Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Adult Beginners Forum The 11th World Famous ABF Recital...

I hereby volunteer in advance

Sure, the testing will be from Aug 1 until Aug 15, ha ha. Why test when you can have users do that for you?

I've been working on Bridge Over Troubled Water and it definitely is giving me trouble (sorry, I couln't resist). I start off nice and slow with the intro, but about half way through it starts taking off like a freight train. I can't seem to reign it in. It gets louder and louder and faster and faster. Just like "lions and tigers and bears, oh my....." By the time I've finished the last chord I feel like I've played a tune Baron Von Frankenstein would have been proud of. A bit of this, and a bit of that all sutured together to form a nameless monster. I'll give it some more time and try to smooth it out or else I'll serve it up to the Bergermeister and the crazed villagers.

Just came back from vacation yesterday, and see that the recital is a month from now... Don't have anything ready; I am kind of tired of running a romantic marathon though, maybe I'll do something classical for a change... Mozart..? Suggestions, anybody?

For a REAL change, you can play us some boogie woogie!!
Hope you had a good vacation.

I'd played in a rock'n'roll band but that was 20 years ago when I was a student. Now it would be totally out of character...
Thanx; in fact, unbelievably good; we traveled all over Brazil - I may post some pictures in the OT thread later this week

I'll be entering my first improv. Although I know nothing about the proper construction of improv pieces, I'm using the "hunt and peck" method to put together a "pop" song that really caught my fancy. The last I played around with improvising was with "Blue Moon" and "Heart and Soul" when I was a young teenager.

That's a time honored tradition: if it works it's production, if it doesn't then it was a test.

Ed

In each of the last few recitals I've really wanted to make a submission, but the deadline has been bang in the middle of either hideous amounts of coursework or exam finals! I've finished uni now though, and I'm damned if I'm not going to make this one!

Looking to hopefully submit Chopin's Waltz Op. 64 No. 1, also known as Minute Waltz or Petit Chien.

Well, I figured out what I'm going to submit -- something a little different for me (i.e., not classical and my own arrangement). This time I'll make sure there are at least FOUR notes!

Ed

*bump* just to make some folks nervous...

And my tech is scheduled to come out this Thursday to tune and voice my piano! So this weekend I'm banishing the children outside and going at it hot and heavy with the Zoom.

Monica - can one safely assume that the "Zoom" is an audio recording device?

Regards, JF

JohnFrank:

Oh boy, my tech left yesterday and I absolutely LOVE how my piano is sounding. My kids had better pray for good weather this weekend because they'll be spending most of it outside while I'm recording! If they're well-behaved I'll even set out a bowl of water for them!

...all of which is another way of saying "bump." One week until the recital opens...

Heh, still have to update the software.

Oh, and to think of something to perform. That would be good too.

Hey, I just got back from my 2 weeks vacation ( without practicing piano ). The first time I played again, it was like relearning the pieces and this thread is adding pressure (and Monica kept bumping it to the first page). I am currently polishing my 2 new pieces so I will see which one is better to submit to the recital, the other one I will use to participate in the next month piano bar. So this weekend is critical for me and you guys will definitely hear "a lot of clunkers" from me in this recital as I won't have time to play with "red dot" much.

TB

Monica,

I can hardly wait to hear you play on your freshly tuned and "voiced" piano. Is this the first voicing you've had done to your piano? Having mine voiced was the best enhancement to the overall sound of my piano of anything else done to it since I've owned it...other than regular tunings.

I'm happy for you and I'm sure that the others in your fan base will be as happy as me.

Warm regards,

Lisztener

This is the second real voicing the piano has had; it's been about two years since the last voicing, and some of the high notes were getting rather shrill, and the bass notes had a few high ringing overtones. Now it sounds overall much mellower.

If I have time, I'll start a thread where I post "before and after" recordings of the same snippet of music and see whether anybody else can tell a difference.

Great idea, Monica,

I forgot to ask if this was a needle voicing, or did your tech take your keys out of your piano and sand the faces of the hammers?

I had difficulties with keys that were too loud compared to their neighbors. My tech put a painter's drop cloth over the piano bench and the surrounding floor, then proceeded to remove the keys from the piano and place them on the bench to sandpaper the hammers. After replacing the hammers, he fine tuned with the needles to make the key strikes more uniform in volume for the same pressure applied to each. Since that "major" voicing, my tech continues to needle the necessary keys to keep the touch uniform each time he tunes the piano. He said that after three years, depending on amount of use, we'll consider another major voicing.

Regardless of how your tech voiced your piano, I'm delighted that you can discern an audible difference.

Enjoy...enjoy...enjoy!

Best regards,

Lisztener

He was definitely sanding the hammers... I didn't see any needling, but that could've happened when I wasn't looking. He also did something that involved taking a hammer and whacking away on the bridge (well, "tapping delicately" is perhaps a better way to put it)... levelling the strings, perhaps?

OK, folks. I have updated the recital submission software with a few small new features.

The performer's name will be written in bold text, and there is a field for entering your location so we know where you're from. Also, the duration of the pieces is now automatically calculated from the MP3.

I also made some other changes that you won't see -- until they break something. So when you are submitting your MP3 for the recital and you find something strange, send me or Monica a PM.