PianoTell Recital (model) Ideas
In my earlier post within this thread I suggested that Member Recordings would be the appropriate place for recitals. Equally appropriate would be a dedicated Recitals forum provided that the architect of PT does not take the view that it makes the home page too cluttered. For consistency of appearance and content, personally, I would keep recitals out of any other PT forum.
I agree that an individual recital should not be level specific. Come one, come all!
As to whether it should go in the Member's Recording subforum or get its own subforum, I don't have a strong opinion and am happy to leave it to @navindra to decide.
Either way, I envision people posting announcements in the various subfora inviting people to hop over to the recital to listen once it's up. And then it's easy to go back and listen etc. So a distinct forum for that makes sense to me.
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As @Sam rightfully pointed out in various discussions, this is not the PW forum. The PW recitals are fine and belong in PW. The discussion about them belongs to PW as well.
Which means that now that we have this shiny new PT forum, all options are still open. I absolutely loved the recitals in PW, but I don't necessarily think that we should copy that exact format to this forum here. I don't have any answers or ideas, but I think it might be wise to keep an open mind on possibilities and not get too hung up on what goes on in there.
Although I personally prefer this forum, I also think it's important not to take away from that forum by copy catting their recital format. Just some thoughts 
As I said, I don't have any answers or specific ideas!
thepianoplayer416 We don't want someone playing an early Mozart Minuet to be next to someone playing Liszt "La Campanella" because the latter piece is much more advance.
(quoted from the other thread; let's continue the discussion here as agreed upon recently)
Well this is yet another reason why I created that thread, essentially asking if everybody was really ok with having advanced learners participate in the ABF recitals. But then somebody seemed offended by the question, basically asking me how I could even think that advanced pianists would feel uncomfortable participating in those recitals. I know I would feel uncomfortable submitting La Campanella in a recital where another pianist would submit an early Mozart minuet or Mary had a Little Lamb, but maybe that's just me.
Josephine It seems the discomfort would be more on the advanced pianist's side. No matter how often people say "sure, don't hesitate to participate", I would still feel uncomfortable submitting a humongous flashy piece next to participants who submitted their very first recording of the first piece they ever learned. I would feel like a show-off. Maybe it's unreasonable of me to feel that way. Irrational even. Can't help it.
Aren't most recitals structured such that Mary Had a Little Lamb and easier pieces are played in the beginning, and more advanced repertoire played at the end? Why make a big deal out of nothing? Play what you want to play!
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Before this turns into a fight, I just want to remind people that we are simply in the process of fine tuning the concept, in order to have the best recitals that we can possibly have, with as many participants as we can have. The ABF Recitals participation rate on PW has been going down steadily. If there is something we can optimize here, we should be open to discussing it.
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Rubens Maybe you can re-frame this in your mind, since it seems to be something that you and a couple other advanced pianists are bothered by, but it’s not something that’s bothered all advanced pianists, as several have contributed quite regularly to the ABF recitals. I’m pretty new to the recitals and had my own initial reservations about contributing (mostly to do with not having things perfectly polished). But here’s a little bit for you to chew on.
I’ve participated in several ABF recitals at this point, and there is a huge range in both skill/level, and outside of the themed recitals, also in musical genres/styles. It’s about sharing part of your piano journey with others. I think it’s helpful to beginners to hear from non-professionals at every stage, and I think this is how most of them seem to understand things, as well. So you get people who are fairly close to you in skill/level/interests, and also people who are very far away. For some, the recitals may make them much more aware of particular genres of music (or specific pieces) that they didn’t know they liked, and it’s an entry to explore those areas. We all have things both to learn and to teach. So I think if you approach it from that spirit, there shouldn’t be a reason to avoid participating.
I’ll give you a few examples from my personal experience of the recitals. In my first recital, I played a very little known Ukrainian piece, and people asked for the sheet music, which I was able to share. I was really happy to share something that I very much consider a ‘rare gem,’ even though it was far from a perfect performance. In the January recital, I played Barber’s 3rd movement of Excursions. It’s not Campanella, but it’s got plenty of challenges, many of them rhythmic. In any event, several people (who from their recital submissions I consider every bit as ‘skilled’ — if not moreso— than I am, reached out and said that they had thought previously about working on it, but had been put off when they started trying. So I shared my experience of how I worked through the challenges. They were really nice interactions to have, and maybe my playing inspired someone to give the piece another look.
Anyways, those are just some thoughts. I for one don’t think there’s a problem with having Campanella next to Mary Had a Little Lamb, or someone playing video game music or doing an improv. It’s all a good time!
Rubens we can forget my idea, no problem
Only if you decide that you will participate in the recitals. Please do.
I think the question is, 'how can we encourage advanced pianists to participate in the recitals?'
Maybe someone has some ideas about that?
I would love to hear the performances of advanced and/or professional pianists in the recitals as well.
I've participated in many recitals now at ABF, from when I first started in 2016 up until the present. It's always been a mix of beginner, intermediate and advanced pianists. I think more often than not it's the beginner that is hesitant to participate, and not a more experienced pianist. Anyway, everyone is welcome to participate. Nobody is checking credentials!
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We can't say for sure who is more hesitant to participate, between the very beginners and the very advanced. I just I think that the MOST advanced pianists from PW in my opinion (I won't name them here for obvious reasons) have not participated in the recitals so far. And yes I have checked the recitals archives from way before 2016.
@Rubens I also think that the written commentary about the submission can go a long way to addressing your concerns about coming across as a show-off. Write about what drew you to work on the piece, about challenges you had with it, etc. I’m sure advanced pianists have things they continue to find difficult, or things that for one reason or another, they haven’t completely mastered, and how working on the piece fits into your piano journey/growth. I think that in sharing something about the process of approaching/working through a piece, there’s a communication to everyone that we are all growing, and that’s part of the joy of playing the instrument!