Other "Piano Forums"

[steinwayguy]

I'm sure a lot of you are regulars at other sites. Or am I mistaken? If you are, then let me/us know about them!

[Nightscape]

I always feel intimidated whenever I go to the other piano forums!  I guess I enjoy the clarity and simplicity of the layout of Piano Forum.  You can't beat the awesome default color scheme either!  Let me tell you, I sure get tired of seeing white windows and borders all of the time!

[Goldberg]

Yeah, sure, I started at PianoWorld a loooooong time ago, then came here, then went to Chopinfiles and liked it more than either of the other two, but then that went to Hell as most of you know, and now I'm a regular at ChopinMusic, a relatively unknown and very mildly attended forum mostly used by a somewhat clique-ish gang of former chopinfiles members, myself included (we actually like getting more members, but it turns out that we usually don't hear back from them after about 5 posts...), PW and PF, though to be honest neither one is my favourite (I vastly prefer this to PW, though, even with the absense of that Coffee Room disaster area); I also use PianoSociety which gets marginally more traffic than ChopinMusic and the posts are always interesting.

In general, though, I'm kind of straying away from the forums. Once you've done it for a year and a half to two years, you've seen and said it all, really, and the repetitiveness gets to you. Still, it's pretty fun to shoot the breeze every now and then and no matter what I say, there's always *something* new to learn.

[ted]

I still occasionally post on Pianoworld and I contributed a dozen or so pieces to their CD. There are one or two excellent pianists there from whom I have learned a few tricks. When I first went on I made the mistake of posting an opinion in the coffee room and received a tirade of aggressive pontification. So after that I posted only in the pianists' section.

Pianomix was an excellent, well presented site for creatively unorthodox people but the forums closed, I think, largely because creative people are in a minority at the best of times and existed in insufficient numbers to keep the discussions alive.

I have more or less settled here because of the larger number of sensible members. By and large there isn't the same frequency of people making weighty, sanctimonious pronouncements and totally ignoring the reasoning of others, which activity seems to occur regularly on other music forums. The audition room, I think, is a very valuable asset and, even in the first few weeks, has revealed an amazing diversity of styles and talents. I am convinced its future is very exciting. I am in two minds about the chat. I seem to be in a time zone too early for the Europeans and too late for the Americans. I have had some interesting conversations though; it may be just a matter of timing.

[pianonut]

occasionally i read posts at www.gramophone.co.uk/  and www.mozartforum (i think this is the website).  on gramophone you have highly skilled pianists, but they have a low tolerance for other ideas and sometimes become quite hilarious, or rude, in their replies to one another.

i have found that most forums have limited help as compared to a good teacher.  you should never rely soley on a forum to get your info.  in fact, if it counters the advice of your teacher, don't say "well, i do it this way because i read about it on a forum."  listen to the advice of your teacher and DON'T think you know more until you take enough lessons to know the style of your teacher.  if you don't like it, think about another teacher, but consistency is better than too much of every style of teaching all combined into one.