PianoTell Recital #1 Is Now Live!

Sam Perpetual Motion #1 - I've always liked the sound of this piece. Your playing looked and sounded effortless, as if you could play it perpetually without getting tired. At the same time you play is expressively and in the moment.

hebele Downton Abbey - Great job on that. It sounds just as authentic at the slower tempo.

MarieJ Week #7 - What a dreamy reflective piece; and a perfect foil for your fabric painting. Thank you for sharing both.

plop_symphony "A Lincoln Tribute" - In your choice of a slower tempo, as befits a tribute, you show a sensitivity to the music beyond your short time playing. Beautifully played. Thank you for information on Alfred's recital suite series. I checked it out briefly, bookmarked it and see some sheet music shopping in my future!

thepianoplayer416 Air in D minor - Baroque music is always a hand independence challenge for me. You made it look easy. Well done!

BicBic Prelude in B flat minor - Interesting and dramatic music! Looks like it has a variety of challenges beyond octave playing - leaps, cross hands that look like they're on top of each other and probably more besides. You made it all look effortless.

Seeker Thank you for the kind words! One day I may learn that self-deprecating humor will not fix my self-esteem issues, let alone constitute a personality. Today is not that day!

I finally had a chance to listen to all the submissions, sorry I can't comment on all. I'm impressed with the number of self compositions, very nice. There is a wide range of talent here. Looking forward to the next recital!

Sgisela Thanks for your kind words. Yes, I'm self teaching, and I think you're right, I need to move on to fresh pieces now. Sometimes I linger in my comfort zone, replaying pieces I like rather than moving on to the next challenge. I've been hovering on the same few pieces for about a month now, partly because I feel a bit daunted by the next section, which covers the chromatic scale and seems to involve some baffling finger techniques. I think learning to play the piano is the most challenging thing I've ever done, in terms of learning new skills. It's a massive learning curve for me.

lilypad Thank you Lilypad

I am a master of goofing off! I regret the fact that I am lazy, and didn't put more effort in over the years, but I am just happy to play whatever pleases me these days.
I wish you all success on your journey.

Nightowl you’re doing great! You can certainly continue to play some pieces that you really like, but I think you’re ready for the next challenge!

An amazing 1st Recital; I’m glad I was able to be a part of it. I’m a bit slow off the mark with comments - I decided to finish elsewhere first. (I won’t repeat the remarks I made on the duplicate pieces, but that still leaves me with 18 unique submissions … )

keff — A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square
Recording nerves? Did you know that most of us still have them after years at the piano?

Sophia — Fascination
Well done! Good even rhythm, and a smooth, relaxed performance!

Sgisela — Joropo
Chock-full of energy! This most certainly gave your fingers a workout - and anyone dancing to it would have exercised more than just their fingers!

pseudonym58 — Images (5) for orchestra
What a tremendous double-barrelled project! I can’t imagine how long this composition would have taken to arrange, and as for learning and performing it … I’m in awe.

plop_symphony — A Lincoln Tribute
I’d never heard this before. You played it with a confidence and style not always apparent in the earliest years of a piano journey.

lilypad
When you get into Bach, you start with 2-part harmony (voice 1 & 2) and work your way up. An piece like Purcell Air in Dm there are places (not many) with overlapping notes on the same hand (voice 3).

rsl12 Great ear! The Alfred music page does point out the "Copland-like harmonies" of the piece.

@Calavera So, at first I was thinking, ooh, this sounds like something I would play. But then it suddenly got very intense and hard! Wow! Don't think I'll be trying it any time soon! You did a great job with it, very well played and you really nailed the ending!!!

@rsl12 Ok, that was soooo good!! The lyrics are hysterical but the bigger thing is your really solid playing through out. I really, really enjoyed your playing, both when you're accompanying your singing and when you're playing the solo parts
Re the lyrics — I didn’t think it could get better than the first verse but then the second verse started …

@Sgisela thank you for your kind remarks about my piece! As I mentioned, this was a practice recording that I wasn't expecting to share, so I kind of wrapped up at the end too quickly. I generally don't do that because I agree, then end of Einaudi pieces is often quite significant.

@WieWaldi thank you so much for listening and for the nice compliments! Getting the essence is always hard, so if I came even close, I'm quite pleased!

@Rob thank you for listening!! I'm pretty much my laptop has the worst speakers ever, so I'm glad it sounded ok to you!

@rsl12

Dynamic shading can keep you busy forever if you let it.

Yes, yes indeed!

BicBic — Prelude in B flat minor - No.16 from Op.34
I enjoyed this new-to-me piece. You must have achieved a high performance level in earlier years, to have regained so much capability in only 10 months.

Nightowl — Plaisir D'Amour
I’m impressed that you’ve managed to video your earliest challenges, and then participate in an online Recital - I wasn’t as brave, and hesitated for years before ‘going public’. Well-deserved applause ! And I checked out your Donner DP (I’d never heard of that brand before). It looks really good, and as it apparently can also act as a MIDI controller, you’re not likely to grow out of it in a hurry!

rsl12 — Always Chew Your Food
You’ve clearly had a lot fun making this, and I had a lot of fun listening. Thank you! (I didn’t notice sniffles … )

Thank you for explaining that! It sounds kind of elaborate, but do-able.

I've taken video with the phone on a regular tripod but at the highest point and angled down, it looked ok but was hard to get in a good spot bc the tripod isn't made for that. A boom stand would be great. I should go see how expensive they are...

Late to the party! The PW ABF Quarterly recital #75 had to come first. Now let me see if I can navigate this new platform and make some comments!

1. Player1 — Energico - you asked for feedback - you are just not very even or steady. Try this: listen to your video while looking at the score and clapping a steady beat. Can't do it, right? Because you are not steady. Here is where working with a metronome will help. But you will have to do it in very small sections, not for the whole piece. If you fall behind the metronome, stop and assess why. Stop the metronome and fix the problem before you try again. The other obvious problem is that the triplets (I think they are triplets - the groups of 3 notes) are uneven. They should be perfectly even and equal in length. Your first task is to play back your video and see if you can hear that they are uneven. Surely the Faber website has a video of this piece - go listen to that and compare your triplets and their triplets. You have to hear that it needs fixing before you can fix it. Once again the metronome is your friend. Slow way down and use one click per note and stay with the clicks. I know this is boring and time consuming, but it will pay off over time.

2. rogerch — Improvisation 6 - commented at PW.

3. keff — A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square - very moody and mellow - loved it!

4. Sophia — Fascination - That was great! Very even and lively.

5. Sgisela — Joropo - commented at PW

6. pseudonym58 — Images (5) for orchestra - Wow, what a labor of love! What is that - 40 minutes of music? Frankly, more than i have time to listen to, but I sampled them here and there. Arranging, typesetting, and then learning it and performing it. My hats off to you!

8. hebele — Downtown Abbey theme - commented at PW

9. MarieJ — Week #7 - commented at PW

10. plop_symphony — A Lincoln Tribute - Sounded very similar to Copland. Well played, and I think that tempo was great!

11. thepianoplayer416 — Air in D minor - commented at PW

12. BicBic — Prelude in B flat minor - No.16 from Op.34 - Short lively, energetic - and well played! Loved it!

More to come!

Sam

rsl12 I somehow missed this comment, and I’m glad you enjoyed the video! This was a piece that I chose because I had heard recordings of it and it really spoke to me. I had listened to the piece many times before starting to work on it, and maybe because of this, I felt that the rhythm was fairly intuitive. There were some real choices to make, though. The big one was how to deal with the Left Hand pattern, which is not quite an Alberti bass, but close. There are a few possibilities of what to emphasize. It’s not marked in the score, and in different recordings, I heard performers make different choices. To be very honest, I didn’t think about this when I started working on the piece. The huge hurdle with the LH is that the piece is fast! And the LH never stops moving, and in a pretty repetitive way. So managing it without getting fatigued was the real focal point of my early efforts. I had just started with my current teacher, who’s a Taubman person. It took some time to work out how to play the LH in a way that it felt like I could go on and on forever and at speed, but once I did, I also realized that I had a lot more freedom to make choices about what I wanted to emphasize (as opposed to just managing to play it). I experimented with different options. I liked the 3rd/1st beat accents — this seemed to add to the driving/propulsive feel of the piece, so it’s what I settled on.

The coordinated/syncopated leaps in the middle of the piece were another big challenge, but this was just a few measures, so in some ways a more limited problem.

More comments:

13. Nightowl — Plaisir D'Amour - that was really very good. Steady beat, everything crystal clear and well played. You are doing great for less than a year!

14. bSharp — High Heels - commented at PW

15. WieWaldi — Rainbow Connection - commented at PW

16. SalmonJack — Alia - commented at PW

17. Calavera — Chrono Cross - Scars of Time - commented at PW

18. rsl12 — Always Chew Your Food - Inspiring!

19. TC3 — St. James Infirmary - Very cool! Loved it!

20. iternabe — The Trout - One of my favorite Schubert melodies! Well played - I love the split screen video!

21. ShiroKuro — Nuvole Bianche - Well done! I can tel when someone plays music they really love!

22. lilypad — Manhattan 1928 - I try to restrict myself to three recording attempts. If it doesn't happen in 3 tries, then today is not the day! This sounds great though, and since it was your 2nd take, you have proved my theory!

23. TheBoringPianist — Prélude, Fugue et Variation, Op. 18 - you are braver than I am to compete! I went through 4 years to get an undergraduate piano performance degree (when I was 62). I came to hate that feeling of being judged and graded every time i sat down to play - so no contests for me! But I do enjoy (or at least put myself through) piano camps, masterclass, and recitals. Loved your range of dynamics in this. I have a friend who sometimes plays this, but only the prelude, so I have never heard her play it all. So it was a treat to hear the whole thing - the fugue and variations definitely sound challenging. Well done!

24. Rob — Sunday Morning - That was actually well done, and carefully thought out. Sounds professional!

25. diretonic — Borrowed Blues - Play it man!

26. Rubens @Josephine — Waltz Op.70 no.2 - That's an inspiring story! Good for the two of you! I thought it was pretty seamless. And I thought maybe that was an illustration of Chopin's heart!

27. Serge88 — Misty - commented on PW

28. twocats — Rustle of Spring - Wonderful! The melody was so clear, and the rustle of the leaves was just the right level in the background. The dramatic middle section as just the right level, and i loved it when the rustle of the leaves returned. Everything was great except for the blurring of your face - I assume you had a good reason!

29. navindra — Bluebird - very cool experience! But that piano seriously needs some cleaning! You played great even with all the distractions!

That's all - a great first recital!

Sam