CMohr -
Are you sure that crack wasn't your head hitting the fallboard in an overly expressive moment? That might explain the tooth pain...
Glad to hear you're recovering... we live in an old house, and I'm well familiar with those creaks and groans, actually... your recording will certainly be unique!

Peyton -
Unfortunately I've only got 2.9 "pieces" that I can play right now, so unless I go back to really easy short stuff or spend all my time struggling to learn something brand new, none of them will spend too much time "on the shelf being forgotten." I still play the piece that I played for the last recital most days, though usually only one take at it, enough so I remember it but not enough to polish it... the good thing is that I think that with an hours work, maybe less, it would sound much better than it did for the recital... one of the benefits (the only benefit?) of being such a newby.

MSH -
I like your formula for improvement. I'm pretty sure I'll play it for my lesson (or rather, my half-lesson tagged on at the end of my son's lesson... not lots of time but a chance to get some feedback) tomorrow, but with the pressure off after that, it's going to sound fantastic in a week, right?

Hmm, interesting idea for a recital theme someday... "play something you submitted before, so we can all see how much better you are"...

So I negotiate 10 minutes of observed silence from the family, have a rare moment with no lawn mower noise and put the camera on a tripod.

I crack out the Chopin and start recording......

After 2 false starts due to never before experienced note fluffing, I got through a half decent rendition and wasmreadybto get busy with 'post production' work (not editing - just getting into relevant formats and uploading)....

Then daughter pipes up and says, "it stopped recording before you got to the end!"

Turns out the Nikon D90 has a 5 minute max clip length and my Op9 #1 Nocturn performance takes 5:05. I listened back and the recording stops In the last but one bar!

....time to do over but SLIGHTLY faster!


Grrrrr!!!!!!

Ahh! I spent half my Saturday trying to record Gymnopedie No 1 but kept making mistakes in all the places i had no trouble with, and strangely all the hard bits I had no problems at all.

Gonna try again on Sunday.

Correction!
I returned home this week-end, two days ahead of schedule, so I think I can record something decent and send it to the recital. This is not a promise, and let's see if I can do something even although I have not played recently.

raptor, I will look forward to hearing your Gymnopedie 1. I have fallen head over heels in love with Satie.

I cant participate in this one guys I thought my piece was recital ready but my teacher said it is "raw" right now...

If its not ready for a live, teachers and audience in front of you recital is it at a point where you feel comfortable sharing? Sometimes it is good to go ahead and get the first time "over with". For my first ABF recital my piece had a major flub at the end and I didn't have time to re-record but I was encouraged to enter it anyway and I'm glad I did. This will be my second and I'm excited. If your teacher had you play at a live recital with a "raw" piece it would reflect badly on them for throwing you to the lions unprepared. Here we just want to hear everyone try their best and enjoy listening to each other. There is a wide variety of "best" around here.

Here's sending encouragement to DadAgain, raptor, and CarlosCC. The ABF understands flaws in recordings - flubs from red dot syndrome, missing last measures, a little roughness from not having had time to be on the piano. So please submit anyway.

Same for BrokenChord - this is the ABF, sometimes "raw" is the name of the game I have a recital recording with such a long pause that everytime I listen I wonder if I'm going to start again (a previous recital - this one went pretty well) For my very first submission someone said my octaves were "sloppy" "splashy" - I treasure that remark because it was so true! So we'd love to hear you, too.

It's shaping up to be a good selection of pieces - go ABF!

Cathy

(posting same time as Little Blue Engine - similar sentiments. Great minds and all that.)

Same! The red dot can be quite the hurdle to get past! Every recording so far has taken me at least 5 takes because I freeze just because I know it's recording! LOL I'm sure all my pieces are rough or raw. This is also my first recital and I know how nerve wracking that is. Go ABF'ers!

10 minutes with the entire family on pause waiting for a good recording. OMG,...TRIPLE STRESS!!

You're a better man than me. NO WAY could I pull that off!

I can't submit this time.It was going to be Mozart K282, but it'll have to wait til next time.I'm moving house and my piano is in storage.I miss it like crazy.I shall be listening though.

I'm out of luck...
I can not submit my piece ... I do not receive any confirmation or the "magic code".
I have already sent the piece by mail to Monica and I hope she can fix this.

Carlos, there's almost 3 days until the deadline. If anyone can get your piece in, it's Monica. Don't sweat it. Looking forward to listening - and good for you!

I can't even get 10 minutes of silence at my house. I have to record when my husband is at work, the kids are sleeping and even then I sometimes have to throw things at my dog to get him to shut up! Then the neighbor's dog starts barking...

Oh no, can't believe it, a $1000 or so camera recording only up to five minutes continuously! My lousy (or not?) Samsung ST70 can record up to 20 minutes, before stopping and saving.

You could of course make two recordings and combine them.

I'm gathering courage to put up Yesterday. I haven't had adequate time to practice, but I'm hoping to have my first recital up before the 14th. If not, I'll post it in the February (or March) piano bar.

[starts sweating] Unfortunately I was not able to get Carlos's piece uploaded. I have shipped it to Sam S., who--unlike me--knows what he's doing computer-wise. Hopefully he will have a chance to figure out what's going on.

..More recording today....

3 pieces to choose from:

1) Chopin Noncturne Op9 #1 - Played it quick enough that I captured the last note, but then it got cut short.. Not the best performance, but for a debut performance it'll do

2) Beethoven Pathetique Sonata 2nd Movt - not a perfect performance by any means, but acceptable... but not sure about adding something thats already in the recital...

3) Chopin waltz C# minor - Not a performance I'm happy with, but at least its all captured and not replicating what anyone else is playing....

Anyone care to express a preference?

(Now listening back to the recordings on headphones on the laptop and its clear the D90 has terrible sound... its like listening to the piano down a telephone!... where's the top and the bottom?...

oh - and heck my piano needs a tuning!!! :()

DadAgain -

If I remember right you said your iPhone attempt at recording was clipping... have you tried just moving it farther away? If you have a laptop and any mic at all, you might play with those, recording direct to computer. That at least would give you some control over levels.

I'm someone who never looks at the videos, only listens to the audio, so I'm in favor of whatever gives you the best sound, and forget about the picture. (I also don't tape video for my submission, stone-age DP player that I am.)

And, in terms of voting... whatever you like best!

see in the past I've always been about the video - showing daughter whats going on with her posture and pointing out things that she needs to SEE - just using the camera as a learning tool... (and bad audio is perfectly sufficient for that level of private introspection).

Now I'm sharing a recording of myself - to an audience who I have no idea how critical they may be, I find the quality quite embarassing!

Most DSLRs aren't really designed for video. They lack cooling fans for the sensor. Dedicated video cams cool the sensor and thus offer virtually unlimited video time. Most DSLRs do not. Due to the possibility of the sensor overheating many are limited in video recording time to anywhere from 5 - 7 minutes depending on brand/model.

I will not be participating this time due mostly to laziness and lack of preparation, but I am looking forward to hearing all of your submissions.

Well, I forfeited my 11th position to submit a different piece.

I had orginally not thought I'd be able to get it to the point where I would be comfortable submitting it, but ...I did. It isn't perfect, but it is pretty representative of exactly what I can do, and probably better than I'd do with a live audience (I'll find out today as I'll be playing with friends....)

I spent another few hours on Sunday trying to get that elusive perfect recording, but it seems that every recording had a few major flaws.. Since i'm totally exhausted from my recording marathon, I'll just pick the one with the least noticeable flaws and submit that. :P

On another note, I've played and replayed the song so many times that I can now play it from memory!!

Crisis averted. Carlos is in, and it sounds really good (I had to listen to it to verify that the upload worked, didn't I?)

Sam

Thanks Sam,
I'm going to retrieve my "magic code" to fill out the piece information. Great!!!!

btw: what was the problem? It was the bit rate, or the size of the file, or...?

Thanks.

That breaks a long string Dennis. We will miss your performance.

Those are all excellent choices and I have only a marginal preference for the 9/1.

There has been a repeat performance in almost all of the recitals, so if the Sonata is your preference to submit, please do.

I see you went with the 9/1...

I think the size limit is really 10mb and not 20. Your file was stereo with both channels the same, so I dropped it back to mono, which cut the file size in half.

Looking at all the other file sizes that have successfully uploaded, they are all less than 10mb.

Sam

My vote is for Beethoven Pathetique Sonata 2nd Movt

Hmmm, I'm not sure about the size. My submission for the 24th recital was 15mb in size and I had no problem uploading it. Unless this new site has other limits...
Maybe it's the MP3 bit rate because I just submitted sucessufully the same file with a smallest bit rate.
Anyway, thanks for your support!

PS: If the limit is 10mb, please correct the info in the upload page.

Wow, Cheryl, that puts me up to #22. I haven't been that early up in a couple of years But I love it that you got the blues piece ready - let's hear it!

Dennis - I always like your stylings and selections.

DadAgain - yes!

bessel - cool that you got a new recording.

CarlosCC - glad the crisis is averted.

raptor - that's the spirit!

Only a couple of days now. . .

Cathy