Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Pianist Corner Requesting feedback on recording: Minute Waltz, Chopin

Hey folks, I haven't had a teacher in a while so I don't really know where I am. Any feedback on this recording of me playing the Minute Waltz would be appreciated!

(The recording has less dynamic range than I thought I had ... don't know if it's my phone's microphone quality or that I actually play with less dynamic range than I thought.)

(Not sure if I should have posted this in the Member Recordings forum. Nobody seems to comment there, so...)

Hi monfrere, welcome and nice to hear you!

It's an energetic, engaging performance, and very musical.
I especially like the shaping of the phrases and some of the creative echoes etc. that you have added. Phone microphones reduce dynamic range (to help with talking on the phone) but your shaping does come through.

Every once in a while the LH doesn't sound. It seems to happen more on the bass notes than on the chords.

You could try some other creative choice on the last one or two repeats of the section with all the triplets... toward the end it gets a little repetitive. I like dropping the volume and energy level a bit on the second-to-last repeat then going for broke on the last one. But there are many choices.

I'd add that the dynamic shaping often felt sort of like you were trying a little too hard. Like, when it gets louder, it's too much louder right away, rather than being more gradual, and there's a forced feeling to it.

Also I think the whole piece would benefit from being more gentle (easier said than done! I know) ....in addition to having the 'swellings' being more gentle and more natural-sounding. But you have good ideas, and -- don't worry -- there is considerable dynamic range.

It's fine. Do you have a plan for what to practice next?

Very nice but I think there is too much emphasis on the first note of measure 36.

I like this very much, really nice playing! (A bit faster than I can play it!) I'd like to hear the grace notes more because they're so magical and to me they get lost here--but this could be the recording. I also think there are spots where you might take a little more time, such as before the grace note section. Of course that's up to you.

Evenness of the long trill is something you could look at if you're working with the piece more. My teacher suggested 1 and 3, which works great now that I realize you can trill with the thumb!

Thanks for sharing. I like how your playing is clean and you've focused on keeping the tempo steady without a lot of the excessive rubato that I've sometimes heard in Chopin playing.

As for dynamic range, I think your recording is not doing you many favors, but it's also true for most every amateur musician (myself included), that we always think we are playing with more dynamic range than is actually the case. One must exaggerate almost to the point of apparent caricature to get the effect you actually want.

A couple of starting points to work on:

- Keep working on the right hand, by itself, to smoothen the fast eight notes even more. Not only are they uneven in duration (the issue seems to involve particularly the thumb and places like the scales where the crossovers happen), but dynamics are uneven as well. This should be for the most part a continuous phrase, and that won't come across if you have these small rhythmic and dynamic discontinuities. The worst offenders here are the Ab resolution to the main melodic line, which seems disconnected from the rest of the (generally legato) phrase, and also sforzando in a way that sounds like idiomatic Beethoven. I don't think this is what you were going for. Practice troublesome pairs of notes over and over, starting slowly and building up the tempo. Add one note at a time to your troublesome pair until you cover the entire passage.

- The middle section should have a bigger textural distinction from the A section. This doesn't have to be done with a change of tempo, it could just be done with more legato, more damper pedal, etc. Speaking of the middle section, isn't there supposed to be a rit at the end of it?

- The pedal. The pedal hitting the stops at both ends makes a noise that is usually unwanted. Apply careful foot control so it doesn't do that (feather off the pedal so it doesn't hit the stop hard or at all on the way down, and "catch" it on the way up so it doesn't hit the stop that way either). Try to apply the pedal slightly off the beat, instead of in sync with the notes. In the middle section, the effect of releasing the pedal on the beat makes for a very prominent gap in the sound, rather than the smooth, continuous legato you want here. Keeping the pedal depressed until after you hit the first set of notes in the next bar, on the downbeat, and you get the best of both worlds, a clean sound that's not muddied by too many dissonant notes together, and yet an effectively indefinitely sustained legato.

- On a similar note, think about how you can create a big distinction between the middle section and the other two. Additionally, even within those sections, how can you keep things interesting by making each repetition of a phrase slightly different

Keep practicing and let us know how it goes.