Week 1: What we've learned
WELCOME TO THE MAIN THREAD FOR THE FIRST WEEK OF "END OF THE YEAR" PRACTICE CHALLENGE!
- Select Your Piece(s): Choose one or more pieces that you've learned this year. It could be something you've practiced through our live streams, a personal favorite, or a challenging piece you've conquered.
- Record Your Performance: Film yourself playing your selected piece(s) or excerpts from it! Quality doesn't have to be professional – it's all about sharing your progress and passion.
- Share Your Journey: Post your video in our community forum under the "End of the Year Challenge" thread. Include a brief write-up about your experience learning the piece – what challenges you faced, how you overcame them, and what this piece means to you. If you don't want to record yourself, show us a video of a piece you plan to take on in the next year!
- Engage with Others: Watch, comment, and encourage your fellow community members. Share your feedback, experiences, and celebrate each other's progress.
↓ Happy Sharing! ↓
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What a nice idea. I'd like to share my Maple Leaf Rag. I am also confused about when to post. I'm not ready to post it yet, but it seems there is some time. Is there just the single post for this challenge?
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Thanks for the great idea of practice challenge.
I learned Schubert op 90 no. 1 last year. And I brought this back two weeks ago to get ready for a public performance which I will play soon.
I found the most challenging thing on this piece is to memorize it securely.
This piece is like theme and variations, with lots of repeated notes and modulations which got me confused all the time.
I listened to several archived livestreams about memorization, which are very helpful.
I took the suggestions to do the following things to overcome the memory issues hopefully.
1. Analyze the piece.
2. Visual memory
3. Doing a lot of visualization
4. Record myself.
5. Play for my spouse.
Even though I still got here or there crashing during run thru or playing for others, however, I do feel a bit more secure and understanding the piece better.
Thanks tonebase.
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Fingers Lan my favourite of Schubert's impromptus - nicely played :)
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Fingers Lan lovely!
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Fingers Lan Beautiful playing!
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Fingers Lan thanks so much for sharing! I really enjoyed listening to this!
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This year, after a rough start, things really got rolling in August with a fantastic teacher. We've done a lot of solfege practice, many many technique exercises, beginning to learn scales, and a small handful of repertoire. I'd like to submit the piece I'm currently finishing: "By the Seaside" (aka "The Magic Stream") by Jean-Louis Gobbearts. With this piece I am learning how to use pedal, which is quite a bit of fun. I'm also trying to get it up to tempo, which has been a challenge for me, but I'm almost there. I'll post a recording next week.
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I bought a nice piano, joined tonebase, promised myself I would learn and upload this piece, and here it is! I learned so much from the experience.
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Sam Gralla Great playing!
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Sam Gralla I love the way you shape the lines in this Prelude. Your dynamics, tempo and sensitivity to historical context are spot on.
Happy New Year and welcome to Tonebase!
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Sam Gralla Wow, congrats on getting a Fazioli. A bit better than what I'd consider to be a "nice piano", haha. Welcome to ToneBase.
Lovely work on the prelude, and great sound quality, also. I'm curious about your mic setup!
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Marc M Thanks Marc and all for the encouragement and warm words of welcome. Yeah, a bit of an understatement on the piano :D. I had a Charles Walter upright since 2011, and as I shopped for a grand over the years I told all these perplexed salesmen that their fancy pianos just didn't have as nice a midrange as my little upright. Well, finally I played one I couldn't argue with and my wallet slipped! For recording I have the rode NT5 matched pair maybe ~8 feet from the strings with a focusrite usb interface and a laptop. It's a direct, dry sound, and as I played with it sometimes I added a bit of artificial reverb and liked the sound. But for this recording I decided my playing was (occasionally) good enough to enjoy the clarity. Nothing like having an amazing instrument to motivate you to play. So glad I took the plunge.
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Sam Gralla Whenever I hear a pair of NT5s I'm pretty well satisfied. I just got a budget stereo mic setup--some Worker Bee IIs (I hear they're great, but nobody records piano with these so hopefully this choice wasn't a mistake) and a Pyle mixer--so I'll have some hours of tinkering instead of practicing ahead of me.
Welcome to ToneBase, and I look forward to hearing more!
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Sam Gralla confident and captivating playing of a gorgeous piece performed too rarely. Of course, your amazing grand piano does help...
Hope to hear much more of your beautiful musicianship in the future! -
Sam Gralla such a pleasure to hear you! Enjoy your lovely piano. Do you use two mics? (I only record from my phone at the moment, so I need to improve my setup this year
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Gail Starr Yes, I bought a rode NT5 "matched pair" after advice on pianoworld forums, along with a focusrite usb audio interface, which I hook up to a windows laptop. I also got mic stands and "omni capsules" which change the pickup pattern of the microphones. (I did not use those for this recording, keeping the default cardioid pattern.) It's approximately $1,000 worth of gear not counting the laptop, which seemed to be the lowest price point where there is a real improvement in quality. It does sound good, but it also exposes every flaw! There is also quite a bit of setup involved to record (and takedown - for some reason my family doesn't want our family room clogged with my gear!). So plusses and minuses. Nothing wrong with phone recording at all for this application.
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Sam Gralla Thank you so much for the detailed response. This sounds like the kind of setup I would like...although, my husband would be blocked into his office by the mic stands, since my piano is outside his door. Maybe that's a good thing, LOL?
Can't wait to hear more of your playing!
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I'm a little late to join, but I'm going to try to record the 3rd movement of Bach's transcription of Marcello's d minor oboe concerto (BWV 974). We'll see how it goes!
