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I'll certainly give that a try lilylady although I am a bit cramped for space to the right of the piano.

Now you see why I was so anxious for the Zoom Q3 to finally be released!!! That thing is so easy to use and no problems with syncing.

Actually, I thought your video/audio quality was pretty good for a camcorder. (The playing was beautiful. It was helpful to me to study your hand positioning and finger shapes, too. )

I'm guessing you had some kind of autofocus and it was picking up on your finger movements. Maybe there's a way to switch that off.

I'm still experimenting with my Q3 to see if I can get the autogain feature to work as well as my H4. I sent my parents packing on a plane last night, and as soon as I get caught up on my back work, I'll try to put up a few more samples.

Surely auto-gain is the last thing you want?

I'm not sure how the zooms do their auto-gain, kbk. On the H4, the way it works is that you press the red dot once, and while it's blinking you play the loudest passage from your piece. That (somehow) sets the mic sensitivity so that it doesn't clip at the loud parts, but then the softer parts still sound soft. If that makes any sense. I am obviously not a sound engineer.

But on the Q3, it doesn't appear that you establish that loud baseline, so it may be operating differently... and perhaps less desirably, as you point out.

Last one for the moment.

I just wanted to test lilylady's theory about putting the camcorder to the right of the piano. It doesn't seem to have made much difference to me. Not sure.

Chris the autofocus is probably trying to keep your moving hands in focus causing the problem...

Jeez Chris, you make it seem so easy! The fugue figure was just right. I do really think you've got a dynamics problem in the prelude - is it the recorder? You'll laugh - I just took out my sheet (Kroll) someone's penciled in the date they studied it - 17.2.1886!

I would say the dynamics in the prelude are probably 50/50 between me and the camera!

With it placed to the right it has to be right next to the piano which I think makes it a little worse. I wasn't doing much with it either though. The last time I properly sat down and studied this one was around 1986 so not quite as long ago as the student you found. I just tidied up the notes for now but it does need work before it's ready for a final take.

Nice playing! I play that Fugue almost the same way. I play the Prelude faster, though, more toccata-like and whimsical.

When I was studying that piece (eons ago), my less-than-stellar piano teacher told me to play the Prelude at adagio with crescendo and diminuendo within each measure. And for the Fugue, she told me to imagine a church procession in which the altar boy walks up to light the candles.

Okay, I switched teachers right there and then. Probably should have switched earlier when she couldn't teach me Ravel's Menuet Antique.

...or as Prout put it - "John Sebastian Bach sat upon a tack, but he soon got up again with a howl!"

Ha! I have that scribbled on my old ABRSM edition.

I once heard that Harold Samuel did the fingerings for the prelude while he was on a train. Don't know if that's true but some of them are a bit dodgy.

Has anyone seen the brand new ABRSM? I was looking at it the other week and it seems to be quite a lot better.

When I record it again I will play it faster once I have worked out some of that tension . In fact if you click on one of the other video links at the bottom of my one there is a tiny little girl playing it way faster than me. Slightly embarrassing! I catch her up in the fugue though.

They do work though. No. 1 is - "He went to town in a hat that made all the people laugh."

My source calls them 'racy'. There's even one about kissing girls! (no. 3).

Love it!

I've just been messing about with the C minor prelude again and had a cunning plan to help with those dynamics. Sorry to keep anyone in suspense but I have to go and do some actual paid work now so I might not be able to upload until later tonight.

I'm just hoping the camcorder picked it up okay. I was doing something this time, honest! Another problem I am having is that my Schimmel is so damn loud. I did a fast take (maybe too fast but it was fun!) and the action is starting to struggle on some of the repetitions. Also did some work on relaxing that little finger but not entirely successful.

This is fun, and quite addictive.

This should do the trick, JWAbacus :-)

http://www.youtube.com/v/xuP5M3jRj0I&hl=en&fs=1&

No, this:

I can't help thinking you've learned quite a lot already! And welcome to PW. My mistake, you seem to have been around for some time. Welcome all the same.

Ah! KBK,

You beat me by a click :-)

On the net, difference between a winner and a loser mate!