Lyadov Prelude in Dminor (Op.40 No.3)

[steve jones]

Hi all,

Just thought Id post a recording I made of myself playing Lyadov Op40 No3. I love this
piece and decided to start learning it about a month ago. Iv not been playing ages (about 8 months), so understandably this was an ambitious step up. But I feel happy with this and other pieces in the same grade, so I figured why not give it a go?

Id love to get some constructive critism from you guys in the know, but please be gentle!

Personally, Id like to think that Im not a million miles away from having this piece reasonably sorted (minus the couple of little mistakes ofcourse!). There are some problems regarding performance Im aware - I will have my new teacher work with me on this and hopefully get it sorted without to much blood sweat and tears. Im far from convinced about the performance in this particular recording. Listening back to it, I shall have to get the tempo bang on with the metronome since its all over the shop, and attempt to play a little more expressively with the dynamics. Infact, I feel at times during this particular performance Im playing a little heavy handed. This i shall be sure to address.

However, the hard attacks on each note are partly a byproduct of the mic placement I think (I guess pianos dont like being close miced to near to the hammers!). At least they didnt sound quite so hard while i was playing. At times it sounds as though I hitting the keys really hard, but this wasnt actually the case.

But what a great way to critique you own playing! This is my first piano recording, and Iv found it most insightful. Again, cant wait to here what you have for me!

Btw, sorry for the poor recording. I had my computer making noises, the mic moving, the
TV next door... lol. Surfice to say it was not recorded in the best circumstances. For
those interested I recorded this using my legendary 'bag of nails' upright, against a
hard wall, using a single AKG C1000s into an Apogee pre (then desk - interface - pc). I
added a little ambience to the dry mono recording using a plugin reverb

Thanks everyone  .

PS. Iv not heard any other recordings of this piece, does anyone have a recommendation? I would love to hear this performed and recorded properly!