Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Adult Beginners Forum Recital 56 --- General Discussion Room

cmb13, QuasiunaFantasia, many thanks for your comments. Glad it felt impassioned as this is how I feel it and glad/relieved that the music still flowed. It is difficult for the player to gauge if a slow tempo still flows sufficiently when listening to an immediate playback. Many thanks.

Starting off my Thanksgiving Day with some recital listening...

01. earlofmar - Sinfonia No 8 Masterfully played counterpoint. Well done!

02. SMA55 (Shepherd) - Impromptu in A Flat Minor Op 90 No 4 Awesome performance of a very difficult piece! I wouldn't worry about the errors. They were barely perceptible.

06. Ted Jones - Improvisation - concluding 6 minutes of 60 Love the unpredicatability of this improvisation and the various changes in texture. The cadence ending around 3:13 stuck out to me as being a cool effect, almost Chopin-ish but jazzier.

35. Calavera - Main theme Great job! Its kind of a mysterious sounding piece. It makes me wonder what the game is all about.

42. QuasiUnaFantasia - Prelude no. 2 Bravo! Sounds pretty polished already to me. Listening to your performance makes me what to learn this piece.

Thanks for listening. How strange your ear should have alighted on that section. It is a melodic cell which has been floating about in my head for several years, and which emerges every so often in improvisation. I think most free improvisers have hundreds of these "attractors", musical formations of one sort or another, not necessarily melodic, which form a sort of expanding, involuntary database over the years. The difficulty is deciding whether their effect is positive or negative. In the latter case they become merely hackneyed reflexes (no need to mention famous names in that regard !) but if positive they can be allowed to grow and change over the years like organisms or plants in a garden. You are a very perceptive listener, and I have not as yet fathomed the significance for me of your reaction.

Thank you, QuasiUnaFantasia. I agree, almost there. (That's what I kept telling myself for a few weeks, and I'm keeping to that story.)

Some more belated comments.


19. Sandalholme - La lugubre gondole II Very expressive playing. Playing it must be amazing, since I find it quite listenable, though dark.

20. zsolpyW - Por Una Cabeza Tangos are tricky, but you make it sound easy.

21. Jerzyk19 - Invierno Porteno Such a dramatic piece with shifting moods. Well done.

22. barbaram - Gavotte in G Minor BWV 822 This piece (or at least the melody) is part of the Suzuki violin program. I much prefer your version to that of a dozen violinists sawing away in unison. Nice articulation. Good steady tempo. You play this well, even though it's not your favourite.

23. PianogrlNW - Milonga Surena Another fun tango. Do you know the publisher? After enjoying your performance I also tried to find the sheet music.

24. PikaPianist - Albumblatt in E major Op. 59, No. 5 This piece is lovely. Beautifully played.

25. thepianoplayer416 - Georgia on My Mind The laid-back way you play this definitely suits this piece.

26. Snejana - Sailboats in the Bay This is a nice piece. I haven't heard it before. Regarding the triplets, I sounds like you had difficulty switching over after the long section quadruplets. One thing my teacher had me do in piece the switched in an out of triplets was counting. 1 e and a, 2 e & a, ... then 1 and a, 2 and a, ... in the triplets part. I found it helped a lot.

27. dumka1 - "April" (Snowdrop) from "The Seasons" Nice sounding piano. Well played to my ear, but I understand the desire to keep polishing.

28. joangolfing - Prelude Op. 28, No.6 There are three of my favourite preludes in thsi recital, this being one. I agree that the right hand could be quieter. You might also try shaping the dynamics of the left hand a little, a slight crescendo going up on those runs and decrescendo coming back down. This piece is a challenge, in contrast to the majority of works wher e care is need to keep left hand quiet so the right can shine, this piece is the opposite. Tricky. I enjoyed your playing of it. It brings back memories of when I was first learning it.

29. timmyab - Kinderscenen pieces 1-4 Well played. I've never had much success with these, but you have them well in hand.

Many thanks for your comments, stumbler. Glad it got through to you, it's not an easy listen, but very rewarding to play.

35. Calavera - Main theme You played almost as perfect as in the OST. I can't be more familiar with this piece . I played extensively all 4 games of Xenoblade Chronicles Series(1,X,2,Torna). really like to hear more recordings or piano covers of some other pieces in this serie. Like main theme of XC2 , main theme of sequel Torna golden country . Drifting soul violin solo(but can be converted to piano) ,and many more. However this one is highest rated ever.

SMA55 Sheperd - Really enjoyed the Schubert, well done.

JJHLH - Super awesome, love the piece and felt your voice, it was honest and interesting.

Ted I'm not sure what you are doing but I appreciate your skill and I like the way your mind works. You remind me of me but I'm not that conversant with the keys.

Riddler Ed - Pretty colors.

PGNW - Great phrasing and vocalization. Seems like this piece would pose timing and rubato challenges--it's oddly musical but only if a good performer can pull it off. I'm impressed, but not surprised.

joangolfing - so pretty, thank you

timmyab - well done, I think Schuman is kind of hard to make musical unless you are super skilled, it's great to hear a good performance of Schumann

AssociateX Liz - tough love here, but scrub this one and keep at it--move to a different piece and come back, the mechanics are *almost* there, and such a wonderful piece deserves your best effort. This piece is absolutely amazing and trying to present an interpretation without being a master is a big ask. There are a lot of voices to articulate in the fantasy/non-march middle section to make it sing. I hope you do this one again, it's obvious you have the desire and ability if you keep at it. I'll keep an eye out for you. It was a solid performance but musically it's not there.

Facdo - 36/4 Sonatina - not sure who this is, Scarlatti? Has that kind of vibe to it. Very musical and fun, bravo. [edit: ok, Clementi. I was close?]

Sam S - Beet 26/3 - Well done, profound and compelling.

Mati - Scarlatti K213 - Musical and engaging - You are pleasant to listen to.

ShiroKuro - Monday for Monica (Einaudi) - Moving story, moving performance. Eh, that doesn't do it justice. This is freaking great, knocked it out of the park. <3 Monica.

Apologies for not giving everyone a listen, just dropped by and know how nice it is to get feedback. See you all around!

Thank you for listening! Yes I agree w/ you and the earlier comments too - this piece is definitely a "Stretch" piece for me- technically and musically. It is like what the Schubert Wanderer-Fantasie is to you..One of those I will just keep coming back to several times here and there to work on piecemeal. My biggest problem/challenge right now is trying to hold the piece in my "working memory" because there are spots where I blank out on what the next chord is..Even playing it super slow, my hands are trying to forge new muscle memory connections while my brain is still stuck on the prior measure. It is just a ton of details to keep track of!

I initially looked at it last year and only got the 1st page down. The middle section is the only one I have started learning since summer 2019 so its still very new, and the last page - well thats a total mess and still needs work. My latest recording of it is here:
https://youtu.be/Vz6Vk3x-4cs -- so yea it seems this piece is one of those where the passage of time and continuous drilling of the hand jumps/chords will only help me w/ cementing all its technical nuances...

You are welcome! I hope you do end up mastering it. This piece is one that I had begun but quickly became overwhelmed. It's among my very favorite pieces, perhaps one day I'll give it a go!

Thanks for listening, I don’t really know what I’m doing either, never know what might happen, that is part of the fun. Unless a recorded session of improvisation says something new, takes me out of myself and into new regions, I doubt I would bother with music at all. I do maintain a small repertoire of pieces but common practice music such as classical and jazz hasn’t moved or interested me for many years. At seventy-two, the only reason my technique hasn’t caved in is my silent Virgil Practice Clavier. I shall relate your comment about my mind to my wife and friends, who consider I have been around the musical bend for decades.

Thanks for commenting! It means a lot that someone who knows the piece so well has something nice to say about my performance.

I'm not particularly familiar with the other Xenoblade games' soundtracks, but I might submit performances of other works by Shimomura or Mitsuda sometime in the future.