What would you like improved on tonebase?

Peter Golemme Mine is still there, though I have had times when it has disappeared, too. I wonder if it's one of those wonderful electronic gremlins.

Terence W Wow! I have been an inactive member for 1 year and then been a bit active and didn't know about the level system at TB until 2 weeks ago!. Not sure why on earth this would be put in the archive - instead of front and center.  It would have ended a lot of needless discussions on what pieces or how difficult the repertoire is to play.

Ben Laude has done an excellent job in classifying level 1,2, upto level 10 pieces. ! This certainly should not be in some obscure archive link !.

For me after I saw the levels the pieces definitely look appropriate even at level 2 or level 3. I quickly realized I was way above my head in choosing what to play. e.g Playing Beethoven sonatas for a level 2, level 3 would be neither rewarding nor successful.

Your idea of linking the pieces directly into the lesson is absolutely admirable.

This way the online student can just say " Hey I took the quiz and am at level 2 - seems right. Let's look at some level 2 techinque stuff and complement with level 2 pieces and oh by the way here is the link to the lesson" now wouldn't that work wonderfully. 

You will be amused to read the lengthy discussions around pieces but magically no one seems to talk about the levelling system for about 20 pages of back and forth. Like " Go  to the archive. There is a link there.  Match the pieces according to level and check if there is a lesson and you are all set '  That would have been helpful right!  Wow!

I am deleting a lot of my comments as they would not be necessary at all had I seen the link to the levels..  :-) 

gregprochlin I believe you mean “Virtuosity.”

Larry K You are rigtht!

gregprochlin Although, I was intrigued by the idea of the “School of Velocity.” 

I read of a student arriving at Nadia Boulanger’s studio in Paris only to find her throwing the books of a previous student out the window. That sounded like the School of Velocity.

shngmaps That’s a great idea! The piano is often not treated as a collaborative instrument. 

I heard a story about how Piazzolla hid his tangos from Nadia Boulanger when he went to study with her.

He wrote more classical pieces. With every piece, she said, I don’t hear Piazzolla. After he finally played a tango for her, she said, NOW I hear Piazzolla!

Larry K That's a great story! I'm currently working on "Cafe 1930" from "History of Tango" to play with a violinist friend. That the piano is often not treated as a collaborative instrument is really strange, because playing music with others is amazing and actually addictive! And how would pieces like Mendelssohn's Piano Trios or Rachmaninoff's Cello Sonata in G Minor get played, if pianists don't collaborate? 

Larry K Confused as to why would one stick to solo piano repertoire, when this exists? https://youtu.be/cNNR2v1jYBI?si=Yv5M86fm61p2ueYM

shngmaps I think I meant to say “on ToneBase” at the end of what I said about the piano not being treated as a collaborative instrument. You had already pointed this out. 

Your project sounds great! I studied the violin for ten years and used to read quartets with a group.

Playing music with others is awesome. 

I so missed playing music with others that I started playing the recorder, actually, recorders. At every lesson, I play duets with my recorder teacher. I play bass, alto, and soprano recorders, soon, I will add a tenor. We play pieces from the 16th century and before.
 

I used to play contrabass guitar in a classical guitar trio. My motto was, fewer notes, more fun. 
 

With piano, I am stuck in solo mode, but, maybe someday, I will escape. 

shngmaps I think both solo and ensemble playing with the piano are valid means of artistic expression. 

There is less to organize and coordinate when playing solo. 

I used to play Bach inventions for two classical guitars. That simplified some things and made other things more difficult. 

That drove me to start studying the piano so I could play all of the voices. Of course, that’s really hard, and often, lonely.

I would give up if I didn’t have a teacher to relieve the loneliness and help guide me.

Larry K  When I was a kid learning piano I envied the instrumentalists who could join an ensemble or a band; I just wanted to perform music without being the centre of attention 😆 As an adult I realised I could just join Facebook groups and find other musicians and it's actually not difficult at all (I was told I was "courageous" for doing this, but why?) Consequently I got to play some Mendelssohn piano trio, some Piazzolla, and recently performed Rachmaninoff's Vocalise with an amazing violinist. I also met a clarinettist I might play some music with in the future. If you want to play piano with string (or woodwind) players, it shouldn't be any harder than string players finding each other, right? 

Larry K Piano does NOT have to be lonely! (The other instruments need us more than we need them, if you think about it 😅)

Larry K Amazing the amount of instruments you have played! 

shngmaps I think it is wonderful that you find musicians to play with and just do it! You inspire me.

Sometimes, I am jealous of people who pick one instrument and study it for their entire lives. I have loved and studied a few instruments. 

Every musician should be a closet pianist. Casals got up every morning and practiced Bach on the piano before he played the daily cello suite.

I have taken paid weekly lessons for about thirty years. I have never regretted studying any instrument, even though I no longer play violin or classical guitar.

I had the idea to find a harpsichordist to play recorder duets. I may yet do that. Harpsichords are tuned to 415Hz, so, I bought 415Hz versions of soprano, alto, and bass recorder, and will soon have a convertible tenor, lol. We call that SATB.

By the way, I adore the clarinet, and thought of picking it up, but reed instruments are notoriously difficult to play. My decision was strengthened when I heard clarinetists say that they were switching to recorder after decades of playing the clarinet.

The reputation of the recorder has been ruined by the practice of handing out dozens of soprano recorders to schoolchildren. 

The joke in recorder circles is that the correct number of soprano recorders in an ensemble is one or fewer.

For comparison, imagine a piccolo orchestra, lol.

I love the bass recorder, and it is easily doubled in ensembles, so, I may get to play in a Baroque ensemble in the future.

And, yes, instrumentalists and singers need pianists, haha! We should be in demand, 

 By the way, this is the actual contrabass guitar I played, but that is not me playing it. That guitar is a beast. I have to find someone up to the challenge of playing it to purchase it from me. 

https://youtu.be/8nz-fzzy6pE?is=35BSGOZ4HdIZW0ck

Larry K  The contrabass guitar sounds beautiful! I had never even heard of a contrabass guitar! I also love Baroque music. A harpsichord and recorder duo sounds wonderful! I hope you find your harpsichordist! I only like the sound of the really expensive quality and deeper pitched recorders (not the plastic cheap soprano ones haha) Your collection sounds awesome!

shngmaps Yes, I also prefer the sound of the lower pitched recorders. Altos can be lovely. Most recorder music was written for the alto. Here is a bit of Bach on a 415Hz Alto,

https://youtu.be/dRk3THXxeHk?is=gsSf92RMclc00F2G

Kids tend to overblow the sopranos and go sharp. Thirty kids blowing sharp isn’t a pleasant experience for anybody. Pity the teachers. 

When you buy an expensive recorder, you are paying for the care that has gone into voicing the instrument. While plastic ones can be serviceable, they’re not individually voiced. They’re stamped out by a machine.

I like the turned resin recorders by a French maker, Bernolin, which are around $500-$600 dollars. They’re in black resin. I show a 415 Bernolin soprano in front of a laptop and a 442 Bernolin alto resting on a music stand.

https://bernolin.fr/en/collections/flutes-en-resine

They are between the $50 plastic altos and the $1500 wooden altos.

Bass recorders are more expensive. The plastic ones are around $500, wooden ones around $2000. I bought a beautiful wooden one by Yamaha made out of maple, stained, picture attached. 

Yamaha doesn’t have a recorder factory for bass recorders in Japan. They contract to small recorder makers. It’s quite amazing.

I have an expensive soprano in boxwood because it didn’t trigger sound pressure warnings from my Apple Watch, lol. 

My teacher, who is also a recorder dealer, played half a dozen recorders into a decibel meter. I bought the quietest one.

Von Huene in Boston is the go to recorder dealer on the east coast.

The soprano and tenor share the same fingerings, as do the alto and bass, so, you only need to learn two fingerings, C for the former, F for the latter.

It is fun to play a single musical line, as I did on the violin, way back when.

Larry K Very interesting, thank you for sharing! I now know a little bit more about recorders 😊 The Bach Gigue on the alto recorder sounds beautiful, and what a location to play it in! I hope you one day find a recorder ensemble to join. They sound wonderful in concert! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Iu1pA4sDbc&list=RD-Iu1pA4sDbc&start_radio=1

shngmaps You’re welcome! I hope they don’t throw me off of this forum. I will mention something about the piano at the end of this post.

That quartet is made up of the same guy playing the tenor, bass, great bass, and contrabass. Look, no soprano! It’s your dream quartet.

I think the video and background is digitally composited. Still, it’s quite a feat to play four parts yourself. I might try two parts someday.

Bach did write for two recorders in the Brandenburgs. He also wrote for the recorder (“flauto”) or recorders in a few cantatas early in his career.
 

Sadly, he never wrote a recorder sonata or concerto and switched to the transverse flute.

Of course, Bach is the most transcribed composer of all time, so, there are plenty of arrangements of Bach for the recorder.

In case you didn’t know, there is higher recorder than the soprano, the sopranino. I can’t bring myself to try one of those things, lol.

Yes, that’s a beautiful setting for the alto playing. My wife is French and we are going to France soon but we are packing minimally so I probably won’t bring a recorder.

Speaking of technology, I use a set of recorder samples from Versilian to practice all of my recorder pieces. I write the music up with the Apple Pencil and the Staffpad app on the iPad Pro and play along with Dorico SE. Practicing in this way helps me a lot.

As for piano technology, I record and play back my practice on a Yamaha Disklavier modern acoustic player piano, a DYUS5.

I like listening and critiquing myself from across the room and it is always fun to prank my wife by meeting her at the door while “I” play in the background. 
 

Rach recorded a couple dozen piano rolls back in the old days. If Gould had recorded on a player piano, we would lose his humming and his squeaky chair. I wouldn’t mind that, to be honest, but some people want to hear that, lol.