PianoTell Recital (model) Ideas
I really don't mind what system gets chosen (if any), but speaking strictly for myself what I enjoyed most about the PW recital system is the complete randomness of it all.
If someone right before or after me plays a long and complicated concert level piece it doesn't make me feel inferior (though very jealous of course 
) But they have played for 50 years and I am one year in, no problem.
Whereas if I get lumped in with the toddler section where I belong, I might start to feel terrible because someone who started later than I did made it to the intermediate level.
Again I don't have a very strong opinion either way, but I have a slight preference for completely random 
Sophia I agree, I think the PW recitals are just fine the way they are. All levels are welcome to participate. I can understand when a teacher hosts their own recitals and decides the order, but they know their students so they can decide to order the recital as they see fit. Order by submission date/time works fine for PW.
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Great ideas!
Shall we run the next Quarterly recital in parallel with ABF on PW? We might start with duplicate submissions on PW and PT and see how it all works out.
Based on all the suggestions, this is doable:
- On the day the recital submission period starts, a volunteer or leader with special permissions creates a Recital thread.
- Every performer submits their performance. Nobody can see it but them and the leader/mods. They can edit it at any time.
- P|T doesn't host the performance. The performance can be on YouTube, Vimeo, SoundCloud. Other embeds may work as well but those are the ones I tested. Let me know your favorite ones.
- On the day the recital goes live, the leader approves all the submissions.
- I think we can have a Recital banner at the top of homepage to announce it.
- Optional: The leader has the ability to crosspost the recital across forums and super sticky the recital as well.
- Optional: The leader can delete posts that don't include the performance in them yet, so that the submission order can be enforced like PW.
Now that PianoTell works locally on my laptop, I was able to pilot this. I crammed everything in one screenshot so that you get the idea. Only the submitter/leader can see the post that is marked as Awaiting approval.
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Beach L168, Wish, baCh, WOW Petrof, Fake Steinway, VS
TIME
Next to the themed and quarterly recitals there is always one month left. Maybe we should have recitals those months. I'm afraid if we have the same recital here and on pw it's going to be a bit chaotic.
Josephine Next to the themed and quarterly recitals there is always one month left. Maybe we should have recitals those months. I'm afraid if we have the same recital here and on pw it's going to be a bit chaotic.
On the contrary, I think having it at the same time is better because if anyone has prepared a piece they will submit it to both recitals at the same time, wheras if someone is not ready they will skip and wait for the recital on the other forum. Therfore, the participation will be split up and lower on both forums.
BartK If we are to have recitals on PT it is my belief that they
need to be different in some way from PW recitals. Firstly they need to appeal to PT members so perhaps they should be more informal. Besides fully polished pieces, work in progress pieces could be encouraged. I am not sure if comments are a good thing. In my view the timing of recitals on PT should be different to PW. Some difficult choices to make.
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Pallas I second everything Pallas said here. I too have no preference what system P|T will adopt... my only wish is that it will adopt its own culture in time. I know that some have years of history tied to PW, so some will feel a lot more nostalgic about the place. Whereas I have good memories (it's where I met you all), there are some things I would like to leave behind in there (some of the cultural aspects). And I absolutely think that @Sam's wishes are gospel when it comes to recitals. I mean it's his baby 
Just speaking for myself, I wouldn't mind if this recital environment is sufficiently different from PW so it won't feel like competition. For example three times a year instead of quarterly, distinctions like that to make it unique to this forum. Perhaps January, May and September. Maybe even each themed - for example January - anything goes. May - themed recital. September - everyone is wearing something blue. I'm joking of course... but seriously, I'm really hoping this place will come to stand on its own and not depend on whatever goes on in PW. That's my wish 
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I’m gonna make a blunt observation. It seems like almost everyone who has recently been an ABF participant is posting quite a bit here and almost nothing there. There are a few regular recital members who don’t post much to the forum, other than at the time of recitals, so I don’t know whether they’d make the trip over to participate in a recital here, but other than those few people, I think most of the committed people are spending a lot more time here these days.
I like this new forum a lot. But it’s possible that it’s the latest shiny toy, and in time people may get bored with it and go back. Or it may really take off. My sense is that a lot of us who are over here were pretty unhappy with a lot of things at the other place, so I’m optimistic.
However, any recitals over here are currently an abstraction. My sense is that Navindra’s got a lot going on to set this place up in a way that is sustainable long-term, and I’m sure this will be a priority ahead of doing whatever needs to be done to set up a recital. Anyways, I’m sure that if/when a recital series gets started, there will be plenty of issues to work out, things that work well and things that don’t. My opinion is that we don’t need to get bogged down right now in things like timing, how much distinction there should be with PW recitals, etc. I think the first recitals will, as much as anything, be an opportunity to sort out how to get them going, work out the kinks, etc.
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Right, I think we're all basically saying the same thing here. It's perfectly acceptable to wait and see how things play out. There is no rush to make any decisions here... this is P|T. Anything can happen here.
And PW is PW, where recitals are scheduled and planned for the future... where we can participate if we wish, or leave them to it if we don't 
I think that independent of what is happening on PW, having Reticals can be a tentpole or anchor feature for a new site like PT to keep momentum going and positive, proactive engagement up!
I personally don't mind if the recital theme/schedule mirrors PW (a good way to ensure that folks who share to one recital can do so here as well, and vice versa) or strikes out independently, but I'm in favor of getting something going quickly, so we can get a strong start and a good baseline to improve and iterate on
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Gombessa Agreed! Hopefully with the approach proposed above (based on the excellent ideas here), we can refine a plan and get a recital going with relatively little effort.
As for the timing, I've reached out to @Sam for his input. We would do well to go by his recommendations on this.
At least one advantage of timing it with a PW recital is that folks can get maximum impact for a performance they might have been planning anyway. We can make sure things are working well here before thinking of forging a new path ahead.
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Beach L168, Wish, baCh, WOW Petrof, Fake Steinway, VS
TIME
Sgisela I was new over there, and joined specifically for the recitals (I joined in Feb for the Feb recital ) and apart from the Feb and may recitals barely participated. So I’m not sure my opinion counts for much! This platform is so much more user friendly, but without the ‘draw’ of some kind of recital series I could see myself not keeping up here. Or there. And that’s assuming I manage to keep up my renewed piano practice of course (7 months in now!) - but the recital opp is a big part of my motivation to keep going!
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I'm thinking about the submission template a bit.
Principles:
- Present pertinent information upfront.
- Performance!
- Additional details can be viewed after the performance if desired.
So I'm thinking something like this:
[b]Performer:[/b] Peter Bence from Hungary. I've been playing since 1991.
[b]Piece:[/b] Under Pressure by Queen & David Bowie.
[b]Comment Policy:[/b] Critical Comments: Anything goes!
https://youtu.be/muxgwcxW-zo
>! [b]Source of music:[/b] My own arrangement.
>! [b]Instrument:[/b] Purple Upright.
>! [b]Recording method:[/b] iPhone X with large condenser microphones.
>! [b]Additional info:[/b] I get a lot of requests to play Bohemian Rhapsody but I'm still not happy with my progress on that one. In the meantime, I hope you enjoy this rendition of Under Pressure. It took me a whole week to spray paint the piano!It looks like this:
Performer: Peter Bence from Hungary. I've been playing since 1991.
Piece: Under Pressure by Queen & David Bowie.
Comment Policy: Critical Comments: Anything goes!
Source of music: My own arrangement.
Instrument: Purple Upright.
Recording method: iPhone X with large condenser microphones.
Additional info: I get a lot of requests to play Bohemian Rhapsody but I'm still not happy with my progress on that one. In the meantime, I hope you enjoy this rendition of Under Pressure. It took me a whole week to spray paint the piano!
Thoughts?
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Beach L168, Wish, baCh, WOW Petrof, Fake Steinway, VS
TIME
It looks good!
Is someone else going to post the submissions, just like the other forum? I'm asking because if you have to do it yourself at a certain time it's possible that people from some countries have to submit their piece in the middle of the night.
Josephine Each person will need to submit their performance using the template and the submission period would be 2 weeks. The submitted posts will only be visible to the performer and the recital leader.
After 2 weeks, the recital leader will approve all the submissions and the recital will be live.
Does that work?
If there's a timezone consideration, the recital leader can schedule the post that opens the recital for submission. So we can try to be fair over time. However, right now we all abide by Sam's timezone anyway.
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Beach L168, Wish, baCh, WOW Petrof, Fake Steinway, VS
TIME
I have no problem with PT scheduling the recitals at the same time as PW. I realize there is a limited pool of performers. We can promote them on both sites and let people get used to the newer PT way of doing things. We can certainly encourage performers to submit to both. This will probably mean that PW will slowly fade away as there is more participation at PT. Maybe? If PT is successful? Anyway, I am committed to keeping PW going as long as there is interest. But if PT is successful and has a good future I would like to phase out on PW. But not anytime soon...
You do need a template of some kind for people to follow when they make their submission. Navin's example above looks good. Otherwise people will forget to tell us what they are playing! And having more info is always better - why you played this piece, what it means to you, what difficulties you had - it gives the commenters something a starting point when making their comments.
Come up with a comment policy. For the ABF recitals, the performer can choose what level of comment they want:
- No Comments Please!
- Polite Comments only: no suggestions for improvement please.
- General Comments only: Polite, supportive, suggestions for improvement.
- Critical Comments: Anything goes!
This can eliminate a lot of hurt feelings. If you ask for critical comments then you can't complain if you get some. On the other hand, if you do not want to hear critical comments, you can clearly specify something else, and hopefully the commenters will abide by your wishes.
I also hope there is someway to include a lowest common denominator for the recordings. Not everyone can make a video, or even wants to, so audio files should be allowed. I see you included one in your screenshot? Not clear to me.
The recordings are going to be stored somewhere else, and subject to being deleted. I suggest that you ask the performers to please keep their recordings or videos "live" for at least a month so that commenters have time to listen and comment. After that the recitals will probably accumulate dead links. But that's OK, more like a live recital, which is just a memory after it is over.
Good luck! I will participate!
