VIDEO: Prelude Op. 28 No. 20 by Frederic Chopin (2012 recording)

[michael_sayers]

. . . on a Schimmel upright as with the Op. 28 No. 4 . . .

[perfect_pitch]

[rachfan]

To michael_sayers:

Perhaps you're callously unaware.  But do realize that your "recordings" -- virtually none of which drew favorable responses -- are now taking up 38% of the recording slots on Page 1 of Audition Room?  The fact is that your recordings show a total lack of pianism, musicianship, and artistry.  In short they're dreadful to say the very least.  To foist all of that claptrap onto the members here is inexcusable.  Had you submitted just one or two of your recordings that you considered to be your best efforts, I'm sure that you would have received valuable input.  But it's now clear that your sole aim was to clutter up Audition Room.  That has forced worthwhile recordings onto page 2 prematurely.  In my opinion it's not only unfair, but outrageous!          

[cbreemer]

Well put David. This had to be said. The Audition Room is degenerating into a mere joke because of all this spamming. How anybody could post such prodigious amounts of crap and not be ashamed of it is beyond me.

[michael_sayers]

I get what you all are expressing about the quantity of the threads - I most likely won't start any more threads in this forum until several months later this year and including some music by living composers.

Is there any way one can consider breaking the site rule about only one composition per thread?  Probably several of J.S. Bach's 371 harmonized chorales will be included, and in my opinion there isn't any reason why these can't be in one thread.

As with the two Chopin Preludes just posted, and the two Chopin Prelude recordings posted previously, two threads total - one now, and one then - would have made more sense than four threads.  And I did want to do it here that way.

The notion that if a pianist wanted to submit a recording of Chopin's Op. 28 he would have to use 24 threads to do it is a bit much.

I'm not disagreeing that my quantity of posts probably has been too much.  I am just saying that it doesn't seem to make sense to always adhere to this particular site rule which has been, with me, a contributing factor.

Thanks for your honesty with me.

[perfect_pitch]

I get what you all are expressing about the quantity of the threads

No... The Quality too sucks as well, so there's that as WELL as the Quantity...

I am just saying that it doesn't seem to make sense to always adhere to this particular site rule which has been, with me, a contributing factor.

Have you maybe say considered... NOT posting your recordings here and attempting to argue with anyone that says they're damaged performances, with complete claptrap???

Or maybe you could take up juggling??? That's apparently very fun...



PS. I hope that's honest enough for you.

[cbreemer]

*LOL*  +1 pp

God forbid a complete op.28 from this source.... with likely no.16 at quarter speed.

[8_octaves]

[...] and in my opinion there isn't any reason why these can't be in one thread. [...]

Hi Michael!

That's possible on other forums, I think, where people e.g. could make up one (or even 2 or 3) thread(s) for their own collected recordings, or start with one, and later add new ones in the same thread. So that users would be able to have a "homeplace" for their own recordings and discussions about them.

It hasn't only disadvantages if that would be possible. But as I read in the "sticky" topics at the top, it seems that from time to time the recordings here are indexed , perhaps even automatically, for to create lists in which ONE recording is connected to ONE member (player), and then maybe the new list-structure can be easily "understood" by other pages, e.g. facebook or so.

If, under these circumstances, perhaps a member posts 6 videos in one thread, maybe it cannot be parsed (or, if by humans:) easily outlined / summarized.-

________

To your recordings: I like them. They give other ideas, as we already "touched" somewhen when we talked about the former recording ("e flat or e natural?")   .

And I don't think impolite words to you I spotted in some threads are necessary in a music-discussion.-

But: Give others a chance, too!   Many people, especially beginners, can't yet play a great amount of pieces, they work hard and then post one, maybe the only one they can play.-

And I think, if you want, Michael, you can play ALL of the pieces you posted, and many more, for perfectly well reviews. So that nobody could criticize tempo, piano-tune or such things. And you've access, it seems, to a wide variety of pianos and grands!

Cordially, 8_octaves!

[michael_sayers]

Hi 8_octaves,

Thanks for the humanizing sentiments, and indeed I do think now that I have behaved unfairly in this forum - for which I apologize to all, especially as fairness is supposed to be one of the things I truly believe in.

When I return, do you think I would get banned for posting everything from the session in one thread?

That really is the way I prefer to do it, everything in one spot with easy access.

Having to spread everything out into the maximum number of threads possible, no matter what the consequences, just doesn't make sense to my way of thinking.

And, as you say, there is the lone poster with his one piece - why should he have to be swamped in part due to this rule?  As adults here, why can't we use our own judgement about whether it is more appropriate to have something as several threads or as one?

I would have done everything so far at wider intervals as three or four threads maximum if it had not been for the rule.  As with the two Chopin Preludes just posted, why must each one have its own thread?  They were recorded on the same date and at the same location, so I just don't get the necessity of them being posted separately.  They even go together as part of a set of pieces, the Op. 28 set.

[8_octaves]

[...]
When I return, do you think I would get banned for posting everything from the session in one thread?

That really is the way I prefer to do it, everything in one spot with easy access.
[...]

Rehi Michael,

that's a question I of course cannot answer. But I noticed there's a special board here, in which recommendations, ideas, questions etc. pertaining the Forum itself can be discussed.

Maybe you should, via a thread (if there isn't already one existing of that kind), ask about your idea for

" "grouped" ( or: more than one) recordings in ONE thread" there?

Might be helpful, because perhaps the experts (Admins / mods ) , who have deeper insight in the structures, could help?!

Very cordially, 8_octaves!

[michael_sayers]

Hi 8_octaves,

Thanks for the information!

During these past weeks I have sometimes thought about starting a "an issue with the audition room" thread here discussing this one rule about every composition having to have a separate thread.  I think it would make more sense to have some things as a list of rules, and other things as a list of recommendations so that one can use selective judgement about when it is or isn't really appropriate to do what is suggested.

Groupings can be such things as:

1) by publication set [here is my recording of Chopin's Op. 28, and not as 24 threads]

2) by composer/emphasis, et c. [here are six late Liszt piano pieces I recorded yesterday, what do you all think about them? - I hope you all don't mind me putting them in one thread instead of six threads]

3) date and time [I recorded last week, here it is with the two Liszt Legendes and without each of the 20 selected J.S. Bach harmonized chorales also as its own separate thread for 22 threads total]

4) other possibilities not with the above . . .

To my thinking this makes a lot of sense.

I'll post at the other forum later, closer to the time.


Mvh,
Michael

[ronde_des_sylphes]

My experience is that the one piece per thread isn't enforced; indeed it's not that rare for two or more pieces to be in the same thread. I know I've posted a full recital over two threads, one for each half, and that wasn't a problem. There is a technical limit on number of attachments per thread (4 mp3s maximum).

[j_menz]

There is not, as I understand it, any rule against posting multiple pieces (especially from a single opus or single performance) as a single post/topic.

I would also suggest that it would be preferable if you posted (much)  more recent material. Many of your posted performances are a decade or more old - it's not really possible to feel any feedback is even potentially constructive (or that constructive feedback is actually sought)  in such circumstances.

[perfect_pitch]

God forbid a complete op.28 from this source.... with likely no.16 at quarter speed.

For the love of GOD... Do not give him any ideas. You never know - he might put No. 1 in C MINOR!!!!

[michael_sayers]

I just remembered that there is one more thing I would like to post.  Should I wait a few days?  What is the situation here with this?

Really, there are two more things, but I am nervous about placing them in one thread, so this would involve starting two new threads.

And then I'll have nothing more to contribute by way of recordings until several or many months from now.

[perfect_pitch]

I just remembered that there is one more thing I would like to post.  Should I wait a few days?  What is the situation here with this?

Any chance you can wait a few days... you know, like till JUDGEMENT DAY? Then you can post them...

And then I'll have nothing more to contribute by way of recordings until several or many months from now.

Hate to say it, but your recordings thus far haven't really contributed anything (I'll make your compositions the exception), but most of your Bach and Chopin has been absolutely dreadful.

[cbreemer]

But original, you gotta admit it.
And that, apparently, is what making music is all about according to some. Never mind what the composer wrote or may have intended, or whether anybody actually likes or even respects the
result. It's no more than exhibitionism really.

[stevensk]

I just remembered that there is one more thing I would like to post.  Should I wait a few days?  What is the situation here with this?...

-Post it Michael! I would like to hear more 

[stoat_king]

I enjoy them too.
Admittedly, I enjoy some of them for the 'what is he gonna do next' factor and what appears to me to be sheer wrongmindedness.
I think it shows both spirit and a kind of integrity.

If I wanted to hear a robotic rendering of a piece I would listen to a computer. I hate computers.
Mr Sayers is at the other end of the scale. Possibly too far lol

[michael_sayers]

As you wish . . . 

After these two threads, nothing else will be added for a few to several months.

[dcstudio]

I don't get it... why don't you post these?  why are you posting those recordings when you have these performance vids which would be far better.   that doesn't make sense... I am sure they would still criticize your playing-- but they wouldn't be so angry about it if had shown these first.

how do you have 600+ subscribers on YT and your most viewed vid has only 400 hits?  I have never seen that before.

[michael_sayers]

I don't get it... why don't you post these?  why are you posting those recordings when you have these performance vids which would be far better.   that doesn't make sense... I am sure they would still criticize your playing-- but they wouldn't be so angry about it if had shown these first.

how do you have 600+ subscribers on YT and your most viewed vid has only 400 hits?  I have never seen that before.

Years ago I removed all the videos because I did not want to risk controversy interfering with music activities.  Recently, I changed my mind.   It really is true that if a person thinks negative, that person will get negative results.  One must be positive!

There is plenty more to re-add, including a unique Bach transcription for which Liszt occupied my mind and body as the transcriber, and which I notated and recorded when I was 24.

[dcstudio]

Years ago I removed all the videos because I did not want to risk controversy interfering with music activities. 

There is plenty more to re-add, including a unique Bach transcription for which Liszt occupied my mind and body as the transcriber, and which I notated and recorded when I was 24.

forgive me, I don't understand what controversy and how would it interfere?

So Liszt communes with you, huh?  I have always felt a stronger connection with Beethoven, myself.

jokingly. I tell people that Vince Guaraldi (jazz pianist from Charlie Brown specials) jumped in me and played Linus and Lucy the first time I stepped out as a pro--I totally froze up that night and couldn't remember how to play anything... next thing I know I was playing that famous tune...years later  I posted a few vids of me playing his music-- all of them were featured and now have 200k+ hits each.  His son even mysteriously appeared on my FB friends list.   

Communing with Liszt--it's the least crazy thing I have heard you say yet. 

[michael_sayers]

forgive me, I don't understand what controversy and how would it interfere?

So Liszt communes with you, huh?  I have always felt a stronger connection with Beethoven, myself.

jokingly. I tell people that Vince Guaraldi (jazz pianist from Charlie Brown specials) jumped in me and played Linus and Lucy the first time I stepped out as a pro--I totally froze up that night and couldn't remember how to play anything... next thing I know I was playing that famous tune...years later  I posted a few vids of me playing his music-- all of them were featured and now have 200k+ hits each.  His son even mysteriously appeared on my FB friends list.    

Communing with Liszt--it's the least crazy thing I have heard you say yet.  

So then, in your experience, your arms were and hands were doing all the motion while you passively observered?

The only thing I can't figure out about the time with Liszt is why someone so unworthy would be chosen for his assignments . . . surely, wouldn't someone like Stephen Hough be better positioned and equipped to carry them out (the answer, of course, is yes)?

I think maybe many persons have these types of experiences such as you and I have had, but perfect_pitch gave the perfect example of why it is kept private.

[dcstudio]

So then, in your experience, your arms were and hands were doing all the motion while you passively observered?

yes--I sat there thinking--how am I playing this?  This doesn't sound like me.  I had dreamed of Vince the night before, too--he was sitting next to me at a grand piano and he turned to me and said--"you are going to do great"    This was the gig I got after losing my casino job and winning $5k in music equipment all within 48 hours.  It had been 3 years since I had left music school and I had only started playing again a month before.

either someone up there likes me or I am the luckiest person ever.  lol.  Go ahead and tell me it was all just random events...you see it your way and I will see it mine.

Kenny Werner--one of my favorite jazz guys said--"it's ok to be crazy if it helps you to be a better player."   He has spoken of similar experiences in his lectures... so it's not as out there as it sounds.

[michael_sayers]

An interesting book on the supernatural and music is music journalist Arthur M. Abell's Talks With Great Composers.  His interviews with Brahms are in there, though Brahms forbid their publication until his own death was at least 50 years in the past.  I would offer to mail you my copy, except that, having read it, I already gave it away!

https://books.google.se/books/about/Talks_with_Great_Composers.html?id=jhwGAAAACAAJ&redir_esc=y

Hopefully perfect_pitch will stop bashing me as being mentally ill because of an involvement with both the supernatural and music.  No one should tolerate that type of abuse.

[dcstudio]

c'mon... ya kind of leave yourself open when you say things like that...lol

I had a run in with Pitch myself a few years back...  they just like to argue--and you must know that..  I'm sure he was rigidly trained like the rest of us--then actually attained a level of playing far beyond what he thought possible--only to find the reality of the professional music world -- not what he had expected.  So he comes here to defend what is truly on it's last leg..."the old school way"--but what do I know...I just like psychoanalysis

as for me--I accept the likely possibility that my perceived encounter was nothing more than hysterical stress brought on by facing 3 hours of playing music for the first time and not a visit from the spirit of the man who wrote the happiest music of my childhood...

but--geez--where's the fun in that?

[themeandvariation]

One of the strangest books, by the composer Cyril Scott, "Music - Its secret influence throughout the ages"..  It is a very provocative read… whether one agrees or not with the author hardly matters, (and is not really the point of reading it) as it is so unique, esoteric and quite grand/bold in scope… And, He Is a composer…and has a special ear...
He walks thru history.. (rather quickly) … For example,  he notices the proportion  of holes on an ancient Egyptian flute… Deciphers the scale, pitch relationship. Then to attribute the effect of that scale on the human organism in terms of how it feels, and affects one's thinking…  He starts with India, and the quarter-tone scale, then Egypt -third tone … Then the Greeks and the half-tone.. and continues thru, all the way to Scriabin and Debussy, and Jazz.. (where some may feel he is quite reactionary…. (as i do) but still the journey is quite a romp… and nothing quite like it that i have seen...
https://www.amazon.com/Music-Secret-Influence-Throughout-Ages/dp/0895403234

[perfect_pitch]

I had a run in with Pitch myself a few years back...  they just like to argue--and you must know that..  I'm sure he was rigidly trained like the rest of us--then actually attained a level of playing far beyond what he thought possible

Ahhh - those were fun days DC, weren't they? But it's not that I like to argue - I like to defend what I think is a valid point. I don't like arguing for the sake of arguing - that would make me a troll.

And it's not that I think the Professional world isn't what I perceived it to be... I know what it's like, I've done my share of performances, and tackling a select few of the great works (the truly bloody hard ones), but with what I predict will be a flood of Chinese (not racist, I swear) pianists in the next couple of years, we're going to be saturated by thousands of Chinese pianists, and thus - pianism and pianists everywhere start losing their luster in the eyes of the general population - after all, what happens to commodity when there's a overabundance of it???

 

Having said that - given what Michael has presented here in terms of the piano, I'd still rather stick to the old way than play like that. The old way has more reverence and respect to the composers intentions.

[dcstudio]

ahhhh yes--those were the days...  

I have the utmost respect for you and I agree completely--we are a dying breed.   I grow tired of arguing about it though and watching something I devoted my life to slowly fade away.  All that integrity we were taught to have--just doesn't seem to matter now.  I am 6th generation in a direct line of teachers leading back to Czerney and Beethoven--I hear you.

On the other side of the coin--the emphasis that is put on technical prowess and the lack of musicality is also disheartening.   I see this from the jazz side of things--and that genre is also dying on the vine.

miss our "conversations" perfectpitch