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Good grief! What comes out is what goes in. You work out a song, all the bits that make it up. How many darned times d`ya have to play it before ya get it right? Right speed, right notes (played in roughly the right order lol) and overall effect, before it comes good?

Truth is, I`ve never managed it yet. Long ones (over 3 mins or so) would require a split rercording . . .

Sleepless nights are my lot; yer head`s on red alert for hours . . . Time to go back to playing with toy trains . . .

Or is this part o` the package? I enjoy it, but it`s HARD WORK!

LOL! I feel your pain. I presume you're aware that professional recordings these days almost always spliced together from multiple performances. It doesn't matter if you're talking classical or pop. I personally don't know if jazz recordings are typically spliced.

So tell us more about what you're trying to accomplish.

i too feel your sisyphean pain. none of my youtube recordings are to my satisfaction, but there comes a point at which i have a window of opportunity (usually sunday afternoon), the house is quiet, the piece is as polished as its going to get, the unisons have been tweaked, the recording gear is set up and the levels are set for the piece, and i do as many takes as possible before my brain turns to mush. then i pick one out of the litter and move on.

it's my belief that this exercise, especially done while working up a piece, is as valuable as having a teacher in that it forces one to really listen to what one is playing, and adjust (as best one can) accordingly. a trial by fire for sure.

That's how I do it, mostly. Although my good PW friend Carey is in Entheo's "multiple single takes, choose the best one" camp. Rachfan does it that way, too. Actually, probably *most* people who share recordings in Member Recordings do it that way because they are testing and/or demonstrating their performance skills, not their recording skills.

One thing that helped me a lot was to keep the microphones out and in place while I practiced, even if I wasn't recording. That way, when it came time to record, they were not a distraction, anymore. Another thing that has helped me is to simply record a lot. Sometimes I get good stuff on days when everything is going right, and I can share a "practice recording" that is one take, no splices. Other days, when things are not going as right, I learn that the piece is not nearly as ready as I thought!

To my way of thinking, though, whether or not to edit your recordings depends on your goals for your recordings. What are you trying to accomplish? Are you trying to demonstrate your pianistic prowess to other fine pianists? Don't edit. Eat a banana and nail it the best you can on the first take and leave it alone for the ages. Are you trying to make recorded sound that will bear repeated listenings? I would say, consider editing, or those fluffs and bobbles will drive you crazy every time they come around on the track. In either case, you'll want to practice until you feel the piece is polished before you start your recording session. (Unless, that is, you are recording your practice session! )

I make a distinction between "a recording of a live performance" and "recording art." I have plenty of opportunity to practice playing well, live, in performance mode, in front of an audience (church, senior centers, hospitals). When I decide to make a recording and a little homemade CD for family and friends, I go into "recording art" mode to make the best sound that I am capable of making with the instrument and tools at my disposal, striving to ensure that beauty of some sort comes out of whatever equipment it is that people will be listening through. That includes making sure that the piano is as in tune as it can get, and also turning off the refrigerator, unplugging the phone, and kicking everyone out the house so it will be as quiet as possible in the background. I've been doing this for a little over three years, now, since I decided to get back to the piano seriously after a LONG time away from it. Since joining Pianoworld and sharing recordings in Member Recordings, my playing is improving (I think--at least I'm a lot more comfortable sitting down to play for people) and I choose to edit much less frequently. (Actually, giving myself permission to edit was a big help in my trip to the piano bench to play in front of people. Allowing myself to edit my recordings helped me to relax when I played and practiced at home, allowed me to hear the piece in "assessment mode" the way I wanted to hear it, causing me to concentrate differently when I went back to playing it live, etc., etc. It has been very helpful therapy for someone (me) who was terrified of ever making a mistake at the keyboard in front of people. Take that idea for what it is worth to you... I certainly don't recommend it for everybody, because different people need different coachings and scaffoldings.) I also learn something new about recording and editing each time I do it. When I edit, I edit to the point of "best I could do on a good day," trying not to go crazy with editing to the hilt. I mean, while I do the best I can when I play, it's still just me, and I play like I play, though I always want and try to play better.

--Andy

good post andy.

What I hate the most is that during a good recording, as I approach the end I get red dot fever and screw it up totally...crash and burn!

It's probably best to record every time you play, so it will become second nature.

I don't edit my recording to fix mistakes, it feels like cheating. I just edit to mix a better mic with video.

That's why I usually prefer seeing live performances. You know you're not being partially fooled by superb recording technicians.

MOST EXCELLENT post Andy !!!!!!

I try not to splice anymore. Once you start doing it, it can be very habit-forming. You start to get obsessive over every little detail and try to punch in and fix things. Eventually what you end up with is something that has no obvious errors, but also no musical cohesion. I only allow myself one or two splices max - and that's over a 5-10 minute recording. Otherwise I just try to live with the continuous take I made. The reason I've moved away from splicing is because I think to really build technique and interpretative skill, you have to be able to keep your wits about you for the duration of the piece - that is, to take care of the technical requirements as well as the musical development over the length of the piece. It's very hard to do that from separate elements - although I can understand why commercial recordings end up doing that. If they release anything that contains errors they get canned for it.

A lot of inexperienced musicians without sufficient reliability in their playing end up convincing themselves that they can piece together a great performance by doing one section at a time. The problem with that is that the musical result is usually disappointing and it also doesn't encourage the development of your performance abilities. So whilst I won't say splices are evil and should be outlawed, I think they should be kept to the absolute minimum. If you need more than a couple of splices for a recording, you probably aren't really ready to record that piece.

I had a recording session recently, with another pianist, playing my duets (for 4 hands...). There were 2 mics recording EVERYTHING at every time, and there were also 3 HD cameras capturing all visual elements at all times. I ended up with a total of around 30 GBs of data to put in my hard disks... brrr...

The works were a collection of seven works for 4 hands, of intermediate to quite advanced difficulty. But it was very fortunate that it was 7 works so each work was roughly 2 minutes long (at a total of almost 16 minutes of length).

The recording session was two hours and we've had plenty of practice before hand, arranging everything including the page turns and everything in between. It took us two hours and half roughly to finish off. Rehearsing for a couple of months every week together, studying alone, and recording one of the later practice sessions, as well as in midi format for close watching.

After the session and after the mixing and mastering I can tell you that from the 7 works the 5 went unedited, while the other two had minor edits. When I say minor edits I mean that I took two different takes of the same piece and combined them at a single place. So there's a single splice... Or three at most. That was all the editing that took...

This was done for professional reasons, both the video (I contemplated wearing makeup but found a way around that...) and of course the recording. So this is not your average youtube video, or recording (but the evidence and comments will show if we pulled it off professionally enough. I personally think so, but we'll see).

Still, one of the major problems I'm now facing is the editing of the videos, because I'm forced in the montage to cut away at the splice points of the audio, otherwise the video goes off sync with the recording... And this IS a nightmare...

________________________________

In any case I can say that 5/7 works got the last take from the whole lot. No. 6 of the works (titled 'Meteor fight') was definitely the most difficult and took around 10 takes to get two great ones (half of each).

In my mind, while recording, everything was heightened. From where my feet where, to where to put my hands (since it was video as well as audio), how to breath, how to NOT hit my feet on the ground, how to phrase better on a relatively unknown piano, etc.

EDIT: What Ando says!

And yes, great post Andy

Getting video to sync with audio shouldn't be too much of a problem.

Video editing software allows the audio track to remain separate from the video track. If you cut away for a montage, then you can come back to the video clip and re-align it with the existing audio.

The biggest problem people have with audio/video sync issues comes when you record the audio and video at different rates. Most video equipment assumes 48kHz, whereas a lot of people record audio at 44.1kHz (the standard set for CDs.)

If you record and edit everything at 48kHz, it's pretty easy to get the sync and audio/video splices clean. (It's just time consuming and you have to have decent editing software, but even something as basic as iMovie can handle most jobs.)

ando : please forgive me for "butchering" much of your post. I think, though, that there is so much in it of value that I hope to have highlighted the most salient points by doing what I did.

These are excellent observations that bear repeating. Thanks!

Regards,

No problem with the "butchering", Bruce. Glad you liked it!

True, but it's 3 cameras and plenty of takes to choose from, which means that it's very time consuming... And I have to switch video takes, when I switch audio takes (which come from a different recording material (eg. a seperate microphone setup)...

Hello Steve. I`ve read through these posts and am gobsmacked; my flabber is gasted. .. I mean, all I have to bother with, is the time the piano takes to record my song (after messing up)before I rerecord over it! About 5 seconds, which seems like an eternity.. . .then off I go again.

All I try to achieve is an atmosphere. It doesn`t have to be perfect; if other digital instruments are involved, it becomes easier because the piano base becomes less significant.

But piano on it`s own? That is the hard bit. I`ve been encouraged today, guys; - Thank you all!

Thanks, friends! And guess what? I agree with Ando, too!!! Great points!

--Andy

It is too easy these days to EDIT multiple angles and sync up with audio with tools like FCPX or similar, as long as everything is from same take (minor corrections can be made later stage)

suniil: But exactly that's the issue I'm talking about. If I've spliced a track of 2 minutes three ways, this means that these are different takes... Thus the problem...

anyhow... I'll get on with editing and offer the results!

I frequently edit the recordings I upload here, but not always. But I don't splice separate takes. I figured out a method for myself that originally was for dealing with page turns. It dawned on me that I could actually stop for the turn and then restart playing, and later simply delete the little break (along with the noise of the page being turned).

Then it further dawned on me that I could do something similar with mistakes that were too gruesome to leave in. I could just stop, then start playing again at some point before where the mistake occurred, and then later edit the whole mess out - the error, the pause to regroup, and whatever overlapping material there was. Works pretty well, although you can drive yourself crazy if you do it too frequently in the course of one piece.

It occurred to me after this post, peterws, that "recording" is not the issue, editing is not your concern, and you really haven't gotten your performance question answered. So, I have a different set of advice:

1) Make sure you are warmed up before you record--whatever "warmed up" means to you. I mean, have you ever sat down "cold" to a piano and absolutely nailed any piece besides chopsticks?

2) Run through your piece before you record, if that's how you operate--or not! Some people may run through the more challenging passages, leaps, or runs before a performance. Some even warm up using them. Other people refuse to play a performance piece (or pieces) at all prior to the performance on the day of the actual performance (PW member Pogorelich. comes to mind that way, and she's good!).

3) Remember your follow through. In other words, don't quit or let down until AFTER you've released the very last note of the piece. It goes without saying (so I'll say it) that concentration and focus are the critical ingredients. That means paying complete attention to what you are communicating, and what you mean to communicate, in each instant, and throughout the arc of the piece, without analyzing or assessing what you've just played while you are playing. I usually mess up right after thinking to myself, often in surprise, "Oh! This is going pretty well!..." Then... BLORP.

4) Remember that there is no such thing as a perfect performance. Even Beethoven said so. Finger bobbles are likely going to happen. The pros know. Now, I'm no "pro" by any stretch of even my own imagination (except during overwhelmingly powerful "Walter Mitty" reveries), but I've talked to a few about this experience: my finger bobbles during performance happen at times and in places where I've never bobbled before, while places that gave me trouble often pass by with no problems. They (the pros) say that this is common. (I have to assume that adrenaline, or something else about the performance soup, reveals weak spots in the piece that did not require as much practice as the trouble spots. (?)) If you do manage to play the whole piece cleanly, then you will likely be dissatisfied with some other aspect or nuance of your performance. The thing is, do the best you can and say what you mean to say. It is likely that, even with mistakes, your music was satisfying to the audience in some positive, disproportionate measure to your own negative, dissatisfied assessment of it!

5) As much as it is in your power to do so, get good sleep the night before your performance. At least be rested and in a peaceful state of mind before you try to record.

Hope this helps!

--Andy