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AssociateX - Nocturne 6/2 (Clara Schumann) Oh, how beautiful and captivating! You are a very fine pianist and really mastering this difficult piece. I love your rendition. As per your invitation to add a comment on this work in progress, I wonder if it could be possible to play the left hand accompaniment softer than you are doing at the moment and whether you could end in pianissimo around 5:30-5:45 (though I have not had a look at the sheet music, I just felt it should end in pianissimo). I also had the impression this piece would sound even better if your piano had freshly been tuned. Please forgive me raising these "issues" because I got somewhat "spoiled" from what I can achieve with my VST and maybe I have forgotten what a real piano sounds like and where the threshold between playing softly and not getting a sound at all is on an acoustic instrument
AssociateX - Nocturne 6/2 (Clara Schumann) Oh, how beautiful and captivating! You are a very fine pianist and really mastering this difficult piece. I love your rendition. As per your invitation to add a comment on this work in progress, I wonder if it could be possible to play the left hand accompaniment softer than you are doing at the moment and whether you could end in pianissimo around 5:30-5:45 (though I have not had a look at the sheet music, I just felt it should end in pianissimo). I also had the impression this piece would sound even better if your piano had freshly been tuned. Please forgive me raising these "issues" because I got somewhat "spoiled" from what I can achieve with my VST and maybe I have forgotten what a real piano sounds like and where the threshold between playing softly and not getting a sound at all is on an acoustic instrument
Just a comment that I actually do believe AssociateX's piano sounds well-tuned, just the temperament is slightly different than standard as if her tuner was seeking a slightly different effect.
Great job AssociateX. A challenging work well done! š
across the stone, deathless piano performances
"Discipline is more reliable than motivation." -by a contributor on Reddit r/piano "Success is 10% inspiration, and 90% perspiration." -by some other wise person "Pianoteq manages to keep it all together yet simultaneously also go in all directions; like a quantum particle entangled with an unknown and spooky parallel universe simply waiting to be discovered." -by Pete14
Here's my Christmas offering. Some'll have heard it before, it's a few years old, and I'm attempting to resuffect it and write it down. Finding it hard going, unfortunately. . . Here it is . . .
XXXVII-XXXVIII I pray, that tomorrow I may strive to be a little better than I am today - and, on behalf of everybody else, I give thanks for headphones.
Good morning, and I hope you are all looking forward to a happy holiday season!
Time to get the Piano Bar going.
My piece this month is Giant Steps. It was written by John Coltrane and is probably his best known (though not, I think, his best-loved) composition. It is notoriously difficult to improvise over, having 10 key modulations in 16 measures. The key changes are ingenious but are so unusual and disorienting that it has been called "a musical M.C. Escher paintingā. Real jazz guys play it at breakneck speed, but my own neck being old and brittle, I opt to settle for a more leisurely, foot-tapping pace.
I am playing from a lead sheet, along with a backing track.
Here are a couple of Christmas Songs I recorded this week. Iāve recorded these a couple of times in the last few years and find it fun and interesting now that Iāve turned 70 to see how much Iāve improved/deteriorated over time.
Merry Christmas to those who celebrate and Peace on Earth to all!
Hello Bill! Long time no see . . .or hear for that matter. Super arrangements in your own inimitable style. Christmas is almost here . . . . too soon too soon!
I do not have any new recordings of Christmas songs, but I wiped the dust off my old 18th century harpsichord and re-recorded this famous piece by Bach
This is just soooo adorable; Bach must have loved the harpsichord, it's so melodious and a worthy ancestor to the piano. How nice to have a real one twanging in one's drawing room . . .!
First, whether a person hears Giant Steps as a melody or as a series of chords, may depend on the tempo. Coltrane actually played it much faster. I wonder if perhaps we experience things on different time scales, so that one person perceives a pattern as a melody, but another person does not, unless it is speeded up. I dunno.
However, there are lots of jazz guys who do not particularly like the song, and describe it as a mathematical puzzle rather than a beautiful piece of music. Then again, that has been said about a few of the great masterpieces.
And of course it's true - jazz guys don't always need a singable, memorable tune for improvising over. Great improvisers make beautiful music out of forgettable tunes that sound downright trite. I'll refrain from giving examples for fear of inciting a debate, but there are lots to choose from.
AssociateX - Nocturne 6/2 (Clara Schumann) Oh, how beautiful and captivating! You are a very fine pianist and really mastering this difficult piece. I love your rendition. As per your invitation to add a comment on this work in progress, I wonder if it could be possible to play the left hand accompaniment softer than you are doing at the moment and whether you could end in pianissimo around 5:30-5:45 (though I have not had a look at the sheet music, I just felt it should end in pianissimo). I also had the impression this piece would sound even better if your piano had freshly been tuned. Please forgive me raising these "issues" because I got somewhat "spoiled" from what I can achieve with my VST and maybe I have forgotten what a real piano sounds like and where the threshold between playing softly and not getting a sound at all is on an acoustic instrument
Thanks everyone, and good ear on this, I will definitely try to end more pianissimo.my piano is temperamental, and although the piano is tuned, it was voiced differently by my tuner. The lower register sounds a bit harsher than I would like. Either way, I love this nocturne...It not too popular but it is listed as a bonus piece in one of the recent issues of Pianist Magazine (alas, no sheet music included, its just on the CD).
Here's my Christmas offering. Some'll have heard it before, it's a few years old, and I'm attempting to resuffect it and write it down. Finding it hard going, unfortunately. . . Here it is . . .
Here's my Christmas offering. Some'll have heard it before, it's a few years old, and I'm attempting to resuffect it and write it down. Finding it hard going, unfortunately. . . Here it is . . .
In reviewing some of my past recordings, I came across what I consider to be a really fine set of four pieces, entitled "Svyatki", which roughly translated is "Christmas Celebrations", by the lesser-known Russian composer Sergei Lyapunov. The four pieces are as follows:
1 Rozhdestvenskaya Noch" -- Christmas Night 2 Shestviye Volkhov" -- Procession of the Magi 3 Slavil'shchiki* -- Christmas Choristers 4 Kolyada* -- Christmas Singing
The difference between 3 and 4 is that 3 is singing "in place", whereas 4 is singing door-to-door.
"Svyatki" is in fact a Russian Christmas festival that runs from early to mid-January, and is analogous to the 12 Days of Christmas in Western Christianity. Lyapunov wrote this set in 1911 -- to me, it comes off as REALLY Russian in character.
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Thank you.![[Linked Image]](http://www.piano.christrup.net/PIANO/FORUM/ORD.jpg)
XXXVII-XXXVIII
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