WieWaldi Thank you! There's a lot of grace notes and minor seconds in the piece. There is one bit where I miss the main note and play only the grace note, and some bits where the inner note is more prominent than the outer note when it shouldn't be. Other than that, everything that sounds off was written that way by the composer.

Nightowl WieWaldi โ€” Quick Five Blues
I enjoyed listening to this selection from your Blues lesson pieces, you play in a very relaxed and confident manner. Ironically, this music made me feel far from blue - it's more like a cure for the blues. ๐Ÿ™‚

Thank you for your kind words ๐Ÿฅฐ, Nightowl. It is interesting that someone like you, never getting tired to claim that Blues isn't the genre of favour, quite often likes a Blues. ๐Ÿ˜‡ I could consider this as a compliment (thank you again), or state the following:

Nightowl โ€” What A Wonderful World

This is indeed a very nice song - love it. And it contains:
๐Ÿฅ๐Ÿฅ๐Ÿฅ๐Ÿฅ๐Ÿฅ (drum roll)
A Blues Scale! ๐Ÿ˜ฎ
Actually I heard besides the Blues scale a lot of Blues elements in your piece. ๐Ÿคฃ And I had to look up in wikipedia about its genre: It says "pop". Ok, we can forget about pop, because you can basically consider every song as pop, when it was popular at its time. Same is true for Mozart - back in his days his music was pop music.
The second mentioned genre is:
๐Ÿฅ๐Ÿฅ๐Ÿฅ๐Ÿฅ๐Ÿฅ (drum roll again)
Rhythm & Blues ๐Ÿ˜ฎ. A progression of the Blues genre! Blues itself is IMO the easiest genre of all - except of nursery rhymes maybe. But the children of Blues (Boogie, Rock, Jazz, R&B) aren't that easy anymore. You played a quite long piece from a not so easy genre, I mean over 21/2 minutes. Here and there, you hesitated a bit and some notes came a bit late. Still, you hit the essence of this piece. With less than 1 year of self-teaching, I call this really impressive. Give yourself a big hug and then some taps on your shoulder, you can be proud of your progress. ๐Ÿ‘

One thing I can not tell for sure is your sitting position in front of the piano. I can't tell for sure because I see only your hands, but I have the impression you are sitting quite low. This makes playing a lot harder, especially for beginners. I don't want to step into this deeper, but if you need help, there is a wonderful piano forum with a lot of amazing players, willing to help you, if you ask... ๐Ÿ˜—

    rogerch โ€” Slow Steps

    Roger ๐Ÿ˜ You know you are my living example to get to improvisation, right? But every time you set that bar higher because you are improving in strides ๐Ÿ˜ƒ Very nice and you are right, the chord is beautiful and fits well into the piece. Very impressive!

      rogerch โ€” Slow Steps
      One can really tell, you are enjoying to improvise. It looks like a fish in the water. I've heard this style of impro already from you, last time it was good, this time it is good again. Just different, but still with your own signature.
      I enjoyed to listen to the beautiful sound, the warmth, the harmony, you did very well changing between Major and minor, here and there (at least I believe, you did). You made a good mix between repeating the known melodies to please the listener and introducing new themes to keep in interesting. I'd call this well rounded improvisation again.
      Well done, Roger, I bow to you in respect!

        thepianoplayer416 โ€” When You Wish Upon a Star

        Such a lovely melody (one of my favourites) and well played! And you did that robot voice thingie again ๐Ÿ˜ƒ It was also nice that you provided the lyrics. Very enjoyable performance, thank you!

        Sam โ€” The Never Finished Piece

        It sounds very familiar and yet it isn't... because it came straight from your brain ๐Ÿ™‚ And even though you called it "Never finished piece", it finished all too soon ^_^ I half expected you'd just stop mid bar, but no, you did give it a proper ending, haha. Very nice and gentle piece!

        MarieJ โ€” Waltz in F minor

        That was truly gorgeous! From the lovely imagery, the gentle yet powerful playing, and such a very, very pretty melody. It just gently moves along and leaves you with nothing but pleasant thoughts and a great feeling. The quality was very good too, so obviously your digital coming of age worked really well ๐Ÿ˜„

        iternabe โ€” O mio babbino caro - Itโ€™s a beautiful aria, and you really make your piano sing it!

          @lilypad - God Bless the Child. What a beautiful tune! Thatโ€™s a song Iโ€™ve always wished I had the voice to pull off. I know what you mean about the rhythmic style. I think it sounds just fine with a steady beat, but you could definitely continue experimenting with some rubato here and there. Cheers!
          @BicBic - Prelude. Short and sweet! Thanks for the selection, I admit I donโ€™t know Scriabin at all, so youโ€™ve broadened my horizons. You have very good technique, I thought the rolled chords near the end were especially well executed.
          @WieWaldi - Quick Five Blues. All right, now this is my kind of music! Though Iโ€™ve only messed around with some of Christianโ€™s videos in no particular order, I definitely recognize some of the elements from his lessons. Your left hand shuffle is very nice, youโ€™ve really nailed that since the first time I saw you play a Christian lesson on PW a couple of years ago. Keep it up!


          Enthusiastic but mediocre amateur.

            plop_symphony There was some percussion throughout starting in the middle section - was that your foot or something? I thought it actually fit really well and now I'm wondering what this sonata would sound like with a full percussion section.

            I think that was my nails, I believe they were just slightly too long and were hitting the keys when I did that recording๐Ÿ˜…

            Player1 โ€” Ashokan Farewell

            I'm so very pleased you made it to the recital after all, it wouldn't be the same without you ๐Ÿ™‚ I have heard that piece before... I know I have. It's a lovely melody, always liked it. I enjoyed your gentle playing and soft touch.... and you played it well. Your love for the piece and the genre definitely showed through!

            Edit: now I simply must know the story with the saddle ๐Ÿ˜ƒ

              rsl12 I was going to wait until tomorrow to listen to the next batch of recitals, but my curiosity got the better of me and I'm so glad it did - because your performance was ABSOLUTELY AWESOME!!!! ๐Ÿ˜ƒ ๐Ÿคฉ ๐Ÿ˜ The speed of playing was incredible and singing all those complex tongue twisting lyrics at the same time made this even more impressive - my mind is completely blown!!! How do you do that?!? You were absolutely on fire!!! Thanks for the entertainment, I'll be watching this again, that's for sure!

              "Don't let's ask for the moon, we have the stars." (Final line from Now,Voyager, 1942)

                rsl12 I think this is my favorite recording of yours so far. Good arrangement--simple and varied. Your singing voice is also really good on this! It sounds relaxed and confident.

                You are too kind. No, really! ๐Ÿ˜ƒ I appreciate my kind words, but I think I have more work to do, especially on my singing. There are still some phrases that come out a little pitchy or strained. I know it'll get better once I have it all under my belt more confidently and I don't have to think about it as much. Thanks for listening!

                Rubens I hereby declare TC3 and rsl12 as the twin peaks of piano+singing entertainment here.

                High praise indeed! On an unrelated note, I should start learning the soundtrack to Twin Peaks ... ๐Ÿ˜ฎ


                Enthusiastic but mediocre amateur.

                  keff โ€” Over the Rainbow - A very interesting and spirited arrangement of an old standard. I like it!

                    plop_symphony โ€” The Midnight Ball โ€“ A playful, funny piece. I like the way you bring out the interplay between its two natures - the naughty, grating, dissonant one and the well-behaved, pleasant, harmonious other. Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. Very well played!

                    WieWaldi Thanks so much WW, maybe Blues music growing on me, since I've been following your progress on the Blues thread, and watching you and Sophia continue your never ending Blues Duel, where you are both constantly winners! ๐Ÿ™‚
                    As for the length of my piece, I played it a bit too slowly and there were some hesitations, so if those things were sorted out it would be quite a bit shorter! <Maybe I subconsciously stretched it out a bit - just to make it appear more impressive! Not that it worked.> ๐Ÿ™ƒ

                    I already have my piano bench set at the highest it will go, because I have long legs but a very short body. Maybe it has dropped a little over time - I will check later.

                    "Don't let's ask for the moon, we have the stars." (Final line from Now,Voyager, 1942)

                      thepianoplayer416 โ€” When You Wish Upon a Star
                      I know Pinocchio since I was a little child. The 1976 TV series was broadcasted a lot in Germany, but this was a Japanese/German co-production and the soundtrack was something very different. Not bad - I was a kid, I liked it back then! And today I have very positive memories about it, especially if I hear the soundtrack, again.

                      But I must admit, until now, I didn't know When You Wish Upon a Star at all. I guess the 1940 Disney version never made the way to Germany, at least not when I was young.
                      I liked how you played it. This is indeed a very nice piece, and you got the essence of it perfectly. Now I have listened to the Disney version with the big orchestra, and it sounds likes yours, just with a bigger ensemble. Well played!

                      Sophia Edit: now I simply must know the story with the saddle ๐Ÿ˜ƒ

                      It's a saddle I had custom made a few decades ago when I was actively riding in the mountains. I have a couple of English saddles (dressage & hunt seat) in another room, along with the breeches/boots/and all that other jazz packed away in totes. I haven't ridden in over 20 years because I got old and so did the horses. Now I just keep the saddles and tack for the memories and home decor. The horses are long gone to that big green pasture in the sky. My last horse was a thoroughbred whose pedigree traced back to War Admiral. We lost him at 20.

                      I thought it would be a good backdrop for the piece. All I had to do was move the camera to get it into the shot since that's where it normally sits under a saddle cover. That particular closet is used for storage so the saddle rarely has to be moved.

                      Schubertian2 โ€” Ballade 4

                      Wow - this one was really impressive. One can literally hear, you invested a lot of time getting this Ballada to this level. The really nice about this is to know, you did everything from the sheet music, and nothing else. Basically this is stepping back in time, when there were no audio recordings existing.
                      Music was always live played, and every artist made it sound differently, unless one had been teached and could copy his teacher. But for all others, there was some paper, hard work to make it sound and then it was very unique piece of music.

                      I still wonder how it is possible, to play something difficult like this for 13 minutes, without mistakes. Excellent work!