WEEK 1: Start Decorating with your music! 
Welcome to the Main Thread for the first week of the Tonebase Holiday Challenge! This is the place for the first week of submissions! 
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Happy Holidays fellow tonebase pianists! I've been away from the forums for a while but am especially excited about this challenge as I've spent many years collecting interesting arrangements of holiday/Christmas music and hope to share a few.
I wanted to start, though, with this Busoni arrangement of Bach's famous chorale prelude BWV 645 Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimme ("sleepers awake") often played at Christmas. I chose to work on this because I'm also working on a classical guitar arrangement of the same piece for the tonebase guitar
challenge happening at the same time! Maybe I'll figure out a way to combine the guitar & piano videos 
Looking forward to seeing your videos!
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Brett Gilbert Happy Holidays Brett! I enjoyed your video so much. That is one of my favorite pieces. Great job with the voicing, well done. Thank you for posting that!
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Brett Gilbert Happy Holidays Brett! Very good playing. Of course, Bach is a wonderful option for these days, and... the rest of the year too, what an incredible composer. I will like to watch your guitar videos too!
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Brett Gilbert I LOVE this piece!! Bravo! Exactly what I was thinking in terms of music being extremely relevant to this time of year! Thank you so much for sharing!
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Susan Thanks Susan! This is quite a challenging piece to bring out the correct voicing and I'm still not there in some sections but thanks for the comment. Hope to see something from you soon!
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Thank you Juan Carlos , I just saw your posting of the Bach transcriptions. Those are lovely pieces and enjoyed listening to your videos.
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Brett yes it is challenging! I started learning it a little while ago then somehow drifted off into something else…I need to go back and finish it! I first heard it on a Kempff CD I have of “favourite piano transcriptions.”
I am still looking through music deciding what I will do for December’s challenge. I will decide soon, before the month is over!
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Brett Gilbert Well done, Brett! Looking forward to hear you play guitar as well!
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Brett Gilbert Lovely playing! This Bach was the opening theme of a classical university radio show that I listened to as a kid, so it brings back many happy memories. Can't wait to hear your guitar rendition!
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I'm certainly not going to post every day, but was inspired to do a video today of another favorite I play each year that is a Christmas carol inside a Chopin Scherzo. The middle section of the stormy Chopin Scherzo No. 1 in B minor op 20 is the tune from an old polish Christmas lullaby Lulajze Jezuniu.. The Scherzo is difficult but this part is relatively easy (although still a nice challenge to bring out the melody).
I've also included a link to my favorite choral performance of Lulajze Jezuniu.
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Brett how beautiful! Thank you that. I did not know that about the scherzo, and thank you for also posting the choral version. Watching and listening to that reminded me how much I miss singing since the pandemic. I normally sing more than play piano during the holidays! Wonderful post.
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Brett Gilbert Beautiful playing! I didn't know this about the Scherzo, so thank you for that.
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Thanks Sindre I hope to see some other videos soon including your Nutcracker piece, that's a fun one to play!
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Brett Gilbert Yes, I agree, hoping for videos! I just started practicing and I think I might switch to a more advanced arrangement, so I'm aiming for a recording during the week-end :)
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Susan I participated in the UK-based "Stay at Home" online Chorale when the pandemic first started. They have a new set of pieces to join every month, and they even make group CDs. I bet you'd love it! Last time we sang a madrigal in Italian as the primary piece.
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Brett Gilbert Thank you so much, Brett! I had no idea that this section of the Scherzo was a Xmas Carol!
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Brett Gilbert This is fascinating!! Thank you so much Brett!
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Gail Starr Hey that sounds fun! Thank you for that Gail. I will check it out!
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Hi Dominic!
Monika & I are trying to record the 4-hand version of the Nutcracker, but we're not having much luck because she's in France and I'm in Florida! We tried to record with both of us playing together on Zoom, and, although it was quite funny, you really can't hear either of us well.
So, now we're going to record Primo and then I'll try to "play along" with Secondo in a separate video.
Do you think that might work?
Sadly, with Covid and a tight timeline, neither of can just fly over the other's home to make a normal recording. (Although we decided THAT would be best, LOL).
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Gail Starr That should work! I have done plenty of recordings that way over the course of the pandemic!
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Martin Thank you, Martin! I still need to get the Shure MV88 that you recommended but once I have that, we'll give it a go.
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Gail Starr Great idea!! I'm looking very much forward to be hearing this!!
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Gail Starr That can work! Give it a try and see!!
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Dominic Cheli It worked! We will post the video tomorrow.
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I'd like to play the Tom Roed arrangement of "Gesu Bambino." I've played it in church services before, so it just needs a brush-up. I think it's a lovely arrangement!
