Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Adult Beginners Forum Recital #30 --- Call For Submissions

Piece submitted. I got spot 40, a nice even number that I can remember.

I was so thrilled when I did this recording that I ended up being a little late to work because I wanted to transfer it to my PC and email it to my family. I've been trying to get a good recording of this piece for a month now and these past few days everything just clicked. Sections that were hard before are easy now, spots where I made a mistake 50% of the time I play fine. I just hope I can stay in this state because I'm playing this live at my teachers recital in June. If I'm going to be 18 years older than all the other participants I have to know I'm going to play at an appropriate level for my seniority.

Now I have to choose a new piece to work on (outside of the lesson book). This is a daunting task because I've got several pieces I want to learn but if it'll probably take me months to get it down. Have to choose wisely.

Most everybody moves up a spot.

I managed to find time to record my intended piece, but it happened to be during a play date - the friend invited over was apparently quite vocal in the background.

Oh well.

I`m at no 40 now. I pressed the button to hear my upload. NOTHING happened! Hope it`s OK . . . .I`ll be away next week so if it isn`t . . . sorry!

"Yes, any decent acoustic largely preferred here too. Great!"

Wash yer mouth out wi soap and water, man!

Peter I think you can ask Monica to verify that for you - it would be a pity to miss your submission!

Maybe I`ve unearthed a bit of a problem here. Though it only seems I`m affected by it. (nothing new there)
Audacity will not convert to mp3 without a (free) plug in. But with this free plug in comes a free toolbar. And Lord knows what else .. .! I had to download (free) malware stuff to get rid of a load of unwanted "extras" last time I downloaded a "free" file converter. So I haven`t got one now!
Therefore I submitted an mp2. Is that near enough? (for classics)
I really don`t know the difference between an mp2 or mp3 nor do I bl**dy care. . . I might have to learn to lol . .The Day of the Free Lunch seems to be OVER!!

peterws - Another possibility is, if you have uploaded the piece to Youtube, you can use one of the free Youtube to mp3 downloaders to get a mp3 file. Just google Youtube to mp3. That is what I did. http://www.youtube-mp3.org

I have bumped you all above 34 , since I posted last week it has been niggling me , I really wasn't happy with my recording so this morning I had another bash. Maybe because I had already submitted the pressure was off and I managed a better performance - the joy of the red dot.

Anyway , looking forward to Wednesday.

Strange, I can't remember getting an extra toolbar. From top of my head, you need LAME, and you download it here

http://lame.sourceforge.net/

That should not come with unwanted goodies??

I would avoid that route because it involves many conversion steps that degrade the audio heavily. Youtube itself is already too much down conversion, apart from the other steps you need.

Thaks Wouter! I still had to negotiate the free toolbars . . .they`re everywhere! how many toolbars does a guy need?

peterws - I listened to it - sounds good. So looks like your submission is fine.

Sam

Usually when you are installing a program (or plug in) there is an option to "not" install the toolbar when you are in the install program wizard. If it doesn't have one I search for the program (or plug in) from a different source.

That`s good news Sam! Thanks for getting back to me!

Thanks for the info Wouter79. I downloaded Lame and did an mp3 from my video file and resubmitted.

Good to hear that it worked out

peter, you shouldn't need a plugin with Audacity, just a library. The Audacity website (http://audacity.sourceforge.net/help/faq_i18n?s=install&i=lame-mp3) points you to this download page for the Lame library: http://lame1.buanzo.com.ar/. Don't click on the big green "Download" button! (This may be where you ran into problems with other downloads -- usually this is an advertisement, and it downloads all kinds of junk.) Rather, look for a link called Lame_v3.99.3_for_Windows.exe (I'm guessing you're using Windows), or Lame_Library_v3.98.2_for_Audacity_on_OSX.dmg (if you are using a Mac).

Mar_red - see you're in with "Bring Him Home", another beautiful song from "Les Miserables" (I'm in with "Empty Chairs at Empty Tables") - you might want to note that the lyrics for both are by Alain Boublil and Herbert Kretzmer...looking forward to hearing your rendition of this gem!

I can't submit anything right now. Gee...am submitting to Ecco Fatto in the next week. I do have one piece of music. I mentioned to my teacher. I was so impressed with it. It's brilliance. My teacher decided it was wise to teach me it now. Even if it takes a year. She said: "If we have to. We'll work on it one bar at a time." I think she understands what motivation like this does to a person. So...if anyone can guess the song... I'll post it in the recital when I finish it...might take a year...
My changed title to it is: GAFGC.....the second G is an octave down

Well, i came back from a weeks holiday, had a horrendous day at work and then spent my first day back somehow scraping a performance out of the pollonaise in gm.... recorded on phone and now submitted. I felt so disheartened before, during and after my session today. However i now feel rather upbeat and ready to get back to serious practicing from tomorrow. So much more work is planned on the piece, but i promised i would pop my recital cherry and things will get better with time.