It looks like nobody opened this thread yet.

I will post the video of Fur Elise, my recording is a few months old. It's a really funny piece.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ETrd1U22q08&feature=channel_page

GreenRain - excellent rendition of an always enjoyable classic piece - what piano and/or recording set up did you use to get that rather unique sound quality?

Regards, JF

My piano is Petrof upright. Not the best piano one could have, but much better than digital piano.

I recorded with digital camera.

I'm glad you enjoyed.

The great Russian composer Pyotr IIyich Tchaikovsky (1840-1913) excelled in many diverse forms of music from the Piano Concerto to Symphonies to Opera to Ballet Suites.

He was an absolute master of melody and the many short, but often strikingly dramatic and beautiful pieces that comprise his Ballet Suites ("Swan Lake". "Sleeping Beauty" and "The Nutcracker") are among the most gorgeous ever composed.

Here is a shortened and simplified version of one of his most famous and popular pieces from "Swan Lake" - this is a piano transcription that appears as a study piece in Alfred 3 - I've entended the ending slightly to include a little more of the melody in the LH that first appears in the RH in the beginning:


Theme from "Swan Lake"

Regards, and enjoy! JF

Wow, that was really nice!

I love how well you can control those repeating chords. I also liked that left hand can be heard and at the same time you bringed out the melody in right. I really dislike when some pianists play left hand so silently that you can't hear it at all. Will you attend this recital?
I would love to hear more...

BTW: How long have you been playing?

Very nice start to May. I enjoyed both of those. JF I agree with Piano Rain on the control. I liked the ending.
Green Rain I had to get my headphones to hear the acoustical value of your Petrof. I think your recording overloaded my lap top speakers. Anyway it was way better through my headphones. Good job.

I felt guilty for skipping the piano bar last month to prepare for the recital #14. This month I participate with a piece I wrote myself. This my first attempt at creating something myself so please be nice, don't laugh. Oh and no chuckles either, I can hear it

Here is Memories

Enjoy

Nice, everyone. No laughing from here, TrueBeginner - really well done.

Cathy

TrueBeginner - very nice effort on your lovely musical creation - some beautiful, slightly dark and throbbing theme(s) running thru the piece - sounds like music from some bittersweet love story in a foriegn film that takes place on the Greek Isles - tightened up a bit and with suitably sophisticated lyrics it could be a big hit for, say, Andrea Bocelli - fine performance too!

Regards, JF

True beginner, no laughing or chuckling. That was absolutely beautiful!

My early submission for May comes with a question. Okay, I've been working like a demon on Schumann Opus 15 (Kinderszenen) for a month now. I'm not the quickest learner so it'll be at least another few months before I'm anywhere on the first 8 which is my real goal. I think 9 is beyond me and I don't think I'll manage the 10, 11, 12 trio of doom for a bit.

Okay, question. With Traumerei (No. 7) how does one handle the 12th with the tied C in the middle of it in the last bar? I can see how the melodies work around it, but I can't play a 12th and definitely not with a note in the middle of it.

Anyway, Traumerei, with too many errors and counting issues in it. I wish I could have done video for it, so you could have seen my cat jump over my shoulder to check out the open window and the birds outside multiple times. It's only three minutes with my poor pace and she went back and forth four times. I swear you can hear my eyes rolling at one point. It needs a lot of work and next time the cat is going outside.

@TrueBeginner: very nice. Some really nice parts as mentioned previously.
@John Frank: agreed on Tchaikovsky being a master of short themes. Thanks for reminding me of other things I should I work on.
@GreenRain: what's so funny?

Impressive start to the month, especially since it's recital submission time.

Very contemplative Traumerei, Home in My Shoes.

Cathy

GreenRain, excellent job on Fur Elise - steady and disciplined, but with real expression.

John Frank, nice work on Swan Lake, especially where the melody is in left hand and you are keeping steady accompaniment with your right hand.

TrueBeginner, beautiful, creative composition, and so well played! Nice peaceful mood. It's beyond time for you to change your name!

Home in My Shoes, beautiful expression on Traumerei, nicely done. We have a cat that loves to jump on the keyboard and strut around on it, but only when I am recording!

My piece this month is A Minor Blues. This is a standard 12-bar blues form in a minor key. I am playing the piano, but the bass and drums are computer-generated. I am playing from a lead sheet, so everything is improvised except for the basic tune.

http://www.box.net/shared/7njl6mfap9

Riddler -

Cathy

There is a fabulous walking base line in there that I would like to hear a little more pronounced. This is really good! If I was in New O I would order another huricane and sit back... head bobbing and toe tapping...somebody turn up the volume please!

I entered this one into the may recital. It's a song by Gillian Welch called Tear My Stillhouse Down. Something to sing after one too many Jack Daniels....

Riddler... Great Aminor blues!! When you say the bass is "computer generated" does that mean you are not playing it? If so..How do you do that?

homeinmyshoes... timing and mistakes be damned... you play it with feeling and a nice job too. (that first big mistake almost sounds like an intentional one...gives it a jazzy feel for a few seconds... Keep working it. It's a great one to have under your belt.

Truebeginner- OK, I thought it was going to be the moonlight sonata for a second but you took off with it. It has a very dreamlike feel to it. I especially like the "off notes" or what ever you call them in the middle.

Greenrain- one of the better versions of Fur Elise that I've heard in a while.

Frank- I love that melody too. Nice job.

Riddler - I really like the Blues and I really like stuff in minor keys, so I guess you can guess how I feel about your "A Minor Blues" piece - excellent job! - you've really got a really good feel for the Blues and how it should sound - more please!

Peyton - fine "bluesy" number yourself - good effort on both the vocal and the accompaniment - enjoyed that a lot too! However, one suggestion: the piano seems to dominate with your vocal slightly in the background - you might want to consider reversing this (unless this was your specific intention for special effect) - perhaps get a little closer to the mic? But, an excellent job overall!

Regards, JF

Thanks, When mixing I went back and forth on that, making the vocal more prominent/less prominent (easy to do since I had the vocal and piano on separate tracks). I decided since it was a piano forum to put the piano up front. Now, like you, I'm thinking I should have given more to the vocal. One of these days I'm going to get it right!!

Hello everyone,

Thank you for your positive comment. I need that to boost my confidence I just had some time to listen to all the other submissions so far to the piano bar and I love them all

GreenRain, I wish I can play at your level. The sound does not do justice to your playing (maybe you could use Audacity to filter out some noise & some high resonnance). And I love all the pictures you put in your videos.

JF, I especially like the ending where the left hand plays melody that you added, it makes it feel richer like adding another voice to the piece. My daughter loves SwanLake after she watched the barbie movie, so she got the 4 hands version of it and asked me to play duet with her. I asked her to give me time as I could not sight read to save my life, while she could play almost up to the tempo after her fourth tries

HomeInMyShoes, I love the dynamics in your Traumerei interpretation. This piece is easy to overplay and yours was just simple and gave me a dreamy feeling. I remember when I was a child I played those popular classics on guitar, dreaming one day I could play them on piano. Now that I am able to learn piano, I no longer have the determination and patience for classical musics.

Riddler, I am always a fan of your "band". Your music is really the definition of piano bar.

Peyton, I admire people who can play and sing at the same time. I already struggle with playing left hand, right hand, pedals, couting tempo...don't mention adding another element to worry about.

TB

Peyton - great fun. That was one of my first tunes back when I was learning 3 chords in the key of G on a guitar (which is all the further I ever got on a guitar). I always like your repertoire

Cathy

Could someone please explain the difference between a Piano Bar and a Recital?

Some outstanding pieces so far this month. I really enjoy the variety of genres being performed.

Peyton - I'm a big Gillian Welch fan and your rendition of this tune is quite nice.

John Frank - Beautifully done!

Riddler - This is a cool piece. Did you fire your vibes player or did he/she have the night off?

HomeInMyShoes - I would have liked to have seen a video also, but your playing is very good as is the quality of the audio transcription.

GreenRain - As I said in my YouTube comment - your playing is terrific and I love the sound of your piano.

TrueBeginner - You are really getting good!

The piano bars happen every month, whenever someone decides to start one and posts a recording in a thread they title "[name of month] piano bar." They can be less formal, people post works-in-progress, experimental stuff, whatever.

Which is not to say that people don't post the same in the recitals - I do . The recitals were started, in my understanding, as a way of recording one's own "state of the art" at a given time, so one could look back in the future and say "my how I've grown." I think originally the recitals were the only avenue for sharing one's actual playing, and then as the technology became more familiar and available the piano bars were started as another way to share our music.

The way people approach the pieces they post in piano bars and recitals is as individual as the people - kind of the norm in the ABF I usually play backing for other instruments, so once a quarter is about what I can do for solo pieces, and they tend to not be as polished as what some others do, tho they're a stretch for me. But some people play pieces they've spent some time polishing, or have had as a goal for awhile.

Bottom line - it's all about sharing our music. There's downloadable zip files of the recitals and many folks put them on their ipods forever There's red dot medals for recitals, which I always hang on my office door. You can put medals in your signature for every recital in which you've played. You usually get a pretty good amount of feedback, tho there's not usually a big amount of technical feedback (there might be some). You can have a glass of wine at intermission

There are links to previous recitals in the Important Topics sticky at the top of the ABF forum if you'd like to hear the variety. Lots of great stuff.

Hope that helps.

Cathy

Here is my May Piano Bar submission. This is a piano/voice cover of the 1968 Paul Simon classic The Boxer.

Well done Bill.

I think that's my favourite you've done so far Bill. And I thought I couldn't listen to Paul Simon after way too much Simon and Garfunkle on family car trips.

Thanks for all the kind comments everyone. I'll get a better version at some point, but it's in the mix of the n things I'm constantly working on, although it's getting more attention than a lot of stuff.

I'm trying my best not to click on Peyton's so I can hear it in the recital. MUST NOT CLICK...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bXqhgjVxZQk

Recital I played with a friend of mine.

Matt

Great fun, all you piano/voice submittals.

Cathy

Hey everyone! It's been a while. Been super busy. Here's a special song I wrote for my mom and ALL mothers for this upcoming Mother's Day!! Lemme know what you think

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A5Mw97IiMGI&fmt=18

Phil