Believe it or not, our 16th quarterly Piano World Adult Beginners Forum recital approaches! The recital will be posted some time on the 15th of November, which means that the submissions must be in by 9:00 pm EST, November 14. Please note this deadline is very firm; I cannot start working on the recital until it is closed, and once it is closed, no new entries can be added.

While any and all styles of music are welcome, we do ask that it be piano related.

If you are fairly new to the piano, please do not be intimidated by some of the talent here in the ABF. We all consider ourselves to be beginners even though we may have been playing for some time. And, we LOVE to hear recordings from folks new to the keyboard. So even if you’re on your first Alfred’s method book, we would *really* enjoy hearing from you.

Recital submissions should be in MP3 format. The maximum size of the file is 20 MB. We recommend encoding the recording at 192 kbs, as that works best with the online streaming player. At that bitrate, a 20 MB file works out to be about 7 minutes in length. Your recording will be normalized when placed in the consolidated zip files, but your original link will still be available for those who want it.

If you are new to recording your music, there are several threads in the forum archives that address the ways and means. See the "Important Topics in the AB Forum" thread stickied at the top of the AB forum page. Audacity is an excellent "free" recording application that can be used.

Submitting Your Recording:

We will be using again the absolutely marvelous automatic web-based recital program that mahlzeit wrote for us. And thanks to LaValse's extremely generous offer to host the recital program and zip files on his server, it is no longer necessary to upload your mp3 files to box.net or some other file hosting server prior to submitting it to the recital. You will upload your mp3 file to the recital server as part of the recital submission process.

When you have your mp3 file ready, go to:

http://abf.make247.co.uk/

and follow the instructions there. Once you have uploaded your info to the automated recital website, you will receive a confirmation e-mail. You will have the opportunity to revise your submission any time up until the deadline. If you have any problems at all using the new website, or if you do not receive a confirmation e-mail within a few hours, just PM me. If you have not participated in past recitals using this software, you may want to submit your recital piece at least a day in advance in case you run into any problems with it. (Though there should be no problems. Mahlzeit is a genius. )

Mahlzeit's website will use the same submission template to be filled out along with your attached music file. You may want to have your responses to these fields prepared in advance so all you have to do is cut and paste:

Performer's Name: {forum ID and real name if you’d like}
Where you are located: {optional}
Avatar image link: {optional}
Experience: {Yrs/Mos of piano playing experience}
Link to YouTube or other video: {optional}
Home page link: {optional}
Title of piece/composer:
Source of music: {sheet music, improvised score, play-by-ear, etc}
Instrument used: {Piano make, keyboard model, etc.}
Recording method: {audacity, Zoom, digital to PC, etc.}
Constructive technical feedback wanted: {Yes/No}
Additional Info: {Your thoughts on the piece, etc. etc.}


The due date for all submissions is 9:00 pm US EASTERN TIME on November 14, 2009.

Did I mention that the 9:00 pm deadline was firm?

Think "consistency of concrete."

By submitting a piece to the recital, you are certifying that it is an amateur recording of your own performance.

Again, the recital order will be presented in the order the pieces were received, so the sooner you send in your piece, the higher you will be on the list! This serves to reward the folks who feel on top of their game, and it's about as fair as I can think of for all parties. You can revise your entries on the template (e.g., thoughts about your piece, adding YouTube links, and the like) any time and not lose your place in the recital queue, but if you resubmit your recording at any time, for any reason, you will be bumped to the end of the list.

Should anyone have any questions at all on what to do or how to do it, this is the place to ask. Remember, there are NO stupid questions, as we have a steady flow of new members in AB forum for whom this is their first recital, so your questions will probably help to eliminate other members’ problems. Please ask away!

Let's all go out and brave that Red Dot and share a lot of beautiful music!

Just letting you know that I submited mine but I noticed I appear twice in the list of submissions. What happened was that when I went to listen to the submitted piece by clicking the play button on the last page of the submission process it only played part of the piece, so I clicked the link to download and tune and listen to it that way. Everything played ok so I did a "Page Back" in IE and hit refresh. Maybe that caused the double submission.

Ay, ay, I'm in serious trouble - I have to put something together quickly. That'll be tough

Mine is in (#11, or is it #10?).

Now, I'm the proud possessor of three very valuable things: (1) pride for recording my piece fairly well; (2) relief in having it successsfully submitted to the Recital; and (3) joy at having recieved yet another rare and valuable 20-digit magic code with which to make revisions (although I am still not fully convinced that 20 digits is nearly long enough to establish and guarantee complete security ).

JF

I'm in. (and on time this go-round!) I'd like to make it better....but I had a MAJOR problem on my iMac - my FileVault encrypted hard drive crapped out, and I only have access to what I already put up on Box.net two weeks ago....and don't know if I'll have this thing back and working by the 15th. I've gone through two rounds of hard disk recovery so far, and each attempt takes 3 days.

I love my iMac, but this is seriously testing my sanity. I still have my old hard drive, but I am having to use some serious recovery tools on it, and I can't do anything to risk writing to it or changing the drive....so I even have a complete operating system and 3 recovery tools on a 16GB USB jump drive. I call it "Snow Leopard on a Stick."

If I get anything back from it, three things will be happening from now on.

1) I'll be backing up daily. Religiously.
2) I'll be testing the backups on a periodic basis.
3) I'm never using FileVault again.

Sorry for the diatribe, but I'm just happy to be able to submit something this time - despite the other crisis.

Yeah, that is what created the duplicate. However, the administration pages of the site will recognize duplicates so it will be removed at some point by Monica.

Red dot, red dot be my friend -
Let me make it to the end.
You are slave, I am Master -
Please no - not another disaster.

^Lol. Not even going to try the red dot today. Will do some practicing, but no recording.

Mines in.

Just a side note. In a way, I'm kind of sorry that my Zoom H2 is worth around $150 because I'd sure like to throw it across the room and watch it smash. Nothing against the Zoom of course as it's a great recorder but rather a sick form or therapy for me!

I just have this extreme desire to meet this jumbo-life sized red dot in a dark alley somewhere and beat it senseless. [Think of those inflatable referees that take a beating and keep bouncing back for more.....until they pop of course].

Hell, you would pay more than that for an hour of professional therapy. I say THROW IT! I can't throw mine... it's my whole damned computer. But I can kick it!

Cool everyone. Looks like a few Beethoven Sonatas will be appearing.

Decided to change my piece yesterday. I'm definately NOT in until at least next weekend...

Well, just go mine uploaded. I recorded it a couple of weeks ago, but got beat by about 10 people! Oh well, now I can sit back and relax. Can't wait to hear everyone's performances!

It's crunch time. Piano players scrambling everywhere to do some last minute practicing. Others will be screwing around with unfamiliar recording equipment and don't forget everyone else on their 27th take of the same piece having to force themselves to start the piece again calmly when what you really want to do is scream and choke people!

I can smell it, it's in the air!

[Ssssshhhhhh] get out of my head
- SC

Yup, deleted.

You're not helping mr_super-hunky.

I sat down with the red dot just now and tried a few options. Tragic.

Sorry but it happens to everyone (I assume). Look at it this way, when you finally submit an acceptable recording you will probably know the functions of your recorder inside out and backwards. You will have accelerated your piano playing experience under stressful situtions thereby gaining valuable experience and confidence. In addition, you probably will be very close in memorizing your entire piece as you have played it so many times.

So you see, while it may seem like nothing but stress, frustration and doom, you will end up stronger in several areas as a result.

I remember just a couple of years ago most of us had no idea how to record our music, where to host it, how to convert it to mp3 format etc. Now members are embedding HD videos of their playing almost as easily as a standard reply.

Like the old saying, "what does'nt kill you will only make you stronger". This still holds true. You will definitely get out of it what you put into it.

A very good summary of why I do this. I lack the discipline to sufficiently perfect pieces simply for my own purposes.

^^The workstation here makes recording a snap. Just start the resampler and then transfer the results to the computer to convert .wav to .mp3. I automatically get a sample without background noise, bench creaks. Even my clicky pedal disappears.

I am in now. I went with option number three of what I was hoping for and rerecorded Trois Gnossiennes. Only had to do one or two retakes of No. 1 which seems to be the one I forget the most.

My real problem was I had taken on a bit too much over the last few months. It should put me in a good spot for the next recital or two with a few Songs without Words nearing the recordable mark and a few more Kinderszenen coming close to recordable as well. I should be able to work those troublesome spots out and start a new piece as well.

But, it's time to get back to reading journal articles.

Something I have found that reduces the red-dot fever for me is a larger memory card for my recorder. I use a m-audio microtrack, which is a generation out-of-date with the newer recorders. It came with only 128 meg of memory, which meant I got about 7 minutes of record time. Every time I made an aborted take I would have to stop, delete, start. Very annoying.

So I bought a 2 gig card for it. Now I can record for almost 2 hours if I want to. No longer is my concentration broken by stopping to fool with the recorder. I start it - and forget it. Play my recital piece through several times. I almost forget the recorder is running.

After the session is over I load the file into audacity and cut and trim to the best take. So if your recorder allows it, just turn it on and try to forget it - don't fool with it after every aborted attempt.

Sam

I've been having kittens over doing Clair de Lune for the recital. Not sure if I'll have it ready in time. I can play it now slow, and with mistakes. It's not a piece really that likes a lot of mistakes. It might be ready, then again, it might not.

Quick update....I may have my data back. I still have to send the unit out for a HD swap, but I was able to get most (if not all) of the data back.

Someone resubmitted or deleted. I've moved up a spot to number 16.

That was me that bumped you to #16, I have had a few problems with uploading my submision so with Monicas help it is now done and I am in the # 17 spot, I hope you guys will like my piece, this is the very first recital I have ever done and I am also excited to hear all the other peopls submisions too, aloha everyone.

Chris

Oh, if past history repeats itself, there will be lots of shuffling going on in the recital queue over the next 12 days. I, for one, still have half-hearted hopes of getting a good recording of my more challenging Einaudi piece that I really wanted to submit this time.

I am going to participate in this one, for the first time in ages!! Actually, this will be my first submission with the new system in place.

So, how would I know what my file is encoded as? (we are recommend to encode at 192kbs?)

I recorded with a Zoom H4, and then cut the empty bits at the beginning and end off using Audacity, and ended up with an MP3 file that's about 5mb (it's a longish piece). Is there something else I should do before submitting it?

Also, the recordings are now normalized, right? Do people ever have problems where their recording ends up sounding worse after encoding?

The only other question I have is one no one can answer. Should I submit what I have now, or try a few more takes and see if I can get a better one??

This is the first time I've moved up. Of course with a sample set of 3, it's hardly a significant statistic.

No regrets (need to shoot myself for that pun) that I won't be getting Mendelssohn op. 19, no. 2 in this time, but it might be a sure bet for the next recital. Looking forward to being able to start work on a new piece in addition to the four of five pieces I'm trying to get polished off. I just haven't decided which piece I'm going to try to move from the really atrocious sight-reading state.

Maybe Chopin op. 28 no. 17, Mendelssohn op. 19, no. 1 or Schumann op. 18? I'm starting to lose my focus when I'm at the bench again, there's just so much music out there.

I "regret" to say I don't get it - what pun? Is Op.19, No. 2 known as the "regret piece" or something?

JF

You'd be able to tell by looking at your H4, Shiro, which will have that little button/switch that you can set to 192 vs. other things. Look and see what you have it set on.


Nope! You're all set!


The only time there is a problem is if somebody recorded using a variable bit rate (which I don't think is the case if you were using a standard setting on the H4). And even then, the problem only occurs with the online streaming player, where the playback can sound speeded up a bit. And, yes, the mp3 files are all normalized prior to being put in the zip files. However, the recital thread itself will have a direct link to your mp3 file in the state it was when you uploaded it... so if it's sounding too quiet when you play it on your home computer, go ahead and normalize it in audacity before uploading it.



Actually, I *can* answer that question for you: Submit what you have now. It's beautiful as is.