playing. But theory and practice are 2 different things....

Glad the comments were received well though. As an above-average-blunt dutch person I sometimes feel I have to be extra careful around here.

But I'll keep on talking about this piece with you. I love it. and just played it this afternoon again. It does get better and better over time (just like Satie! and probably everything else you keep on playing. But this one is truly beautiful.) With the added advantage that it's a nice one to play for any accidental audience. It's not so overplayed as fur elise, but familiar enough to sound interesting to most people and difficult enough to sound impressive! I haven' t heard anybody that disliked it so far.

Andd..eeeh..have you tried singing the Ave Maria while playing?? That's beautiful as well. Hmmm. Being male you should probably find yourself a female singer you can play with....(which I shouls do as well I guess, I'm not really a soprano type singer)


Ingrid

Nice job, Mark! I love this J.S. Bach piece, and based on the Bach pieces I have heard, other than some of the simpler pieces in the Notebook for Anna Magdalena Bach, it may be only one that I will ever one day be capable of playing!

I'm not currently working out of Alfred Book 3, but I believe this will be the next Bach piece my teacher and I will tackle, provided I can get my current Bach piece up to a decent standard of playing.

Oh my goodness, I can't even talk and play simultaneously! I just don't have the coordination! Well, I am getting better though. When I first started learning how to play the piano, I sometimes found it difficult to breathe and play at the same time! No, I'm not exaggerating; I would have to make a conscious effort to take a breath, as I would often hold my breath through "difficult" passages.

molto agitato (does that translate as "much agitated"? ) - welcome to the Alfred 3 thread - pleaswe feel free to drop by any time to post your progrss and thoughts.

Regards, JF

Thank-you for the welcome, John Frank. Yes, molto agitato is essentially "much agitated." Composers sometimes use the term as a tempo/mood marking. But I picked it for my user name because its how I sometimes feel when I'm practicing the piano! Fortunately, I haven't yet thrown my metronome through a window, but I have had the occasional urge to do so

I, on the other hand, like to think of myself as "andante cantible", slow and song-like, which suits my style to a tee!

Update: finished "Spooky Story" in less than a week - easy and fun piece - at least it seemed easy after wading thru "Swan Lake", "Scheherazade" and "The Theme from the Unfinished Symphony" back to back to back..

Currently working on the next piece which is the spiritual "Steal Away", which technically doesn't seem like it will present any problems or real challenges, but which is rather strange or unusual in that within the course of it's 28 measure length contains the following: 3 distinct sections, 3 tempo changes, 11 volume changes, 8 fermatas (fermati?) or pauses of variable length, numerous pedal points and even a treble clef indication on the bass staff near the end! I have this piece in another book (of hymns) and it has only the separate sections, so I guess our authors' idea was to try to make a relatively easy piece a little more difficult was all the "extra musical stuff" they devised and threw in.

I'm really looking forward to the next piece which is the great old Italian love song "Come Back to Sorrento", which is a show piece with a beautiful melody!

Regards, JF

Molto Agitato....nice to see a new face here in the book 3 thread!! Welcome!And keep on hanging around if you like it!!

John...I'm catching up on you!! It's the unfinished Sympathy this week, and Spooky Story. I won't finish them both in 1 week for sure, but the symphony looked rather intimidating so something relatively straightforward to work on simultaneously sounded like a good plan.

Although I must say that the rather complex looking and sounding syncopated rhythm started to work out pretty well after just one fairly short practicing session yesterday, so we'll see how it will go further. It's a piece where you REALLY have to count in the beginning to get it right. I'm pretty good with rhythm things, but this one I had to look twice before I got it. And I get to do the JF-Tremolo's!! (after skipping the star spangled banner...yes!! They return in this piece!!)

On the Scheherazade by the way... (John or whoever)..what tempo did you play it?? I finished it, but it annoyed me that the last long triplet part sounded a bit 'bare'...no pedal allowed, and the left hand chord is basically completely gone before you finally hit the final notes. My teacher recommended playing the chord very loud to make it last as long as possible, and speeding up the whole thing in general to make the last bit also faster. But to be honest...I dislike the tempo any higher then a fairly slow andante. I can play it, but it doesn't make the piece sound nicer in my opinion....

Ingrid

Ingrid - Sorry about the delay - I was away for the long holiday weekend - I played "Scheherazade" fairly slowly (more Adagio than Andante) and played the last measures "rit. & dim.", both slowing down and decreasing in volume over the last 3 measures even though the sheet music doesn't call for it (another one of my free-lance interpretations) - it sounded better to me that way, a more "finalized" ending - as far as that LH chord which is "supposed" to carry thru to the end, it doesn't and playing it loudly and then speeding up the whole passage is just simply not acceptable, ruining the ending's purpose and effect - instead do what I did - forget the tie and play the chord again softly at the beginning of each of the 1st two measures inthe last line - good luck with the "unfinished Symphony".

Regards, JF

Ha John! I knew I could count on you for a different tweak to a piece!! Thanks, I'll try it your way!! ( I tried holding the pedal throughout the last few bars, but that sounded very unharmonic.

I am going to continue next week with spooky story & the unfinished. Only 2 more lessons, and then it's summer break for at least 10 weeks. Last year I tackled a whole bunch of Gnossiennes over the summer period, I'll have to dicsuss with my teacher what would be a nice 'project' for this summer!

Anybody any suggestions??

Did I mention that I'm also involved in a school orchestra kind of thing?? We're preparing a bunch of kids (aged 6-12) for a nice performance in june. One of the parents involved is a real crack (playing a whole bunch of instrumenst, making his own arrangements and stuff like that) and we're now also going to work on a little piece with the parents. It will be 'hallelujah' by Leonard Cohen.

It will be the first time for me to play in front of a 'real' audience (well, mostly the parents of the kids involved, but still.....), together with a whole bunch of other instruments. Guitar, flute, drum, clarinet, violin. I think it will be a lot of fun to do!!

Ingrid (still waiting for my bit of music, I hope it won't be too complex......)

Ingrid

While quickly scanning the book 2 thread, I saw that there's at least one, and maybe more people joining us shortly...YEAH!!

So let me be the first to give Ttigg a warm welcome here!! And put us back on page one of the forum, we were disappearing again.

Going is slow here. We had a week vacation & next week is the last lesson before the summer vacation. I'll finish the unfinished & spooky story (no piano for a week so no progress), and work on my school-orchestra stuff this week.

For the summer I am thinking of attacking one or 2 Yann Tiersen pieces, from the Amelie movie. Anybody here played any of that? We have at least a 2 month break, so I like to work on something a bit bigger then a whole bunch of Alfreds pieces, and it's beautiful music to listen to. My teacher suggested it, so Iguess she thinks I'll be able to handle it. I'll pick up Alfreds again when lessons start in august/september. Maybe II'll take another look at the Moonlight Sonata as well.

How's everybody else doing??

Ingrid

Thanks for the kind welcome (although I'm not here yet). Will be getting my "sign off" this week then a 1wk break so I can look @ Forest again. Then I'll be over here saying "hi" and looking at what #3 has in store..

So what's the general level/timing like for #3? 1yr+ I would estimate depending on the actual content. I know I did #1 in like 3.5mths but 2 took longer (with some breaks in-between for recitals etc) so my estimate is 1yr for #3 (we'll see)

Looking forward to making more friends and more videos.. So who on #3 is in SoCal?