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Hello Piano World! I think I heard about you on the rec.music.makers.piano newsgroup a couple of years ago.
I can see there a lot of great things here, that most certainly will take away a lot of practise time...
My 1st topic is a bit of the depressing side, hopefully I'll get over it.
Cheers!

I'm rejoining after a couple of years. I'd like to dedicate more time to my piano. I like to play classical and plan to browse the forums for ideas on fitting in practice time.

Hello fellow pianists! I am 16 years old and live in the USA. I began playing the piano about 4 months ago, and it is one of many instruments that I play (guitar, trumpet, violin..). I can't say it's my favorite because that is like choosing between children, but I have an intense passion for it and classical music as a whole.

I am currently working on Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata (#14) - of course - which I began a week ago. I have already memorized the first and second movements, and am working on perfecting them. Now on to the third movement; the hard part, eh?

Anyways, I hope to meet new friends and pianists alike - and maybe even learn some tips of the trade along the way .

Hello, Piano World! My story is very simple.

I started playing the piano when I was 7, and have kept up with it since then. I originally entered college as a piano performance but changed halfway to a music major with piano as my primary instrument. I graduated from college this past year, and am now teaching. I hope to maybe do something that combines music and ministry one day.

As for my current repertoire, I am playing Bach's English suite no. 1 in A Major, Beethoven's sonata in A Major op. 2 no. 2, Brahms Capriccio in g minor, and Debussy's Reflets dans l'eau. I also will be re-visiting some of my senior recital repertoire for an audition recording for a festival soon.

Thanks for this thread -- very helpful and interesting for us newbies.

In "real life" I'm a psychiatrist, been playing piano seriously all my life but never "quite" at the most serious level although I do give performances occasionally.

I've been in the amateur piano competitions, and what brought me here was that I'm currently in the Cliburn YouTube contest and came here looking for any discussions of it. I'm glad to see that some of my colleagues from that circuit are beloved members here!

Hello! I'm new here too, and after I did my post, I took at look at the ones above it, so I saw yours.
I just did an extensive post on your thread about the hand problem.

Howdy folks, I just started lurking on here last week and the content is pretty incredible. I'm a beginner, I took a few years of lessons as a kid but I hardly remember a thing and I'm just getting back into it all! I don't have a real piano, but I'm plenty happy for now using a Casio CTK-3000 as a midi controller. In the future I'd like to upgrade to something with 88-keys and some hammer action, but I don't think I'll ever have the space in my house for a real grand!

Anywho, before I get a nicer keyboard, I have to figure out how to play better. I'm looking forward to participating and learning here!

Hi, I just joined yesterday.. I don't know why I never thought of joining forums before, because now I'm here I'm having a great time reading through everything!

I'm 17 years old, and just finished my last year in high school. I started to play the piano when i was about 6-7, my dad plays and I was naturally drawn to play it myself. I started to teach myself from a grade 1 piano book my sister was learning from; I found it was quite easy to learn how to read music if you know where middle C is and what it is on the score. After a few weeks I could play everything in the book, and my parents thought I should surely get a teacher. When I was 9 I won my primary schools talent quest, playing a Clementi Sonatina, and the year later I performed Chopin's Grande Valse Brilliante. For some reason from age 11-14 I stopped playing altogether, perhaps I got to that age where it isn't 'cool' to play the piano, or I became lazy, but until I was 14, I didn't touch it again.

This year at school I did music, I did a research assignment on Charles-Valentin Alkan, (a 50 minute video which took me about 100 hours to do) (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TbD1oAMLyn4) and 3 compositions. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Iq3YG4iTRM) I hope some of you will have a look at them and give me some feedback

Hello! You must be very talented to have been able to advance so far so soon.
AND.......great job on the Alkan......I just watched/listened to the whole 1st part. Good text/narration, terrific choices of the music (I recognized some of it from having some old LP's by Raymond Lewenthal and also from looking through some of the scores), and beautiful 'cinematography'! Plus, it's very well edited and put-together. It really looks professional. (Just one thing that maybe doesn't exactly work: WHO is the guy that is shown at about 3:30, and again at 4:10? From the narration it seems like it should be Alkan, but of course it couldn't be. Is it Hamelin?)

Great job! All the work that you did really shows, and I mean that in a good way. It seems smooth and effortless, which actually takes a lot of work to achieve.

Hello -- I'm almost as new as you, despite my millions of posts.
Sounds like you can do OK with the Casio, and that you're interested enough to be able to figure out how to get a lot better. And you never know what piano you might wind up having room for......

Thanks for those comments

That was a problem with Windows Movie Maker, sometimes when you add titles it doesn't publish them. It originally had hamelin's name on it, but it didn't seem to show up. You aren't the first to comment on that

Oh, one thing I didn't add. I'm lucky enough to have a Marshall+Rose 6 foot grand at home, lovely piano. Anyone else got one? I'm keen to see what they think. I've played a 6 foot Steinway before and in my opinion the Marshall + Rose is better

Hi everyone!
I studied piano when I was young and I am back at the keyboard after some 30+ years. Now I am looking for my definitive grand and I am playing piano whenever I have spare time.
English is not my language, so I apologize for terrible mistakes in my posts.
See you in the forum!

Hi

I'm Ben, an adult beginner. I started learning this summer. I managed to learn a handful of short and relatively easy classical pieces since.

I'm currently working on 3 different pieces that are far beyond my level, and are frustrating me to no end. So, I hope to find some ideas on this forum on more manageable pieces in the meantime. And maybe I'll even contribute a bit and not just lurk.

My name is Ethan. I've played for 11 years, and I could ramble on and on about piano, piano music, and composers (particularly Alkan) until you would want to smack me.

Hey Ethan, aka Orange Soda King seen you on YouTube. I am also a die-hard Alkan fan. The sad thing is, I have only learnt one of his pieces, and never really controlled it. (Allegro Barbaro) That was one of the first Alkan pieces I heard, played by Jack Gibbons. Planning on learning something else soon, got any recommendations? The trouble is my favourite pieces are always the hardest, (Concerto for Solo Piano or Grande Sonate) so I don't even bother trying.

Hi everyone!

I joined these forums awhile ago but only started posting because of my interest in recording myself. I've been doing piano for 13 years (I'm 20) but have only been enjoying it for the past year. It's so great to find all these people with such passion for the instrument! To think that I was indifferent/disliked it for so long. Piano playing is such an isolating activity and I'm glad that I found a group like this to join.

Me too, although probably not like you guys. I only recently learned about Alkan's Allegro Barbaro, and it was through this site. It's an amazing piece. I admire that you can play it at all!!! I'm amazed that I can play Scriabin's 9th sonata but I'm amazed a lot more at the Alkan Allegro Barbaro.

I learned of Alkan originally through Schonberg's book "The Great Pianists." It's great that he gave so much attention to Alkan. I then went looking for recordings and found a couple by Raymond Lewenthal. One of them had a "bonus record" (a tiny extra LP attached to an envelope on the front) where he talked about Alkan and his contributions. I wouldn't put Alkan at the very top among composers (as some people do) but he deserves our attention.

At the last Van Cliburn amateur competition (2007), one of the finalists, a terrific pianist named Ken Iisaka, devoted his entire finals program to an Alkan "Etude." Some of the people there, even including people who knew about Alkan (like me!), said to him, "You made a mistake listing your program, you only listed an Alkan etude." And he explained yeah, this etude takes half an hour!
Not everybody appreciated the Alkan, but some of us did, and in fact regarded it as one of the memorable and historic aspects of this competition -- i.e. that a finalist devoted his entire program to an Alkan etude.

Hehe, Jack Gibbons is something else isn't he? Well to tell you the truth I can play Allegro Barbaro also, hahaha and yes it is tricky. I recommend any of the songs (chants) from opp. 38a, 38b, 65, 67, or 70. Op. 38a no. 1 is WONDERFUL! Also, a not so difficult etude from op. 35 is no. 3 in G major, except it tires your hands out quickly. A not so difficult etude from Op. 39 is no. 2 in D minor. And there are many other wonderful pieces by Alkan; do some more listening and see what else you like!

Yes I love Op 65, and another really funny thing is I started learning op 38a no.1! Slacked off for a bit though I should really pick it up again it was really fun, though hard to get up to jack gibbon's pace. I've actually studied most of Alkan's music, especially his etudes. I'm keen to try the Grande Sonate but I know it is insanely difficult. My favourite Alkan interpreters are certainly Jack Gibbons and MAH, but also Bernard Ringeissen is amazing along with Ronald Smith.

I've been comparing Alkan with Chopin, and I can't get away from the fact that Chopin is certainly nicer to hear, but to me his music isn't as deep as Alkan's, and Alkan never seems to get boring; I discover something new on each hearing. Something which doesn't help in introducing his music to others.

Good Evening,
I have been a member for a time without introduction so I thought I would say hello. I played piano when I was young for 3-4 years (elementary/middle school), but felt pressured to quit as middle school peers had a much larger influence than I consciously realized. I always had a love for the piano, classical music in particular, and finally as an adult decided to rejoin the seemingly few that appreciate this genre of music. For years I felt empty and lost but luckily I have found you gentle souls, and for that endowment of the wealth and knowledge on the pianoworld I have the most gratitude. Thank you for allowing me to know that I am not alone in my obsession with musical creativity and expression.
Regards