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PLEASE DO NOT POST IN THIS THREAD! USE THE DISCUSSION THREAD! I am delighted to introduce our 31st quarterly AB Forum “Beginners and Beyond†Recital!  So, pull up a chair and have a listen. I would like to take this opportunity to ask the audience to please refrain from commentary in this recital room. A separate room has been provided for the purposes of intermezzo discussion. Please take any and all comments to the General Discussion Room. Thank you! In addition to the zip files linked below, mahlzeit has added a feature to his program that creates an online streaming player. Just click on the link to hear all the recital pieces without having to download the zip files: Online Streaming Player A template has been created for those who wish to provide individualized feedback: Recital #31 Response Template For the convenience of forum members, mahlzeit's program has normalized the files for consistent volume and standardized the ID3 tags in a collection of zip files. This makes it easier to create personal CDs and playlists. These zip files have been posted at the following URLs: Zip 1 Zip 2Zip 3 Zip 4 Zip 5Zip 6 Zip 7 Zip 8And here's the link to Sam S.'s terrific ABF recital index, that allows you to browse through and search for pieces in all of our past recitals: AB Forum Recital Index Let me express my greatest thanks to some very special people: mr_super-hunky for coming up with the idea of our online recitals, which have proven to be more successful than any of us ever dreamed; LaValse for hosting the recitals for so long and then devoting hours of programming trouble-shooting making the transition to Frank's servers; Frank for agreeing to host the recital now that it's gotten so big; Copper for trouble-shooting help and the Order of the Red Dot; Sam S. for his terrific AB Forum Recital Index and also devoting hours to programming trouble-shooting; and last but not least, mahlzeit for writing the absolutely fantastic web-based recital program that we are using. THANK YOU MAHLZEIT!!! 
AGAIN: DO NOT REPLY OR POST ON THIS THREAD!!
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| 01 | | | Performer's name: | Andy Platt | | From: | Arlington, VA | | Experience: | Three years of lessons and ages of noodling | | Direct music link: | click to download | | Title of piece: | Invention in E Major | | Composer: | Johann Sebastian Bach | | Duration: | 01:58 | | Source of music: | Alfred Inventions and Sonatinas | | Instrument used: | Kawai K3 | | Recording method: | Zoom H1 | | Technical feedback wanted: | Yes | | Additional info: | This is the second of the Bach Inventions I've learned; I love these pieces but they are very exposed. With just the two voices and little, if any pedal, they show every slip, every minor hesitation and poor dynamic choice. They can also be played in a large number of ways which means my way will always be wrong to a certain percentage of the population. This is a slower rendition of the piece, urged by my teacher. I've played it quicker too but unlike the D minor, I feel this works well with a slower pace.
The main point of this Invention, from a teaching perspective, is that the subject is slightly off the beat and the counter-subject is on the beat. For this reason I have attempted to make the subject quite distinct and I hope you will pick this up. But I'm also aware that this can lead to a certain monotony of style in the piece and that's why I'm not sure this submission is my best. |
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| 02 | | | Performer's name: | Diana (sinophilia) | | From: | Italy | | Experience: | 1 year 5 months | | Direct music link: | click to download | | Title of piece: | This and That | | Composer: | John Kember | | Duration: | 00:55 | | Source of music: | Sheet music | | Instrument used: | Casio Privia PX-135 | | Recording method: | Digital to Mac | | Technical feedback wanted: | Yes | | Additional info: | Since my attempt at a slow passionate song in the last recital turned out quite bad, this time I chose a short upbeat song - a little jazzy tune by John Kember that I found in the beginner section of Pianist magazine.
The bass is very simple, yet it took me a while to sync the two hands in an acceptable way. Quite surprisingly - but maybe not so much, since I spent a long time on it - I can actually play this song faster than my current recording, but in the end I like this "lazy" version better, plus it's already so short!
For this recording I played with the settings in Garageband, choosing a "jazz sparkle" feel and a "small chamber" reverb, although my favorite version remains the one I play with my DP's vibraphone setting in the treble and drums in the bass! Okay, so I'm beginning to enjoy the recording process
And I had bread and mortadella for lunch  |
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| 03 | | | Performer's name: | Greener | Jeff Green | | From: | Toronto | | Experience: | Off and on for years. Trying harder since joining PW. | | Direct music link: | click to download | | Title of piece: | Waltz in C# Minor, Opus 64 No. 2 | | Composer: | Chopin | | Duration: | 03:50 | | Source of music: | Sheet Music | | Instrument used: | Piano: Heintzman (Normandie) Acoustic Upright | | Recording method: | 2 mics, Akai pre-amp (a not so great rental) to Audacity | | Technical feedback wanted: | Yes | | Additional info: | I began looking at this around last Christmas. Although I am generally happy with development of it to date, it is a work in progress that will remain in my wheelhouse of daily practice for some time to come. This submission is a fair representation of current state at the time of recording, with some obvious misses.
Thank you for listening. |
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| 04 | | | Performer's name: | dannylux / Mel | | From: | Connecticut | | Experience: | 7 years after returning. Lots as a kid. | | Direct music link: | click to download | | Title of piece: | Azarashvili Nocturne | | Composer: | Vazha Azarashvili | | Duration: | 04:00 | | Source of music: | This very rare score is from pianophilia.com | | Instrument used: | Yamaha P140 | | Recording method: | Piano line-out to computer sound card line-in. Audacity. No edits. | | Technical feedback wanted: | No | | Additional info: | Vazha Azarashvili is a 76 year old composer living in Tbilisi Georgia. His Nocturne starts with a beautiful melody in the left hand, and the right hand plays an accompaniment with quite a few discords, adding spice to the melody. The main theme is repeated in different keys, different dynamic levels and in different hands. After the big climax, the piece ends with a coda of octave arpeggios and a final group of descending sixths and fifths.
This is a piece that goes directly to the heart. Hope you like it. |
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| 05 | | | Performer's name: | MaryBee | | From: | Cleveland, OH | | Avatar: |  | | Experience: | 40 years on my own, past 4 years with a teacher. | | Direct music link: | click to download | | Title of piece: | Three Sinfonias | | Composer: | J.S. Bach | | Duration: | 06:08 | | Source of music: | http://imslp.org/wiki/15_Sinfonias,_BWV_787-801_(Bach,_Johann_Sebastian) | | Instrument used: | Charles Walter 1520 upright | | Recording method: | Tascam DR-08. Recorded each sinfonia separately. Merged and converted to MP3 using Audacity. | | Technical feedback wanted: | Yes | | Additional info: | Bach wrote 15 Sinfonias, also referred to as the "Three-Part Inventions", each in a different key. I chose my 3 favorite to learn, and played them in this order: No. 14 in B-flat major, No. 11 in G minor, and No. 15 in B minor.
No. 15 was tough; playing 32nd-notes in both hands and trying to keep them in sync was a real struggle. I've made progress on it over the past few months, but am not quite satisfied with that one. On the other hand, No. 14 turned out better than I expected (even though left hand trills are no fun), although a bit more legato in places would certainly help. And I just love No. 11. To me it was the easiest but also the most beautiful of the three.
To hear a really gorgeous version of these, listen to Janine Jansen's album "Bach Inventions & Partita", which uses violin, viola, and cello for the three parts. You can listen to it free on Spotify (spotify:album:1GOfaRKkTcJCgSAkTAvcPi). |
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| 06 | | | Performer's name: | wouter79 | | Experience: | 4 years | | Direct music link: | click to download | | Title of piece: | Andante con moto, first part of Sechs Lieder ohne Worte Op. 19b | | Composer: | Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy | | Duration: | 04:03 | | Source of music: | sheet music | | Instrument used: | Grotrian-Steinweg 189 | | Recording method: | DPA4060, EMU0404, Jecklin Disk | | Technical feedback wanted: | Yes | | Additional info: | Written in 1829, this opus appeared in august 1932 in London, originally titled "Original Melodies". Mendelssohn's sister Fanny wrote similar pieces.
I played this just a few hours before going on holidays halfway july, knowing that it would be recital time in a few weeks and that I probably would have no more time on this piece.
As with most pieces, Mendelssohn's notation suggests to not use pedal anywhere except in measure 25 and the final two measures. Previously I played it that way too. But this time my teacher thought that the melody voice did not sing enough if I did not use the pedal, so do use pedal everywhere now. You can hear this in the middle voice, where the arpeggio's become a chord instead of staying separate notes.
As with the previous Mendelssohn, it was a bit hard to decide on the right tempo for an 'andante con moto' feeling because the fast notes in the arpeggio give a nervous feel to it. But using the pedal seems to make the sound more relaxed, allowing to push the tempo to an actual andante for the melody line without feeling rushed. I would like to try this on Mendelssohn's own piano without pedal, I heard that the dampers were not very good particularly in the bass region.
The falling melody lines and seufzer suggest sadness. But the piece is in E major which is not dramatic and has these pretty fast arpeggiated chords below it which make it quite light. The ornament in measure 5 also adds to the lightness. When the piece finally goes in to E minor halfway, the melody changes into a rising line. After a simple cadence we enter into maybe the saddest part of the piece. Harmonic progress stops briefly, Mendelssohn applies pedal for the first time, and we change to pianissimo (hard combination). Two long stretched seufzer follow. But right after that we go immediately back to the main theme in E major, and a long falling line brings brings a restful end. |
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| 07 | | | Performer's name: | lyricmudra | | From: | Illinois | | Experience: | Learned classical piano when I was a child but stopped when I was about 13 or 14 years old. Did not touch the piano for some 35 years until about three years ago. Am not currently taking lessons with a teacher but would like to work with one in the near future. It is, unfortunately, hard to find one in my area. | | Direct music link: | click to download | | Video link: | http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SEznXAkdQEc | | Home page link: | http://www.youtube.com/lyricmudra | | Title of piece: | Nocturne in F-Sharp Major, Op. 15 No. 2 | | Composer: | Frederic Chopin | | Duration: | 03:13 | | Source of music: | Sheet music | | Instrument used: | Kawai RX-2 Blak | | Recording method: | Zoom H4N (audio) and Kodak Zi8 (video) | | Technical feedback wanted: | Yes | | Additional info: | First, I would like to thank hotcat, TX-Dennis, and aTallGuyNH, the last three members who gave generous comments on my recital submission last May. Thanks so much for your kind words and encouragement!
My August recital submission is the third Chopin piece I've learned and recorded since I relearned the piano as an adult, but the first that I've submitted to the ABF recitals. I was particularly drawn to its varied moods, and was challenged by the fact that six of the seven notes of the scale were in sharp. My fingers spent most of their time on the black keys! Since I don't possess the adequate music theory background and language to describe the piece by myself, here is a Wikipedia account of it:
"Composed in 1832, it is a technically challenging piece in A-B-A form, in 2/4. The first section, Larghetto (mm.40), features an intricate, elaborately ornamental melody over an even quaver bass. The second section, labelled doppio movimento (double speed), resembles a scherzo with dotted quaver-semi quaver melody, semiquavers in a lower voice in the right hand, and large jumps in the bass. The final section is a shortened version of the first (14 bars rather than 24) with characteristic cadenzas and elaboration, finishing with an arpeggio on F# major, falling at first, then dying away." |
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| 08 | | | Performer's name: | SwissMS/Doris | | From: | Switzerland | | Experience: | Seriously since Jan 2011 (2.5 years), plus a a couple years before I moved to Switzerland, and a couple years as a kid. | | Direct music link: | click to download | | Video link: | http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nsF5Guxvcu0 | | Home page link: | http://swisspianogirl.ch | | Title of piece: | Arabesque 1 | | Composer: | Debussy | | Duration: | 05:05 | | Source of music: | Sheet music | | Instrument used: | Bechstein Grand 160 | | Recording method: | Zoom Q3HD recorder | | Technical feedback wanted: | Yes | | Additional info: | I first heard this piece in the very first ABF recital I participated in back in Nov. 2011, and instantly fell in love with it. It has been on my list to do ever since. When my teacher suggested I do a Debussy piece I jumped for it!
Lunch was a Bratwurst and a beer. It is Swiss Confederation Day here, sort of like a Swiss 4th of July, so it seemed appropriate. |
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| 09 | | | Performer's name: | Sam S | | From: | Georgia, USA | | Avatar: |  | | Experience: | I'm in my 6th year back as a re-starter. | | Direct music link: | click to download | | Video link: | http://youtu.be/ULtt1rhSYpM | | Title of piece: | Nocturne Opus 37/1 | | Composer: | Chopin | | Duration: | 07:00 | | Source of music: | Alfred Edition, Willard Palmer, editor | | Instrument used: | 1927 Bechstein Model L | | Technical feedback wanted: | Yes | | Additional info: | A beautiful Nocturne, in ABA form. The A section is dramatic, with sudden changes in dynamics and an embellished melody typical of a Chopin Nocturne. The B section is a quiet hymn.
Figuring out the ornaments was a major undertaking. I started with a Henle Urtext edition, which gave me no help. I got assistance from my teacher, but maybe my head was just too thick to understand what she said. At Summerkeys I discovered the Alfred edition, and the ornaments are much clearer and I was finally able to understand what was going on.
Lots of mistakes here, especially in the B section. You would think, after all these years, I could play some simple chords, but it's much more difficult that it looks, plus I was trying to connect the top note in the right hand - oh well.
The video has the sheet music - enjoy! |
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| 10 | | | Performer's name: | CASINITALY (Cheryl) | | From: | Italy | | Avatar: |  | | Experience: | 3.5yrs | | Direct music link: | click to download | | Title of piece: | First Loss | | Composer: | Schumann | | Duration: | 01:43 | | Source of music: | Sheet music | | Instrument used: | Yamaha P-112N | | Recording method: | audacity | | Technical feedback wanted: | Yes | | Additional info: | One of the trickier pieces I've learned - but very satisfying. I remember looking at the chords at the end of the piece and thinking "Yikes!" This is the second Schumann piece I've studied and I find I love this period.
I recorded after breakfast on Tuesday, so that was All-bran cereal with walnuts and banana. |
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| 11 | | | Performer's name: | Inlanding - Glen | | From: | Denver | | Experience: | Off and on for years | | Direct music link: | click to download | | Title of piece: | Gnossienne No 1 | | Composer: | Erik Satie | | Duration: | 03:43 | | Source of music: | Sheet Music | | Instrument used: | NY 1917 O Steinway | | Technical feedback wanted: | Yes | | Additional info: | It'd been so long since studying a complete written score, so it seemed like a good idea to learn to play one.
Satie was an interesting character and his music certainly reflects it and the times in which he composed.
I've heard a few Satie pieces, then when I came across this one - I wanted to learn to express it meaningfully.
Always looking to make improvements to dynamics and tempo - they seem to vary like the temperature and humidity 
Still patiently recovering from myriad of injuries.
I had a fantastic salad and Chicken Shwarma for lunch |
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| 12 | | | Performer's name: | Peyton | | From: | Maine | | Experience: | 45 years with some lessons way back | | Direct music link: | click to download | | Video link: | http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wRPEq-0XJLg&feature=c4-overview&list=UUfm6_6G1n0SmMfPJ3ojblZg | | Home page link: | http://www.peytonart.com | | Title of piece: | Message From Space: Part Four- A Journey to the Far Side of the World | | Composer: | Original | | Duration: | 06:42 | | Instrument used: | Young Chang/Pramberger grand | | Technical feedback wanted: | Yes | | Additional info: | This is the fourth installment in my Message From Space pieces. For this one I wanted a vehicle, so to speak, for showing some of my landscape paintings. I have an on-going series of landscapes I call The far Side of the World, and the most recent are called Fractured Landscapes. All are fairly abstract with the most recent being very much so. So this piece sends our other world visitor off to explore the far reaches of earth. Needless to say, I wrote the piece with my paintings and You-tube in mind so I hope you have a chance to go to you-tube and watch. Technically, I had my usual hard time getting a recording I like. Every single one had mistakes I could not live with... including this one. Alas. But at some point you just have to say Enough! and go with it. |
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| 13 | | | Performer's name: | Riddler (Ed) | | From: | Florida | | Avatar: |  | | Experience: | Two or three years of lessons as a kid; three years of jazz lessons as an adult; and a lifetime of noodling and playing by ear. | | Direct music link: | click to download | | Home page link: | http://edsjazzpianopage.blogspot.com/ | | Title of piece: | Prelude in D Flat Major | | Composer: | Reinhold Gliere | | Duration: | 02:15 | | Source of music: | Sheet music | | Instrument used: | Yamaha P-120 | | Recording method: | Pianoteq | | Technical feedback wanted: | Yes | | Additional info: | I believe this is my first classical recital piece. I was inspired to play this by Glen (Inlanding), who played it several recitals ago. It is a beautiful, flowing piece with appealing harmonies and melodies, lots of pretty arpeggios flowing gently up and down the keyboard. If you are interested in learning it, and are wondering how difficult it is, just Google it, and you will find this: the great majority of Youtube performances are by little kids! 'Nuf said! |
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| 14 | | | Performer's name: | Allard | | From: | Netherlands | | Experience: | 1 year 9 months | | Direct music link: | click to download | | Video link: | http://youtu.be/UnIRt5uVlr8 | | Title of piece: | Dreamer's Waltz | | Composer: | David Lanz | | Duration: | 05:04 | | Source of music: | "Sacred Road" sheet music book | | Instrument used: | Perzina 152 Grand | | Recording method: | iPad, Windows Movie Maker | | Technical feedback wanted: | Yes | | Additional info: | Another David Lanz, because they are so pretty and so much fun to play. I bought the book way before I could play it. On my first recital here, I played a simplified version of Before the Last Leaf Falls. It's from the same book and I was curious how much harder it would be. (Very - it has block chords spanning a tenth.) At some point I tried playing Dreamer's Waltz to practice note-reading. After learning the first two pages, I showed the piece to my teacher and noted how I couldn't even read the next pages. Well, now I can!
I originally prepared this piece for the first European Piano Party, graciously hosted by Saranoya. She remarked how my piece made her piano sound so beautiful. I just had to play this for the recital! So this piece is for you, Saranoya. Keep believing in your dreams. Piano will get you through anything |
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| 15 | | | Performer's name: | peterws | | From: | N.W. England | | Avatar: |  | | Experience: | Too many | | Direct music link: | click to download | | Video link: | http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=pNqA_x_CNrQ | | Title of piece: | Contemplation 5 | | Composer: | Me | | Duration: | 03:20 | | Source of music: | Go where the music (I use the term lightly)takes me | | Instrument used: | DGX 630 | | Recording method: | audacity and Videopad | | Technical feedback wanted: | Yes | | Additional info: | Playin` around with other sound.
Not to be taken seriously . . .
Amongst the bacon
A piano is to be found . . |
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| 16 | | | Performer's name: | Richard (zrtf90) | | From: | Ireland | | Experience: | I've been playing for...
Ooh, I need a bigger abacus! | | Direct music link: | click to download | | Title of piece: | Die Zelle in Nonnenwerth | | Composer: | Liszt | | Duration: | 08:30 | | Source of music: | Liszt Society Publications, Vol. 7, Unfamiliar Piano Pieces | | Instrument used: | Kawai CA95 | | Recording method: | Direct to USB stick | | Technical feedback wanted: | Yes | | Additional info: | Liszt originally wrote this piece in 1841 for voice and piano but re-wrote it many times over the years including versions for voice, for 'cello and piano, and for solo piano, of which this is the fourth version dated 1877, some 35 years later. He must have been very fond of it. I should dig out the lyric and see what pearls it offers.
The eponymous cell, or cloister, is situated on the Isle of Nonnenwerth on the Rhine near Bad Honnef. It was originally a Benedictine nunnery but was operating as an inn at the time of Liszt's visits. He used to holiday there often with his children before the family broke up. It has now been taken over by the Franciscans who today run it as a secondary school for girls.
I used to devote my summer holidays to a fortnight's stay in a remote Dominican priory studying first and later teaching calligraphy. There was a very spiritual atmosphere throughout the buildings and grounds. I have some very special memories of my visits there including playing the pipe organ in the chapel. Nonnenwerth must have been very similar.
The piece has haunted me for many years but it is only recently that I've heard a performance of it and developed sufficient technique to handle the arpeggios. I've not been the most devoted student of scales and arpeggios but none of the arpeggio work I did prepared me for this. It feels physically very different from my usual grind.
This is a long piece and I suspect that few of you will have heard it before so I append some programme notes to keep you interested should you choose to while away eight and a half minutes here. I know some of you enjoy reading background notes and I find it helps to make sense of unfamiliar music more quickly.
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The slowly descending opening chords herald peace and calm and invite us to leave the turmoil of our quotidian struggles behind as we descend the entrance steps. It is not regular diatonic harmony nor is it modal. The pervading harmony is difficult to pin down in places and is a little other worldly, not in a disturbing way but as if we're removed from the world outside.
The chords fade into a narrow corridor of single notes that lead into the appealing main theme (0:50) that opens out and carries us, wafting its gentle skipping figure through the cloisters adorned, presumably, with the religious remnants of its past.
Liszt has achieved an unearthly remoteness by a harmonic progression from A minor to F minor. The F minor chord is F-Ab-C but Liszt is disguising the minor third F-Ab as an augmented second F-G# which fits the A minor harmonic scale. So the tones are familiar but the combination is unusual.
The theme is restated in octaves (1:17) in the dominant, E major, before the skipping figure trips down to an unsettled diminished seventh and is subsumed by silence.
A second theme (2:12), a distant cousin of the first, uses the same A minor tonality but with E as its tonic centre and bids us follow it to another place where our attention is drawn to a new theme, an ethereal whisper of breathtaking beauty (2:34). Liszt uses a whole tone scale, still in E, to allow the music to float above our heads. Is he visiting what was once the chapel or looking up at a crystalline ceiling? Perhaps he is contemplating for the first time the monastic life he would later turn to. I increased the reverberation for the recording to make this theme more spacious and give it a celestial translucence. Both phrases are repeated in octaves and again overcome by silence.
The middle section (3:36) is an anguished remembrance of reality and a cry of the spirit as we reflect on our lives with remorse and regret. I may have been a little heavy handed in RH here and lost focus in LH. Liszt has sprinkled accidentals freely around and in its first breath we find C, C#, Db, D, D#, Eb, E, F, G#, A, Bb and B all rubbing shoulders and lending a sense of foreboding before he pulls the rug from under the feet of the skipping figure and it tumbles into the abyss (4:17).
The music slowly rises from the depths and, like sunshine after a storm, the main theme returns (4:38) with such tear provoking tenderness in the tonic major and sweeps us up to the climax (4:58) given in double note arpeggios. This is the most riveting part of the piece for me. The restatement (5:06) is piquant in the supertonic B minor instead of the dominant we heard in the opening and we begin the gradual descent to the coda.
This passage, from the climax to the two-octave arpeggios (5:34), needed careful fingering (including swapping hands) and it is sheer bliss to now be able to play this section with all the technical difficulties lifted and the fingers knowing their way. Time well spent!
The heavenly whisper returns under treacherously delicate arpeggios (5:34). It's not quite a whisper the way I play it, I'm afraid, because I can't play the arpeggios delicately enough behind it yet but the thought is there. That's an improvement scheduled for the next time I cycle this piece.
The first theme whimpers (6:06), "Don't forget me", it echoes, then the opening chords return again, this time to see us out as we make a long, slow farewell.
As we look back the shadow of the main theme (6:49) is spread out almost unrecognisably in the distance as we leave the Isle and our sojourn becomes for us only a memory.
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I'm quite surprised at the length of the piece; it's only four pages and quite scant looking. I've played it through only infrequently until close to the recording stage (it needs a lot of mental stamina) but I never realised it was so long.
This is possibly the most emotional, intimate and personal piece I've learned. There are some patches that sounded better and clearer in the pre-recordings and doubtless some wrong 'uns will have bypassed the defences but I have accepted some minor irritations with a view to spending more time on the Grieg recital pieces.
I still captured the atmosphere pretty well here and I'm very pleased with the result. I hope these notes keep you interested while you listen. It's a thrill to be able to post it here.
"Darling, I've finished my Liszt piece."
"That's nice, dear. Did you put the trash out?"
Thank you for your time. |
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| 17 | | | Performer's name: | Jazztpt (Russ) | | From: | UK | | Experience: | 38 | | Direct music link: | click to download | | Video link: | http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a-T1GIQJpgE | | Title of piece: | For Em | | Composer: | Jazztpt | | Duration: | 03:19 | | Source of music: | Original | | Instrument used: | Roland hp507 | | Recording method: | Direct to Piano then into Audacity to convert to MP3 | | Technical feedback wanted: | Yes | | Additional info: | I originally wrote "For Em" a few years ago but this is a newly arranged version for the recital.
This is the second take and there are plenty of bloopers but I really didn't fancy getting into doing more takes so here it is warts and all.
Although stylistically it's firmly in the modern jazz camp there is very little improvisation included and it was 95% worked out beforehand. As I said, there are quiet a few mistakes from my ideal performance and I think I probably rushed through it in parts - that pesky red dot! Of course I do have the advantage in that no one except me knows what the right notes are. So, in the immortal words of Eric Morecambe I present "For Em", all the right notes but not necessarily in the right order :-) |
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Joined: May 2009
Posts: 3,582
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| 18 | | | Performer's name: | Mr Super- Hunky | | From: | Northern Arizona | | Avatar: |  | | Experience: | 8+ | | Direct music link: | click to download | | Title of piece: | Rain (Cover) | | Composer: | Brian Crain | | Duration: | 03:19 | | Source of music: | Played by ear using the F.O.A.M method. (figure out and memorize). AKA "noodling". | | Instrument used: | Mason & Hamlin BB | | Recording method: | Zoom H2 balancing on the rim of the piano. I haven't dumped it....yet! | | Technical feedback wanted: | Yes | | Additional info: | I played this piece by listening to it several times until the melody was ingrained in my mind. Then I hit the playback mode (in my mind) and I can hear the tune playing in my mind.
At this point I proceed to play it the way I want to (minus the massive amounts of mistakes). I don't mind the mistakes at first because they are easily corrected later with practice and repetition. My main goal is just to find the complete melodies on the keyboard and then adjust and fine tune over time.
The money I save on lessons and method books helps pay for things like a new spindle for my lawn tractor mower deck that I just busted off last week. And Amsoil 2 stroke fully synthetic oil for my small engines. Stuff like that!
Lunch was a bowl of raw broccoli florets and baby carrots from Sam's club along with a Ciabatta roll and some Crunchmaster multi grain seed and rice crackers.
Dessert was yogurt and a piece of beef jerky...(odd combo I know!). |
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Joined: May 2009
Posts: 3,582
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Posts: 3,582 |
| 19 | | | Performer's name: | Earlofmar | | From: | Australia | | Experience: | 81/2 Months | | Direct music link: | click to download | | Video link: | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PX8WSJH_TWM | | Title of piece: | Minuet in G major (BWV Anh. 116) | | Composer: | JS Bach | | Duration: | 01:53 | | Instrument used: | Yamaha P105 with Galaxy Vintage D | | Recording method: | Audacity | | Technical feedback wanted: | Yes | | Additional info: | After the last recital I wanted to bring something to this one with grandeur, a large difficult piece was needed. I played around with a couple and continued learning less striking pieces that help my continual improvement. About two months ago I started learning this Bach Minuet, and only a few weeks ago I was somewhat shocked when I realised this would be my submission. Grand in its simple genius, almost every measure contained something new and unknown to me. My hand could not stretch to the simple recurring theme, the tempo seemed daunting and the piecing together of disjointed sections was a nightmare. However getting everything to work just right has been such a joy and I am so pleased to present to my very small audience (mainly forum members) this work. While it is not mistake free and the dynamics are still in need of work, I think a seventeenth century gathering might take to the dance floor and not shoot the piano player. Lunch (and dinner) continues to be mainly dust as I am dieting. |
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