As the starter of this thread, I'll go first. Here is a recording of me playing Mendelssohn's Venetion Gondola Song:

http://www.angelfire.com/wa3/chris98117/Venetion_Gondola_Song.mp3

It's at a bit of a faster tempo than I normally play it at (had to be to fit it all onto what I was recording it onto) but it's still nice. That background noise that you may hear is my dad watching TV. There are a couple of minor mistakes in this recording.

(This link has only been working sometimes)

I really liked that recording. Its very passionate =D.

I would love to post recordings of my pieces but I can't find any website that would host them =S.

Googlism:

First off, I would like to thank you on your comment about my recording.

Secondly, Anglefire is a great place to upload your stuff to. You can sign up for a free account and get 20 MB of space. Just make sure that you set up your homepage (even if you just put one word on it) because if you don't set one up within 20 or 30 days they terminate your account. Best of luck to you on getting your recordings posted!

Hmmm, it seems that my sound file will be inaccessable for the next couple of hours. It seems that I've somehow gone over my 1 GB bandwidth limit. (And all that I have there so far is that one single recording! )
I guess that I'll try to find somewhere else to upload it to that will be more reliable.

Yeah it didn't work for me either. Jgoo (and everyone else) I will post some recordings of me earliest next week. not that you should look forward to it...

If you need a place to host the files you want to post here, send them to me (or let me know where I can grab them from).

Try this one intead. It's the same recording as the one I posted earlier. I uploaded to geocities this time.

http://www.geocities.com/cjmg85/Music/VenetionGondolaSong.mp3

(If you copy and paste this link into your address bar it will sometimes work for you)

Oh no, that link isn't working!

Hi Frank! Thanks for your offer. I may take you up on that. I will send you an email with my file attached onto it. Thanks!

The file seems to be to big to send as an attachment. It's only 2.27 MB in size. Oh well. Does anybody know of a website that I can put it on that will remain reliable and let me link to it here? Thanks.

jgoo, What way are you trying to send it through the email? try sending it through browser based email ( go to your service provider's home page) or try increasing the time out time in outlook or whatever you use.

Copy and paste[/b] this into your address bar:

(Deleted because this one has stopped working completely)

Well, I said I'd do this a few weeks ago so here goes. Here's the fugue from my first ever performance of the Brahms Handel variations. Extremely unedited.

Some of it's okay, but some of it's pretty sloppy. That's what happens when you memorize a fugue only a few days before the performance. :p

http://kreisleriana.com/audio/fugue.mp3

Sorry about the recording quality, digitized this on crappy equipment.

Hi Kreisler. The quality sounded okay to me. Nice performance. I liked it.

Very nice, Kreisler.

jgoo, you seem to have been able to get a lot out of this piece even with whatever is going on in the background.

Keep up the good work.

oh no. Now even that copy and paste one has failed me. This is evil.

(try one of the first two that I posted. The angelfire one you can just click on. The geocities one you need to copy and paste. The last link attempt I tried worked at first but then failed completely so I just deleted that link from the post).

Kreisler- just listened to your Brahms.. very nice, with lots of dynamics and phrasing, and esp. as you say it's a first performance. Would love to hear more. Brahms is my favorite! Bravo to you!

Make a website simply with the code (remove the !!!s):
< !!!html>
< !!!body>
< !!!a href="VenetionGondolaSong.mp3">Venetion Gondola Song
< !!!/body>
< !!!/html>

It's as simple as that. Then post the link to that site and it should work...

Excellent playing Kreisler you really brought this piece out nicely! Recording quality wasn't too bad either. Chris your link still doesn't work for me hehe.

http://www.angelfire.com/wa3/chris98117/index.html

When you get there, just click the link! Thanks Valarking!

I really want to get a recording of my playing, not to just post here, but for critical listening. I need to hear what my playing is like, but I have no access to recording equipment (that, and the practice rooms here are not exactly the most acoustic rooms).

Amateur playing, amateur recording, all life and unedited except cutting out the applause, MP3 VBR encoding at roughly 48 kb/s, you can occasionally hear the audience's "participation."

Sonatina (Improvised)[/b]
- I. Allegro con Fuoco (5:35, 1.9MB)
- II. Adagio (3:11, 1.1MB)
- III. Finale (Allegro) (4:29, 1.5MB, pardon the last note.)

"China Tune" four-hand duet [/b] (4:28, 1.5MB)

p.s. They are all my original works, so no composer name listed.

I'll add my performance to the list:

http://www.pianoworld.com/forum_members/audio/BartokRoumanianDance1ChrisW.mp3

This is Bartok's "Two Roumanian Dances", Op. 8 --- but only the first of the two dances. Recorded about 2 yrs ago. Definitely has some sloppy parts. By the way, this was recorded on a Yamaha G3 (6'1").

Kreisler: Nice Brahms! I've tried my hand at that piece myself. Yes, I noticed the few minor "slips" but they're insignificant compared to everything else. You made this complex fugue very clear; nice clean tone, relatively light (hard to do in Brahms), double notes played together as one. An interpretation the leans a bit toward the thoughtful side. Kudos!

Axtremus: Haven't had opportunity to listen to your recordings yet...

Chris

That was a great performance Axtremus. You didn't mention any composer. Is that your own composition? The first movement of the sonatina really reminds me off Rachmaninoff. Nice job!
The China Tune also sounds very fun to play!

Chris W that was a nice piece you played. I especially liked how you made the intro very creepish. Keep up the good work =D.

Thanks, Googlism.

Chris

Chris W - very nice!
Axtremus - I've so far only listened to your "Allegro con fuoco" (and I really liked that one too) and I'll get to the others later. Its just that at this moment I don't have the advantage of a high speed internet so it takes me a while to download those things so when I have a little time later I'll listen to the rest.
Keep em coming folks! This is fun.

Axtremus:

I have listened to your other recordings. I didn't really get into the Adagio too much (not to say that it was bad by any means) but the Allegro and the "China-Tune" pieces are really good, IMHO. I love the way that the Allegro starts out, and then you get into all of that other stuff. Great! Thanks for sharing!

Frank, Kreisler, all-
You guys rock! I am really glad to see this forum open here for recordings and to see people taking the plunge.
I don't have many mp3's at planetmullins, but I do have one of my C Major Etude for Jazz Piano. You can download it here http://planetmullins.com/audio/MullinsCMajorEtude.mp3
For those of you interested in seeing the sheet music, it is here
http://planetmullins.com/MULLINSETUDESAMPLE.pdf
This material is from a new book I just wrote and I welcome your opinions.
Now back to waiting for Kreisler's fugue to download. Dial up sucks!

Rob: Thanks for the sample. Too bad the PDF won't let me print it; now I can't take it to the piano to try my hand. Anyway, I liked the sample (listened to the mp3 of it).

And by the way: Waiting for Kreisler's recording to download is well worth the wait.

Axtremus: Finally got to hear your Sontatina. I particularly liked the Allegro con Fuoco. Generally, the bass line in the first and last movements seemed a bit muddy. Is that just because of the recording itself?

Chris

Rob: Very nice! I really enjoyed that music sample. Jazz is always a nice change from Classical. Well, sometimes, anyway.

Folks, thanks for your comments. Comparing your comments to others I got offline, I found most trained musicians/enthusiasts (like you all) like the Allegro con Fuoco better, while those with less exposure to serious music respond better to the Adagio. China Tune is always a hit with the Chinese community.

With regards to the bass lines being muddy, I wish I could blame it all on the recording (it was recorded life with a Sony miniDV camcorder in a public recital, sound was extracted from DV clips), but no, the pianist is an amateur and the articulation was decidedly amateurish. The Sonatina was improvised, and at that tempo, it was beyond my capability to clearly map out every note in my head as I improvised, so I winged a lot and many places got muddy.

Kreisler's recording, now that's professional grade!

Rob, nice Jazz. I think will try it out with your score. Was that MP3 recorded from a digital piano?

Chris W, my recital partner (the one who played China Tune with me) is learning the Bartok Romanian Dance you posted. He might play the Bartok on our next recital on April 24th.

(A suggestion: is it possible to start another "recordings ONLY" thread and separate the questions/comments/critiques/praises/etc. into separate threads? Then folks who are interested only in downloading recordings can get to everything without having to scroll through questions/comments/critiques/praises/etc.)

Well, OK. I'm not holding it against you. I'm very impressed that you actually improvised all that. Your way beyond my own improvisational skills.

Cool! Hopefully he'll actually do it, and you can post a recording of it here!

Chris

JGOO,
Thanks for the props! I think jazz and classical should exist side by side as the rulers of the music world. What do you think.
Chris, Kreisler's recording was fabulous, and I sent him a PM and told him so.
Axtremus re was it a digital piano-you tell me.
Hope to see many more people recording and posting-really cool.

Absolutely. Jazz piano has so much more to offer than "rock" piano. (Ugh) Want to hear some more fabulous jazz/boogy piano playing? Go rent a copy of "The Majestic", a great movie starring Jim Carey in a strictly dramatic role. Just listen to the piano in the soundtrack. And be sure to watch through the entire ending credits because boogy piano is being played behind much of it. Woohoo!

Chris

I added a couple of my old compositions to my website. http://www.angelfire.com/wa3/chris98117/index.html

Sometimes it won't work though. If a lot of people try to download within a short amount of time it temporarily suspends the website for going over the bandwidth limit.

Here's two of mine:

The Romance in E Minor by Liszt

http://www.diarmuid.plus.com/LisztRom1.mp3

And the Romance Oubliee

http://www.diarmuid.plus.com/LisztRomOb.mp3

Diarmuid: Nice recordings!!!

Thanks jgoo

Diramuid2, just caught up with your recording. Very nice recording, BEAUTIFUL piano sound, very prefessional! Would you mind disclosing the model of piano you used and your recording setup? Thanks.

Thanks Axtremus. I'll tell you the setup but I think you'll be surprised. I played the pieces around 2-3 years ago on a Yamaha Grantouch GT2, plugged directly into the soundcard on my old computer (i.e. a digital piano). I didn't have a real piano at the time and neither did I have my own microphones so it was the best setup I could manage.

For the record nobody who's heard them knew it was a digital piano (and I promise you I wouldn't have known).

Wow, that has persuaded me even more to get a digital piano some time to take around with me.

Very musical, high quality playing too.

Well Jason Kreisler, that was quite a nice performance of that Brahms fugue! Be curious to know the piano it was played on, size and make. Very smooth and sure, thoughtful as another had said. You obviously took the time to learn the fingering so as to play it as smoothly as possible. Wonderful job!

Diarmuid2!

What gorgeous performances and such wonderful tone! From a digital piano too no less. Must have been hard to do, you obviously have made these pieces your own. You chose two of the more introspective gems of Liszt to display perfectly his endearing and enduring qualities.

Thank-you.

Gosh thanks Hyperion and thank you David! High praise indeed.

It actually took me a very long time to get them up to an even passable standard. And I'm not nearly satified with my performances.

I think the Romance Oubliee is an especially beautiful piece. Such a wistful sense of melancholy. So obviously from the heart of a man who has little left but memories.

Okay, I finally got brave.

Wish I had recorded this AFTER the regulation I had done today. The sound quality is hideous, too, but I can't do anything about that.

Here it is.

Excellent work TP! What is the piece you are playing?

The main problem with the recording is that the record level was too high. Most of the distortion is from clipping caused by the high record level. If the device you used to record doesn't have a level control, then you'll want to move the mic farther away from the piano.

I cleaned it up a bit, here's what I was able to do:
stevebminor2.wav

By the way, I think it might be better to start a new thread for each recording in the "Post your recordings here" forum. That way the thread doesn't get out of control and it's more organized.

Thanks! That's Chopin's B minor Prelude. I still have no control of dynamics, but it's getting better. The recorder is a cheap pocket model, so it's hopeless.

I pretty much disregarded my teacher's instructions and did as I pleased with the timing and emphasis. He makes me play it strictly as written, but he wasn't around when I recorded it, so he isn't to blame for the unorthodox bits.

Nice! A members recordings subforum, just found this.
I've listened to a couple of the performances here. When i have time, i'll listen to some more.

The Gondola song by jgoo: What expression! You really got that piece alive, lots of emotion in it.

Kriesler plaing Brahms: That's an impressive performance. Sloppy??! I wish i was in such a postition as to regard that kind of performance sloppy!
Really like that piece, i must remember to listen more to Brahms!

Axtremus: I'll just say one thing.... Allegro con Fuoco!!
Wow! Suggestive, colorful... I actually haven't been this moved by a piece in a long time.
When the opening "tema" returns towards the end it actually send a shiver down my spine.
Awesome!

I must see if i can record something myself, it would be fun having something uploaded.

Here's Clair de Lune, and Serenade of the Dolls, excuse any wrong notes! Debussy of course..

http://Chopin.chopinforum.com/Max/clairdelune.mp3
http://Chopin.chopinforum.com/Max/serenade.MP3

@jgoo: I have listened to your Venetian Gondola Song: Great feeling, though you hurry and get into a too fast tempo for my tase . But is a nice recording!

Axtremus, I love China Tune!

Here's two of mine:
Waltz in B Minor (Chopin)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nrgB5vgbQZY

and
Le Onde (Ludovico Einaudi)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0fUv3hMljOg

If you hve ny criticism I would prefer you to rate the video/leave comments on the page as I probably won't see them here.

oh, just noticed this thread having already posted my Brahms op 119 in another thread in "Pianists corner". Anyway, here it is:

no 1-2 http://www.pianostreet.com/smf/index.php/topic,28706.0.html
no 3-4
http://www.pianostreet.com/smf/index.php/topic,28707.0.html

This is non-classical, but it may be fun to take a look at. I apologize for the poor quality. Walt
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vavJXdlAJuo

ps - if for some reason the link doesn't work, just go to Youtube and search 'pianist Walter Scott'.