R-ecital 42- 5.15.2016

“Don’t Let the Sun Go Down On Me”

Composer Sir Elton John, a old classic I like, but here an easy version that was done quickly for an e-cital.

Hope you like it ….

ABF E-cital 41 Feb. 14, 2016

ABF E-cital 41 Feb. 14, 2016

Praeambulum No 3 in d min -Heinrich Scheidemann
and
Deep River.

Piano Strings

Piano Only/Church Organ

Easily said , there are two renditions of the same recording from two recording methods.
It was recorded on a PX 100 by direct av cable to computer to WMM and from a Vivitar pc cam. (Laptop)
– “What I know” about the two pieces is minimal:
– Deep River was in a Lesson Book from USSM as Folk music , and a pre- Civil War Spiritual;
-the Praeambulum No. 3 by Scheidemann is pre “tonal “or a predecessor to Tonal centered music made more popular by J.S. Bach.
The counterpoint is evident in this piece which also was furthered by early composers of classical tonal music composition
I used the recorded midi data in this same session to also to make the church organ sound from a Yamaha XG soft synth- bank 0 #19 in the second video.

Hope you like it!
And …Thanks for listening.

E-cital 40- Nov 14th 2015

recital 40

J
S BACH

A Young Bach —

What a young buck !!!

Two pieces by Johann S. Bach

1. Menuet 116 and
2. Aria 115  “Enlightening Thoughts of a Tobacco Smoker”.

RESUBMIT  11 13 2015   Original
follows this append…

This  is  a redo of JS
Bach’s Menuet 116 and also the Aria -515.
 I have left the previous upload on the 
webpages for viewing comparison.

This was like cramming for a test in college . ( a
repractice in 2 days.) 
The  previous  submission to pianoworld wasn’t
actually that well done- although I submimtted anyway.
Also, as I thought I was playing it correctly -but 
was repeatedly adding  an extra note in the melody
throughout,
 thinking it was correctly played.
For this reason mostly  I did a “resubmit”.
Also, I did not record concurrent midi ( as I usually
do)  data as it seems to add a hiss to the
recording when doing a direct to av cable.
Important point-
I recorded two separate sessions 
1 for piano and
2.another for the harpsichord..
for the menuet 116.
I was really very  impressed with someone else’s
submission  on the last recital
that was played on a harpsichord.
SO, I wanted to do it also. — what better than Baroque
style piano compositions to do that.
The last is the Aria “Enlightened Thoughts of a Tobacco
Smoker .   Aria 515.
Also by JS  BACH.
Any comments are welcome .
The last is the Aria .515
Thanks for listening 

JS BACH ECITAL
11 14 15U from Tempo Primo
on Vimeo.

ORIGINAL FOR COMPARISON

ECITAL 11 14 2014 JS BACH
from Tempo Primo on
Vimeo.

The pieces are played on a Casio PX 100  the Menuet, the first
piece, has the setting of a harpsichord.
(I heard  another submission  on the last e-cital and was
impressed that the  harpsichord evoked the bon vivant of a time
period .
I hope this does too.
As always, this could use more practice,
The 2nd “Aria 115” is to me ,  supposed to sound dramatic, thus
the strings- considering Bach likely  knew most “smokers” back
when- laced the tobacco with poppy (it was legal)
So, I hope you like the music.

R-Ecital 39 August 12th 2015

Recital 39

I have a lot to express in this text, so I’ll condense for the sake of brevity, and for whoever may not like reading vaulted “piano lesson material” copied from a book. -I started practicing this piece “ Romance”, a couple weeks after the last recital, hoping I could “polish it off” in a month. But this piece is, (for me anyway) a technically sophisticated (i.e. difficult.) piece, in the sense of the 9/8 tempo, the initial fast paced dropping chords and changing themes in the main melody. Those aspects left me at loss when I began learning it of how to play the piece. A “Strict” ,though not suggested way of a paced tempo makes it “stiff” , and then a slower variable tempo makes it sound “not connected” as a whole. So my way was to ad lib a little, and did my best to give some emotive satisfaction to myself of what I heard when I played. This piece is a “keeper” for practicing fast chord movement and tempo changes through a melody …etc. I recorded A/V to WMM, and midi, to two different computers, and the zoom audio all at the same time . ( one session) Then converted to .mp3 with oxelon, -it’s not a music program.(I think I notice a duller sound when using cakewalk or audacity to convert video to .mp3, but not really sure or why.) I Hope you like this rendition. The first is piano- strings, then Piano and an acoustic zoom (all are in video format also on a webpage – “pianorecitals.wordpress.com”. P.S. I did post an earlier practice in the July Piano bar. This session here submitted has an ad lib’ed ending that lengthens the piece.…… Thanks for listening. I appreciate any comments Romance Piano Strings 8 13 15 Romance 8 13 15 from Tempo Primo 1 on Vimeo. This video is not a redo but a change form the original loaded yesterday because the 2nd session is midi data through a Merlin Vienna soundfont . This recording session would be more full on a acoustic piano with use of legato . The tempo changes make the piece sound inconstant yet they do flow as a whole using legato or accompaniment .. The dropping chords add a jazz feel in the beginning of the piece as also the interlude. I’ve read that this was composed early in Rachmaninoff career , and is more of the “sad’ tune” from his native Russian country . To me it has quite a modern feel and sound, as I imagined the beginning dropping chords being played by a brass section . So, I hope you like it . and also the 2nd rendition which is actually the same session with the Merlin Vienna soundfont. More …..information about the Composer , Sergei Rachmaninoff-a quote from wiki “On 22 December 1917, he left Petrograd for Helsinki with his wife and two daughters on an open sled, having only a few notebooks with sketches of his own compositions and two orchestral scores, his unfinished opera Monna Vanna and Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov’s opera The Golden Cockerel. He was 44 years old. Now that’s awesome AWESOME… (an Iditarod for piano……and freedom …) The wiki link is here … en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sergei_Rachmaninoff Romance Piano Strings 8 11 15 Romance Final 8 11 15 from Tempo Primo 1 on Vimeo. Romance 8 11 15 ZOOM–Romance- Composer Sergei Rachmaninoff from Tempo Primo 1 on Vimeo. rom the lesson book I have …(USSM Piano Lesson 1960’s ) “These rst four measures of introduction have a two-against-three rhythm between the hands. Notice the little 2 over the two eighth notes in the L.H. Each R.H. eighth note chord gets one beat and the eighth notes in the L.H. t between the R.H. notes so that each eighth note in the left hand actually gets llé beats. That makes the L.H. eighth notes slightly slower than the R.H. These chords in the R.H. give an ethereal effect to prepare for the lyric melody that follows in measure 5. Play the introduction very softly and with lots of pedal as marked. Roll any big chords such as that E5 chord in measure 5 built up from the grace notes. Play the melody — top line of the R.H. — as legato as possible, letting the pedal help you when your hand can’t make such large stretches. In measure 10, be aware of the half note G right in the middle of the repeated chord in the left hand. Hold that G while playing the chords. Measure 12 contains those wispy sixth chords again in the R.H. -— making this measure a bridge to connect the completed theme in the previous measures and the same theme repeated with a little variation to the har- monies beginning at measure l3. This theme, in measures 13 and 15, weaves in and out of the chord so be sure to give extra nger pressure to that theme so the chords won’t submerge the theme. Beginning with the repetition of the theme at measure 13, start building up the tone until you reach the grand climax in measure 17. Follow this with a diminuenclo. gradually receding the fervidness of the dramatic meas- ure l7. In measures l7 and l8, there appears another tricky rhythm on the rst, second and third beats. Here is a 4 against 3 rhythm. 4 eighth notes in the R.H., and 3 eighth notes in the L.H. Play the 4 eighth notes slightly faster than the L.H. eighth notes and t in the L.H. eighth notes between the last two R.H. eighth note octaves. Measure 20 to the end of the piece takes a snatch of the beginning of the theme and with only a slight change the mood drifts off into silence. The little grace notes in the last measure, left hand, should be played ppp and very slowly. Be sure to overhold the last two notes in each hand until the tone has dwindled to nothing.”

PW Schumann Recital 3 15 2015

Soldier’s March Schumann ecital

Music Video (PW Schumann Recital ) 3 15 2015

Posted  3 5 2015

Soldier’s March   Composer Robert Schumann

Considered for  young (beginning?) piano players. 
Played here for an “e-cital” .
This piece is technically difficult  (for me  ).in one
sense  …..
It  has to be played a mild  staccato to be distinct
notewise at tempo allegro,
I have a tendency/habit  to drag out notes to a
almost  
fermata…at the end of a musical phrase…

which you’ll notice here .
…. I don’t do that when I talk, not yet anyway…but I pause…..
.._:)
The Video

Soldier’s March Composer
Robert Schumann from Tempo Primo on Vimeo.

The music score is below and click-able….

Soldier’s March, Schumann

Some held beliefs  about Schumann…
FULL

Storylink here

1. Schumann became a composer because he failed as a
pianist.
2. Schumann was a poet as well as a composer — and
he held an exalted opinion of both.
3. Schumann was not a talker. That could be
exasperating for his friends, but not for someone who felt there was
no such thing as an embarrassing silence.
4. Schumann spent the last two years of his life in a mental
asylum.
AND  he had voluntarily committed himself and early on,
to a considerable extent, he recovered.
5. Nothing meant more to Schumann than being a father
— and he was an extraordinary one.

Thanks for listening…

Lullaby of the Bells E-cital 2 15 2015

Ecital 2 15 15

” The Phantom of the Opera-1943– The Lullabye of The Bells “.

This video is the movie theme song from ” The Phantom of the
Opera-1943– The Lullabye of The Bells “.
It is different than the “prevideo” I did in the middle of Jan. This
is the complete score which the pre video was only the main melody
sung in the movie by Suzanne Edwards and Nelson Eddy .
Also , this is one session of a piano recording by two methods (at
the same time).
1. The first , – a direct a/v cable to my laptop from my Casio PX
100 , played with the sound layers of piano/strings.
2. The 2nd, is a midi cable (at the same time) recording the midi
data.
I used the freeware program QSynth to channel the MIDI data through
a sound-font called “Roland Piano: 64 voice”

.So …. Theennnnn ,,,,,,, recorded the audio output through my sound card
in Cakewalk’s Plasma.

(redid this in Logic ) with a Steinway Font.

Anyone could do this with Windows sound recorder, using qsynth and routing with MIDI OX. If you
do,  take a breather .because  with either, you’ll need a drink afterwards. For me, my computer kept freezing, and I had to reboot several times before I got it “together” in one take….

So,
I then combined the two in WMM and here it is .

Lullaby of the Bells 2 01
2015 from Tempo
Primo on Vimeo.

It’s for an e-cital on pianoworld.
I think piano melodies from movies are somewhat “lonely” sounding
without a vocalist.
Others may sound great, especially classical.
But I usually use strings to add the accompaniment sound which is
missing from a orchestra or singer, and also cover some of my lulls
of tempo etc in playing piano. ( I noticed also when putting it in a
DAW as a midi , it adds fullness to the output if played through a
sound font , likely because the strings section covers many octaves
and simulates string polyphony.
In the second session the Roland sound-font (NOW STEINWAY) is a warm
full sound, although not as well as a recording of a live acoustic
piano.
But , you’ll hear both . If you skip to the 4 min of the vid it is
the solo piano of the Roland (Steinway) soundfont…..
I hope you like it , and thanks for listening .