Chopin’s Fantaisie Impromptu

[lucascpiano]

Hi friends, hope to share my recording of Chopin’s Fantaisie-Impromptu. Thank you ❤️

[perfect_pitch]

OKAY, I'm going to say something that's going to sound odd coming from someone you don't know, and while I don't doubt Lucas is physically playing the Chopin Fantasie Impromptu... I am 100% certain the audio has been toyed with.

There was something VERY strange at 2:35 in the video when the kid plays the Ossia and yet his hand doesn't even get close to the top octave of the piano to reach the C, AND it doesn't even traverse down the piano to play the ossia notes as it reaches down to the E flat above Middle C. When the A section comes back its even more out of synch (the hands and audio are almost more than a bar out of synch).

THEN, I had a look at this recording...

Again, at first the notes that Lucas is again physically playing the piece, the audio VERY STRANGELY gets very out of synch at times. At 0:13, it seems in synch, but then at 0:26 the fingers seem to fall behind the audio. This becomes VERY CLEAR at 0:33 (watch the pinky) which gets VERY out of synch of the audio... and strangely enough that's when you pull the camera away from the keys. This also happens when the A section comes back after the D flat major section.

It then becomes clear at 2:16 that you've done MULTIPLE takes on this and tried to stitch them together. Don't do this... the world is not going to jeer at a few wrong notes from a young kid trying to play the piano.

However, this doesn't explain the funny audio synch issues in the first recording though. I've never known a single camera to record audio and video out of synch... ever.

I'm curious to know why this is.

[lucascpiano]

OKAY, I'm going to say something that's going to sound odd coming from someone you don't know, and while I don't doubt Lucas is physically playing the Chopin Fantasie Impromptu... I am 100% certain the audio has been toyed with.

There was something VERY strange at 2:35 in the video when the kid plays the Ossia and yet his hand doesn't even get close to the top octave of the piano to reach the C, AND it doesn't even traverse down the piano to play the ossia notes as it reaches down to the E flat above Middle C. When the A section comes back its even more out of synch (the hands and audio are almost more than a bar out of synch).

THEN, I had a look at this recording...

Again, at first the notes that Lucas is again physically playing the piece, the audio VERY STRANGELY gets very out of synch at times. At 0:13, it seems in synch, but then at 0:26 the fingers seem to fall behind the audio. This becomes VERY CLEAR at 0:33 (watch the pinky) which gets VERY out of synch of the audio... and strangely enough that's when you pull the camera away from the keys. This also happens when the A section comes back after the D flat major section.

It then becomes clear at 2:16 that you've done MULTIPLE takes on this and tried to stitch them together. Don't do this... the world is not going to jeer at a few wrong notes from a young kid trying to play the piano.

However, this doesn't explain the funny audio synch issues in the first recording though. I've never known a single camera to record audio and video out of synch... ever.

I'm curious to know why this is.

You’re spot on! It was me playing the piece, but the audio and video are poorly synced because we had to record the video separately from the audio as the recorder in the concert hall was not functioning properly that day.

Thank you for your message.

[perfect_pitch]

You’re spot on! It was me playing the piece, but the audio and video are poorly synced because we had to record the video separately from the audio as the recorder in the concert hall was not functioning properly that day.

So you tried to dub the video with the audio from a different performance? Why didn't you just use the original audio from the Video Camera in which you filmed it from?

[vincenzo]

So you tried to dub the video with the audio from a different performance? Why didn't you just use the original audio from the Video Camera in which you filmed it from?

They may have done it in order to produce better video quality - the best video cameras do not typically have good mics. Record video and audio with separate, high quality devices and then merging it is a tactic often used. I guess they could attach that mic to their camera, but they might not know how to do it / it might not be possible.

[perfect_pitch]

Yes, but my point is that the video and the audio seem to be from 2 different performances - not the same performance but with the audio and video from different devices synched together... 2 DIFFERENT playings of the piece. One audio recording dubbed over the top of the video.

I know what you were suggesting as I record video using my iPhone, but record using my H5, but this isn't the case here.

Towards the end of the video just before the Coda, Lucas seems to be playing almost 3 bars ahead of what the audio suggests, yet it started perfectly in synch at the beginning.

[frodo1]

Can the OP post a quality video with audio of a different performance of a substantial work where the audio and video are in perfect sync? If yes, we might be able to properly evaluate the performance.  Perhaps the OP can post a new recording of something? 

[dogperson]

Here’s a couple of other recordings from his YouTube

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=D6RN8I79RDU

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=UadSJRe5wt8

[perfect_pitch]

I guess the good news is that we're not question whether Lucas can play - he obviously can, quite well for his age. I'm just intrigued why they performance had been 'dubbed over'.

[frodo1]

I guess the good news is that we're not question whether Lucas can play - he obviously can, quite well for his age. I'm just intrigued why they performance had been 'dubbed over'.

He may be hiding missed notes and other imperfections as you suggested MAY be the case.  It is not possible for me to tell based on the recordings I see here of the Chopin Fantaisie Impromptu.  I agree Lucas can play well, but we are not sure how well at this point.  Perhaps he can post again another recording of Fantaisie Impromptu that clearly shows closeup of hands and good sync of audio.

[dogperson]

He may be hiding missed notes and other imperfections as you suggested MAY be the case.  It is not possible for me to tell based on the recordings I see here of the Chopin Fantaisie Impromptu.  I agree Lucas can play well, but we are not sure how well at this point.  Perhaps he can post again another recording of Fantaisie Impromptu that clearly shows closeup of hands and good sync of audio.

He is a young teenager— can’t we just let this go?  It was not good on his part to have combined the sound from another recording, but why assume it was anything other than the reason he gave? 

Quite frankly, yes he could post another recording but he doesn’t owe anything to this forum nor does he need to prove he can play this one piece to anyone here.  I’ve posted two other pieces from his YouTube channel which were well done.

[perfect_pitch]

Okay... but the reason people post here is so we can help them. People are so obsessed with getting note perfect renditions that it can be a bit tedious. Even Glenn Gould was known to redo sections in recordings and have them stitched together.

The point is, we're not here just to help people with stylistic mistakes, we're also here to help them with technical mistakes. Once you know someone has done multiple takes, it could be that they recorded the piece 2 times or even 30 times and stitched it together. This hides the real problem they might be having...

A single take recording can show us what is wrong, and we can try and help it. Heavily edited videos doesn't help us figure out the problem and accurately help someone.

[lucascpiano]

Thank you all. really moved by the concern of friends here. I will post a recording as soon as possible and welcome valuable comments from friends here.

[lucascpiano]

Hi Friends
just recorded the Fantaisie Impromptu at home. Hope you like it

[frodo1]

Hi Friends
just recorded the Fantaisie Impromptu at home. Hope you like it

Hello friend.  I like it!  Congratulations!  Keep up the great work young man. 

[lucascpiano]

Thank you so much. So glad you like it!

[perfect_pitch]

I haven't forgotten about this thread, but I'm about to head out to morning tea with family.  You've done a great job so far, but there are a few things I'll discuss when I have the sheet music in front of me again. I'll give you some feedback after I return.

[lucascpiano]

Thanks very much! Really appreciate that. Happy 2022 to you and all friends in Piano Street 🎹 ❤

[perfect_pitch]

1) Make sure any time you have your single notes like bar 37 (G# after the chromatic rundown), make sure you still keep a rounded finger, don't let the finger bend back from the knuckle. It's easy to do by mistake, but hard to really ensure.

2) This recording you did a better job at contrasting the accents in bar 13 from 17, which I didn't quite hear in the last couple videos.

3) In the A section, I think you need to let the contour of the melody influence your dynamics a little. Chopin has been quite careful with his crescendoes and decrescendoes, but I think you can take it just a little bit more, e.g. bar 5, just have a little more push towards top note, or maybe even a small dim towards the top, but then of course do the same thing in bar 6 but a tad louder knowing that it kind of explodes a little in terms of the contour in 7 & 8.

4) Same could also be said about the B section. Try and think of bars 1 - 8 of the Moderato cantabile section being one gigantic phrase in terms of the shaping of the melody, and make sure the cresc and decres don't sound too sudden otherwise it kind of breaks up the phrase into smaller sections, much like someone who puts too many pauses in their speech, or too many short sentences.

5) Coda (I don't have bar numbers, but it's what follows on after the repeat of the last 4 bars of the A section at 4:14). Need to really focus more on the accents here - this is where I didn't hear them clearly enough - really work that pinky finger. As an exercise, try and play the same section, but try and think of the accent as being on the beat to help you mark it strongly.

It can be a little hard to tell as well from an iPhone or Video camera audio as they sometimes try to normalise the sound (bolster volume when it's soft, and try to compress it when it's loud), but as I said - you've almost nailed this professionally so keep up the great work.

Just also choose a couple of passages where you think it sounds less chaotic in terms of the energy level and just relax the tempo just a tad to give it breath.

[lucascpiano]

Thanks so much! Really appreciate the pointers. They are very enlightening. I will definitely practice the piece with these points in mind. Thank you and Happy New Year!