Welcome to the tonebase Piano Community!
Hey everyone - this is Dominic from tonebase 
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As the lead of tonebase PIANO it's such a pleasure to welcome you to the tonebase community. We would love to get to know you! Please introduce yourself in a post below with the following format:
- Where are you from and what's your favorite food from there? ;)
- What are you currently working on?
- What are you hoping to get out of this community?
I'll go first:
- I was born and raised in St. Louis, Missouri and you better believe that I love my barbecue! It is hard to pick my favorite food between ribs, brisket, or a beautiful grilled steak, but if I have to decide...nothing beats a juicy, fall-off-the-bone rack of baby back ribs!
- Currently working on some old favorites of mine by Carl Vine (Piano Sonata No.1), Beethoven (Piano Concerto No.4) and Scriabin (Fantasy op.28) but also adding some great repertoire by H. Leslie Adams (Etude in A-flat minor Book 2), Laura Kaminsky (Alluvion), and Clara Schumann (Romanze in A minor Op.21 no.1)!
- I am hoping to getting to know and helping all of you achieve your musical and artistic goals. Let's have some fun and get to work!
Now over to you (after some participation from our tonebase team members!)
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- Where are you from and what's your favorite food from there? ;)
I am Dagmar from NĆ¼rnberg, Germany. Most typical food here is 3 tiny sausages in a bun with custard, but to be honest my prefered food is Italian ;) And I absolutely love my mom's way of making apple strudel, which is not how it is supposed to be done. She bakes CrĆŖpes and then wraps them around apple-cinamon-compote and I drown them in vanilla sauce :D
My piano is called "Poldi" (named him after Leopold Mozart) and he's my best friend! We really share the struggle :D haha. - What are you currently working on?
I've been working on Maple Leaf Rag for 3 months now. I have been playing for 5 years, so this is still way above my level, but so much fun, and it turned out better than I'd ever expected. Of course I coudn't get it to perfection, but I can play it at slow pace and have lots of fun with it. Now I need to find something else to really commit to, which might take some time. I spend these "in between two beloved pieces" weeks usually with easier pieces, atm it's an easy Bach minuet (III in G major) and a Haydn German Dance. But these change every 1-2 weeks, because I am participating in the 40x challenge.
My current lesson piece is Brahms Waltz 39.9 in d minor... I know I learn something from it, but it's not a favourite of mine.
My biggest weakness is my sight reading, I am far too slow for the repertoire we work on technically, and this waltz especially really depressed me, because there's hardly any notes on the sheet, but I can't read along because the leaps force me to look down :( I practice sight reading regularly with Pianomarvel, my SASR is around 620, and it feels like I should be able to read much better. But although I work on Cory Hall exercises, Paul Harris exercises/Books and regularly read new easy pieces for the 40x challenge, I improve at such slow tempo. - What are you hoping to get out of this community?
I am really looking forward to watch all those wonderful videos. I am a theory lover and I really like that the content is at a more intermediate/advanced classical level, because most videos you find usually explain Jazz content, or are on the "everyone can play piano without reading notes"-base. I want to grow and nourish my musicality. I also hope for good tutorials on repertoire, that help me get more out of my pieces than I would on my own.
I have a wonderful teacher, too, but the more I can figure out on myself the less we have to spend the lesson time on those things, and my money is spent on the really important aspects like my technique/tone/relaxation etc. which needs direct feedback.
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Dagmar welcome! A fellow German here, although from the other end of the country (Hamburg) and living in the U.S. now for a quarter century already. Thanks for sharing your motherās apple strudel āhackā - what a great idea!
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Alexander Weymann yay, nice to meet you, Alexander
- Where are you from and what's your favorite food from there? ;)
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Hi everyone - Iām John from Oak Park, California (Ventura County near Thousand Oaks). Iām a true foodie, so my food tastes are eclectic, but if I HAD to pick a fav it would be Italian.
Currently Iām working on Schubertās B flat major sonata (D960) and love every minute of it! Will I ever say itās āfinishedā, probably not as it keeps on getting better and better. Itās all about the process. Iām also working on Brahms Rhapsody Op 119/4, ballade Op 118/3, and Intermezzo Op 117/1. I think these pieces combined make a nice grouping played in ballade/intermezzo/rhapsody order. Iām also always trying to maintain a āgo toā repertoire for those impromptu moments when someone says, āHey John, play something for usā and would love to hear suggestions from all of you as to how you keep up your repertoire.
I love playing chamber music, and piano duets and duos, so if anyone out there lives close to me and would like to ājamā please reach out.
I would like to know how to reach out to other members and the Tonebase staff with questions about specific pieces and get your opinions. Hereās my first question. In the Chopin Impromptu Opus 36/2 do the fast scales beginning at measure 82 have to be played in tempo with the beginning of the piece or can they be taken down in tempo slightly?
I look forward to getting to know you and participating in the community.
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John Goodman Hello, John! Welcome!
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Pauline Pauline Thank you, Pauline.
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John Goodman welcome! You are working on some wonderful repertoire there; Brahms is my favorite composer, and 119/4 is a very impressive achievement!! Iādlove to come over and ājamā, but I live in Ohio. Hope to see you around at a masterclass, mentorship, two-week or four-week intensive, repertoire challenge, or community concert. The options are numerous and varied, as youāll soon discover.
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Iām just getting started with Tonebase, so I have a lot of exploring to do, the community is large and traversing it is complex. Thanks for the welcome message and hope to be seeing you along my journey.
Ciao,
ā-John
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John Goodman Welcome! You will love being part of this community. Chamber music was ALL I ever did before I found Tonebase. So, if I didnāt live at the opposite end of the country, Iād pop over to read 4-hand rep with you. Try to enjoy the Live Streams and the Community Concerts, whenever you have time. That way youāll get to chat in real time with folks and get to ask questions.
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Gail Starr
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John Goodman
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John Goodman
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Gail Starr Did you see my reply? Alas, Iām in SoCal, but wish we could enjoy some duets. āJohn
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Hello! I'm Sofia.
I'm from Florida, and to me, nothing beats fresh-caught grilled snapper with a squeeze of lemon.
I am currently working on Chopin's Scherzo Op. 20 No. 1 and Etudes Op. 10 Nos. 1, 5, and 9, and Rachmaninoff's Prelude in C-sharp minor. I hope to start the second and third movements of the Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata (I already know the first), and maybe the third of his Tempest Sonata, or perhaps Fantasie-Impromptu once I have the Etudes and Scherzo down. I also really need to work on my sight reading. For me, memorizing music and technique is a piece of cake. And sight reading mere minuets in tempo is not. I'm just glad that Tonebase and my other teacher plays to my strengths and helps me get better at sight reading simultaneously, because if it was just sight read sight read sight read I'd go insane.
Iām really excited to be part of a community of pianists who love classical music as much as I do, and share our enthusiasm for the musical world. I think it will help me grow as a pianist and as a person.
~ Sofia
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Sofia S. Welcome, Sofia! Iām in Florida also, near Orlando. What area are you from?
I think we are polar oppositesā¦sight reading is fun for me but I need to develop my technique. Try to attend any of the Live Streams and Community Concerts, whenever you have time. Youāll be able to chat with members and ask questions.
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Hi, I'm Mark
- Where are you from and what's your favorite food from there? ;)
- I'm from Bristol (UK), a vibrant and culturally rich city in the southwest of England, where I've lived for the past almost 40 years. (I'm originally from Northampton, but the less said about that, the better.) We (me, my partner and our daughter) have been vegan for the past few years, so there's not much of a regional culinary tradition that fits this, but I will give a big shout out to the many excellent vegan restaurants that we have in Bristol ā this is one of the better places to be a vegan!
- What are you currently working on?
- I've been working a lot of 20th century music over the last year or two (Berg, Messiaen, Barber, Ireland, Prokofiev, (late) Debussy) and was feeling the need for a kind of reset. So I have just started learning the Beethoven Op.90 Sonata in E minor (a choice partly influenced by seeing Daniel Shapiro's excellent tutorial on Tonebase), alongside Bach's French Suite No.5 in G major. My teacher has suggested adding a big (in style rather than necessarily in scale) romantic piece to balance that off, so I'm currently trawling through Rachmaninoff's preludes, etudes, and morceaux to find something that appeals and that is remotely feasible for me to attempt (not a large intersection!)
- What are you hoping to get out of this community?
- I'm a bit like Meg Ryan's fellow diner ("I'll have what she's having") ā you guys all seem to be getting such a lot out of it and having such fun in the process, why wouldn't I want some of that too?
- PS: It was lovely to meet some of you at Chetham's this summer ā hope there'll be future opportunities to meet up in person.
- PPS: Also, just to say I would have liked to have done something for the Halloween recital but it clashes with the Pianissimi weekend piano course.
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Mark Ware Mark, how awesome that you are here! Spending time with you at Chetās was one of the best parts of my summer. Loved your Barber Nocturne and canāt wait to hear you at future Community Concerts.
- Where are you from and what's your favorite food from there? ;)
