Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Adult Beginners Forum Just for those totally procrastinating submitting something to the 11th ABF Recital

I'm trying to get Tchaikovsky's Barcarolle (June) ready in time for a last minute submittal. This will be my first classical submission.

Anyone other stragglers or procrastinators out there?

I'd have to put myself in the "stragglers" category. I was away from the piano for a couple of weeks. When I got back, I started to work on my recital piece until a couple of days ago I smashed the bejesus out of my right thumb. It's swollen and hurts like the dickens so I've not been able to play.

If it heals enough, soon enough, I'm in. Otherwise, there's always next time.

I'm still hoping to submit - but haven't had time to record yet. Not procrastinating this time - or even being a perfectionist with the red dot - just a busy of time of year. Oh, and I went to a piano camp... and survived... enjoyed it, actually. Sympathies on the thumb, Greg ... two days before the camp, I hung the ring on my finger up on a ladder as I was falling off of it. There was much blood, pain, and a knuckle the size of a walnut. Fortunately, it didn't hurt too badly to play - but it sure looked pathetic.
I'm trying to record Grieg's Notturno.

Another "straggler" here; worked 300+ hours in july; so my first and second choices are not ready by a month's work at least. :rolleyes:

So I am polishing an old easy piano piece I learned last year and will hopefully get a decent recording by next week.

Forget the "hopefully", I will get it done (pun intended).

I will come thru!!!! Been away and very busy! But I must, I must, sub....mit.........

It's between "Mary had a little lamb" and "Happy Birthday" (really, really slow, like Marilyn Monroe slow).

Hi Jeff:

I KNOW you will make it. Your very first classical piece...congrats.

Kathleen

AAAAAAARRRGGGHHHHH!!!!!

I just decided to attempt to record my piece I'm submitting. The first take was ok, but I thought I'd try for a second attempt to see if I could improve upon it, which I did! So by this point I've now got 2 pretty decent recordings (each about 4 minutes long) sat in Audacity.....and it wouldn't let me save it; the options "Save Project As..." and "Export as MP3..." were greyed out for some highly bizarre reason!

So I decided to open a new instance of Audacity and record from the one which had broken into the new one, where the save options were still enabled. No problem, one would think.....however, both versions of Audacity decided to 'stop responding' as soon as I began recording from one to the other and so they both closed down and I've lost everything!!!

So now I have to try and get a new recording from scratch, which is going to be a lot more difficult considering how frustrated I am at the moment. I might have to give it a break and try again later. Isn't technology wonderful? :rolleyes:

I think i do this to myself deliberately. I love this pressure. I THRIVE on this pressure! I am lying to myself.

Thanks for the vote of confidence Kathleen (and hat-tip for the take off on the thread name ).

Ouch. Audacity isn't smart enough to store temp files somewhere when working on a project in case of a crash?

Rob,

That stinks. Been there, done that

Opus45/Jeff,

Don't even bother trying to play perfectly for the mic. The pressure will just bite you in the behind, and you'll get mad (and find that you play the piece really, really well AFTER the recital ). Just forage ahead and play for fun, as though you were playing in an informal setting for yourself or a few friends. You'll have fewer mistakes. It is better to participate with a good performance than to abstain for lack of a perfect one.

Cheers for the symptahy!

Anthony, no it seems as though Audacity doesn't have the ability to restore temp files.....or at least I don't know how to do it in that program. I decided to use Adobe Audition in the end, which proved to be a lot more reliable, and so I've now just submitted my piece to the recital! Yay!!

I was still far too irritable yesterday to attempt to get a recording, but I managed to get a half decent take this morning at the first attempt at using Adobe Audition so I decided to go with that. There are a couple of mistakes and timing issues, but I'm not too bothered about it.

Good luck to all my fellow procrastinators....just a few days left now to get a recording and submit it! I can't wait to hear everyones performances.

That's very true gerg. Until today, I haven't recorded & listened to the peice I'm submitting to the recital. I was quite dissapointed in my "performance". I'll be happy if I'm able to get it from "cringe worthy" to "acceptable". I may have to accept a stop-n-start speed bump here & there throughout the peice if I'm going to get it in on time.

This is a very humbling experience for me.

(congrats Rob!)

I'm a straggler....

This was supposed to be my Summerkeys week that I had to cancel... I'm off anyway so today I'm dedicating (as soon as I can get my husband to leave for work ) the whole day to practicing/playing and recording.....

I want to submit. But getting a recording without some background noise is proving difficult. So I guess I am a straggler. But I will try this time. Honest

Melissa, background noise is o.k.!
There are live recordings of famous artists in which the audience sounds like a sanatorium for consumptives ...

[raises hand]

No excuse other than inertia.

It's good to know I'm in such good company!

I recognize most of the stragglers brave enough to identify themselves in this shameful thread.

My excuse is that I can't seem to get my peice up to a minimum standard. No matter though, I'm going to submit a poor performance if I have to, even though I think I can still get something halfway decent submitted in time.

Best of Luck to all the other stragglers out there!

I like the pressure. It could be ugly....

Rob-
I just read your audacity problems and sympathize with you. I've had audacity crash, and then it (sometimes) saves the crashed project in 100s of half-second blips, which are impossible to use.

I'm not sure if it is a solution to your problem of not being able to save, but I noticed that audacity will gray out some options if you are not stopped recording/playing, if you are only paused perhaps. If it happens again, something to check.
Matt