Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Adult Beginners Forum Alfred's Basic and All in One Adult Piano Course Book #2

Nancy, nice strategy. It's easy to "front load" your practice time with a piece and going backwards will defeat that. All around, I think the Coate's version is great, one thing in particular is that it begins with excitement, while the A2 version begins slow and dull. The LH is more active throughout as well. I'm pulling for you

Thanks wj3. I converted the file to an mp3 and have now uploaded it! I'm number 24 I think; nice number, very circadian. Before the recital begins, I will put the youtube video in my recital page.

Please watch the YOUTUBE video everyone, instead of listening to the mp3!

I have finished my piano practices for the day (which was mostly Canon in D), and thus have finished Canon in D and Alfred's Book 2!

When I started in this forum, I was hard at work on this book, Book 2, and this thread has been my "home" since joining here. It's a little strange leaving for the Book 3 thread, but I suppose I have no choice. I will continue to check this thread very often.

Thanks Everyone,

I sat down this morning when the house was empty except for me (a rare thing) and played it through a few times. I even recorded it twice to see how I'd do. I still have a lot of hesitation in areas where I'm hunting for the correct notes; and am hitting the wrong notes too often.

I'm doing really well on the last part of it (it's almost the easiest now). I'm going to try to keep doing the play from the middle to the end in my practice, but might mix it up a bit as I'm still having issues with the very first part of the song - the right hand has a pattern to it; but it's not as obvious as the others and I'm having a hard time internalizing it so that I can get it right every time.

Congrats on finishing book #2! I don't think I'm fully done with it yet; as I have a few I skipped that I want to go back to at some point. I'll see you in the book 3 thread too

Morning Has Broken (Block Chords)

Morning Has Broken (Broken Chords)

Morning Has Broken (with strings)

Nice job MiM. They all sounded very, very nice to me. The last one: the joy of a digital, how beautiful it sounds with the strings added!

Comparing MIDI and MP3.

Tumbalalaika (MIDI)

Tumbalalaika (Mp3)

I'm wondering which one sounds better on your computer! I may need to tinker with the setting to get better quality if it doesn't sound acceptable to your ears. The interesting thing is that MIDI of this piece is about 2k, whereas the MP3 is over 600k. This is due to the way MIDI works as it only transfers computer language instructions describing the file content, and not the actual recording of the content as in .wav and .MP3. Because of that, when you play a MIDI file on your computer you get the sound quality of your instrument, not that of the instrument on which the piece was played, or the sound of whatever software synthesizer you have installed, such as Windows synthesizer).

MiM:

The Mp3 file definitely sounded more rich than the MIDI. The MIDI sounded fine, don't get me wrong, but it was more mechanical and the Mp3 more natural.

Just my take

Those that might be interested, I did a little research and I found a course on playing by ear, which is something I thought I add to my daily piano learning. I already ordered the product but haven't received it yet. I only know from some reviews and from what I read about its details that it is something of interest to me. I hope it does not slow my Book 2 progress, but I think it's worth it.

I found this course by accident, but after I read about it here on Piano Forum, I decide to get it, as it uses standard notation and helps in building your chords knowledge.

It's here: http://www.pianoplayingbyear.com/

Caveat: I'm not affiliated with this guy nor do I even know if the product is really good.

Congtratulations Waltz. Its quite an accomplishment. I have just started book 2 so I will be here awhile. Enjoy book 3 and come back and see us here once in awhile.

Thanks Walt . I will certainly check this thread often, I'm very fond of it and the people here.

Fantastic! Well done Waltz! Congratulations upon your completions of book 2. You certainly have been working very hard at it, and therefore well deserved. I'm not sure if you've posted your final version of Canon in D any where yet, but will have to take a listen when I get a chance.

Lots of luck to you with book 3, and please say Hi to Undone for me. I may pop in over there once in a while to listen to everyone's recordings.

Cheers,

Key Notes

Thanks Key Notes!

I will keep up with this thread as well. The final version of Canon in D is here (on my channel's main page):

http://www.youtube.com/user/uvajoe1

Undone is doing very well in the Book 3 thread, hard at work on some really challenging songs. Thanks again and take care

Waltz

Hi Waltz,

Thanks for the link to your Canon in D. Sounded very nice with beautiful timing and musicalities. Lovely!

Key Notes

Music in Me,

You are a wonderful pianist, I see. I enjoyed your performances. Thanks for sharing your recordings and comparisons between the MIDI and the MP3 files of Tumbalalaika. I was very curious about the sound qualities and differences between these two files formats through my computer set-up, and so it helps to hear your recordings of this beautiful song.

While I recognized that MP3 would be the best and ideal file format in terms of consistencies in sound qualities across the different computer platforms, much to my surprise, I've found that I preferred the MIDI file of Tumbalalaika instead of the MP3 in this case. It seemed to sound much clearer and crisper than the MP3, which sounded weaker in general with a bit more muffled background noises to it as well. Very interesting, it could just be my set-up of course.

Thanks again for sharing your experiences and knowledge with us. Looking forward to hearing many more of your recordings.

Best Regards,

Key Notes

Key Notes, thanks for your comments...it's really good to hear a fellow pianist have anything positive to say about my playing. Let us all help each other with feedback and tips, so that at the end we all emerge winners.

It's interesting that you liked the MIDI sound, which isn't too bad, but it depends on your sound module (software in your computer or actual external harware). I like the MIDI version when I direct the file to be played on my keyboard, but not through Microsoft synth. If you have a MIDI cable, hook it up to your keyboard, and play any MIDI file using the familiar sounds of your keyboard.

As for the MP3, I am now able to do a process called normalization and silence removal which improves the quality of the sound. I think for sharing files, MP3 or Wave are the only ways to go to ensure that people hear what you want them to hear.

Hi All.

I finally finished Pomp and Circumstance!!! I thought I would bump this thread by posting my recording of it. This piece took me forever.

http://www.box.net/shared/2qyk9rqd0j

Nice, you sounded clearly in control of the song. Well done.

Thanks MIM.

I'm moving on to Swinging Sevenths. This one seems a bit easier to me than Pomp and Circumstance was.

Also, I just listened to both versions of Tumalalaika. I definitely like the mp3 version better. It has a fuller sound to me.

You play very well.

Thanks Key Notes . How have you been doing?