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You people who have already submitted pieces intimidate me!
I will probably be polishing away up until the 15th (or whenever I can get to a good piano near the 15th)

I feel a bit more positive now, finally it seems my head is beginning to absorb this piece. I made a trial recording yesterday, but forgot to actually turn on the recorder (it's silly, one has to carefully press twice or it stays in the "ready" state instead of actually starting). I thought it wasn't too bad, but I wouldn't know now. But I doubt I'll be ready before the very last days...But since my piece is the last one, I guess it's appropriate to submit last

You don't know how many times I've considered just dropping out of this recital! The arabeske shouldn't be this difficult! It seems like since I started focusing on recording the piece, a part of me stopped having the passion and love I used to have for it, and I have to "force" it sometimes. The natural inflections and rubato I used to do seem to fade and I have to think about what to do with some phrases. For some reason, it kind of deteriorated with time rather than matured.

This really is a disaster. I have to fix this mess soon!!

Know what you mean. The only way is to play through mistakes, dropped notes etc and pick the best of a motley crop. . . but its great when its off your back and you can do something else. . ..

Made a recording yesterday. I need to clean it up!

Will submit the very last minute, probably..

The Arabeske is not easy - I did it a couple of summers ago. It seemed there was always more to learn about it.

Sam

Sam I know but it's just that it feels like it kind of went downhill after some point. I mean, if I recorded this like a couple of months ago, I'm pretty sure the result would be better. Now I guess I kind of lost the initial fascination of it, and I can't seem to get a recording which sounds like I want it to. It seems like in the end I'll have to settle for something much lower than my expectations.

I can play it well, but it's nothing magical, and I'm sure I won't captivate a first time listener like I was captivated. And that makes it disappointing.

Pover, couldn't it just be that you hear more than you heard before?
That's what I have all the time.
I hear more flaws as I progress. The better I play a piece the more flaws I hear.

I'm in at 24. A piece picked for ease and what I had on hand, although not as easy when I recorded...:) -
(Piano_primo) - Soldier's March Opus 68 (Robert Schumann)

My piece is definitely not ready yet. I'm pretty optimistic about the next 9 days. Worst case scenario it will just be full of missed notes. It's only 3 or 4 minutes of suffering.

My piece is not quite ready either. This bad cold put me out of commission for a couple of weeks. I did not get better until I stop practicing. Will do the best I can for the next 9 days.

I'm submitting what I have got. If I can get something better before the deadline, great, but I'm not going to have much free time so I'm not expecting much (especially with Op 68 no 39).

LOL, that's pretty much how I feel. I've been rather distracted by composing and singing as of late, in addition to joining my praise band at church, learning piano music for student performances...well, it adds up to not much time left for Schumann.

I think one of the pieces (Fantasiestucke Op. 111/2) will be alright, but certainly not up to the tempo markings in the score. I'm pretty happy with playing the dotted rhythm somewhat well without tensing up, so that's something anyways. This section is actually not the part I found rather appealing, but what has occupied most of my time. The slower part is much easier and is what really drew me to the piece. However, since I'm playing the "fast" middle part slower than on recordings I've heard, I actually like it a lot better.

My other piece, Nachtstucke Op 23/3, is another story altogether. We'll just have to see how much work on this I can get done. There's a very chromatic passage that is just tricky to get in my fingers, so still doing technical work on that, but at some point I'm just going to have to focus on musical elements and getting some flow.

For once I have not listened to a recording of either of my pieces. I'm sure I probably heard them at some point in my life, but they failed to make an impression, because I did not remember ever hearing them before.

So my interpretation is all me - and my teacher's. No fast tempo to try to live up to, no exqusite slow movement to try to imitate. I'm just doing what I can with my own ideas about the pieces.

Sam

The panic`s beginning to settle in here! Keep taking the tablets guys . . . .

Submitted!

I'm in with my second piece. It was quite a struggle to get it recorded. The softer parts seemingly have ghost notes but I am sort of sure they were not really ghost notes. And there's too much reverb in the recording but still I think it is good enough to submit. I have slowed it down a bit and was very focused on keeping it even. I will do a couple of other attempts this week but I'm very glad I am in in time..

Submitted my two today. I've had them ready for ages. Simply no time to record. Husband and dog were home today during recording. Everyone managed to stay quiet long enough for me to get one take on each piece. I'm glad to have them done and not hanging over my head all this week. As usual, they are not my best effort. But, not my worst either. I generally do one recording and I'm done. Further efforts in a day only deteriorate in quality.

Listened to my second piece again. It's not good enough.. I'll do another take.

Still working..