PianoTell Recital #3 Is Now Live!

bSharp Journey - Open Arms - I am a HUGE Journey fan. While Faithfully is probably my most favorite piece by them, a big Thank You for this piece is deserved here!

Greta99 "Berceuse", Op. 23 No. 1 by Mel Bonis - I don't know this composer but, to me, the piece is reminiscent of music that was composed a century earlier.

ShiroKuro Wind by Brian Crain - All the work you put in shows in the performance. The ending sounded fine to my ears so you rightfully should be pleased with it.

navindra Over The Rainbow - Well done! Keep up the effort and eventually you'll finish Alfred's book 1 and move on to Book 2.

Ok, so that's a wrap for this recital. A big thanks to everyone who submitted and participated.

Sam Your slower tempo makes it sound very important indeed! I just listened to a Horowitz recording and he makes it seem too easy and trivial. It's always a joy to hear you. Sad to hear about your friend, but does your wife play piano? Any chance of piano duets while you have the opportunity?

keff Very tricky rhythm in the left hand! The other thing I would have found challenging is the solo section. Composed pieces that are supposed to sound improvised are my nemesis--they don't have the logical structure of normal compositions. Interesting ending!

MarieJ I'm glad you realized your dream piece! Was this all one take? I'm very impressed!

Pathbreaker I don't know this intermezzo. I listened twice to get used to the movement and harmony. Lots of ii-V movement (or similar), and also chromatic approaches, which made me my mind go into a jazz mentality. My second listening I got a better sense of it. It's a tricky piece! Lots going on, and many many lines to be shaped, which is expected of a Brahms piece. I enjoyed listening.

rach3master This is the plugin I use and recommend to all of us here. [
It can be used in various ways. The way I use it is somewhat dependent on the microphone I am using which is a dual capsule LDC microphone called "Endora". So I am getting two channels, one front facing, one rear facing from the one microphone. How that all works is another topic, but back to the plug-in. So what I've got is essentially a mono recording with 2 tracks, not quite at the same amplitude (the one facing the piano is louder than the one facing away). I use the plug-in to widen the image, and I think it gives very nice and believable results. I don't think it would work all that well with Audacity, because a visual display is part of how to use it. If you don't have anything but Audacity, you might look for the lowest price alternative that would give you some visual capability in your edit. Listen to the YT clip with headphones, and you'll hear the difference. I like it; I've had many people tell me how lifelike my recordings sound.

Sophia Tell your daughter it was a commission well spent - I just hope you don't squander it all at once.

No worries about that--I can't squander what I never get!

As for our duet (Sophia) let me use this moment to say how impressed I am with the video! Number one of course is your playing (not a surprise), but given how lousy the audio quality of my portion of the video was, you managed to clean up the hiss and get a nice level of volume and reverb on both the voice and melodica, each requiring different levels. And for your (if I remember correctly) first time splicing videos, you did a pretty fancy job! Let's also not forget you came up a structure for the duet, and had to practice playing the piece without the melody (not that easy!). Finally, it's nice to know the pretty face that's attached to your cheery personality.

Pathbreaker
Sorry to say but these are just correct notes played in. It's just flat and boring. First of all, there is completely no difference between left and right hand. Both in firs and middle part, there is no melody and accompaniament in right hand, everything is just one soup. There are no stops and it is fluent, but there is no music inside it. Music should tell a story, whatever it may be, bring emotions, I just do not find it here, and the even most basic rules have not been applied here. You could work on microrubatos too. Music has to be fluent, not metronomical.

This is demanding piece, and you clearly have the tools (technique) to do everything what is needed to make sound 10 times better.