Lorem's Piano Stuff

I decided to make a thread about this, because I plan to do many more recordings of my playing in the future. Anyway, here's Prelude in C Sharp Minor by Sergei Rachmaninoff, which I've already shown you:

Prelude in C Sharp Minor

I've also recorded an almost faultless performance of Clair de Lune by the winner that is Claude Debussy. It is not from Twilight, although you may have heard it there. Please go and have a listen, and comment here or there; I don't mind.

Clair de Lune

And now, I've done another one. This time, it's Liebestraume No. 3, by Franz Liszt, and purportedly one of the most technically challenging pieces to play for the piano. Here's my attempt:

Liebestraume No. 3

Oh yeah, and guys, please comment - I'd really appreciate some feedback. Thanks!

There's not really much wrong with your playing, I thought it was all really enjoyable but, it could sound 10 times better if your piano was in tune. Not that you can really help that without paying a piano tuner to come along and twiddly-diddly with your piano strings for ages.

Also, I can't imagine their services being particularly cheap though, I wouldn't know as we have an electric piano.

Actually, now that I've relistened, the Liebestraume goes kind of out of synch with each other a bit too much for my liking personally. The (diminished?) scale from 1:09 onwards was great though, it was probably the highlight of the piece for me. (Then again, it was always my favourite part in the actual sheet music itself.)
Got much better towards the end. Hope the performance goes well.

Is it normal for young pianists to start with Rachmaninov?!

Espeon said:

There's not really much wrong with your playing, I thought it was all really enjoyable but, it could sound 10 times better if your piano was in tune.

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It's really irritating, actually: the piano is new, as in, I'm the first person to play it, so the strings go out of tune very quickly. THey're about a semitone out at the moment, and we're getting a tuner in in a couple of weeks. Thanks for your comments, though :)

Ruby said:

Is it normal for young pianists to start with Rachmaninov?!

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Do you mean this in a good or bad way?

I mean that I thought Rachmaninov was extremely difficult to play, and that beginners never started with him. I'm wondering why you chose to.

Because I'm not really a beginner: I've been playing for 11 years. And he's one of my favourite composers.

Oh, I'm sorry. I assumed you wouldn't have started until you were at least ten, and you're only fourteen now.

Ah, no problem.
I can see why they're slipping out if the piano is new. If I have to replace a string on my violin, they all go out and need retuning. Even after that, the replaced string will continuously slip out of tune whilst playing. (The instrument itself is hard to tune anyway). >_<

I'm learning to play, and I envy you for being able to read sheet music. >.> I have to go on youtube and look up a "How to play" video to learn any songs.

Also, when I saw Prelude I thought you were going to play this Prelude.

I know next to nothing about piano playing, so I can't give you any criticism, but I enjoyed watching your videos, and I believe that should count for something. :D

Certainly you could just google "How to read sheet music" or similar. The Piano usually has one treble and one bass clef, so you should probably look for that.

Either that or you could download some kind of free notation software with a playback function just to get the idea of note lengths. Finale Notepad 2008 comes to mind, though how easy it will be to get a copy of it I don't know as the main website no longer has it for free download, I believe.

Well, it's not that I don't know the very basics such as note lengths, but I'm just having a hard time understanding key signatures. I know FCGDAEB is the order of sharps and inverting it is for flats, but I just get really confused and I have to take a good hard look at the music to make sure that the note I think I'm playing isn't actually a sharp or flat, and I get these five minute pauses while I figure it out.

Also, I have Finale PrintMusic 2009.

Uh, with key signatures, the specified notes are always sharp or flat unless otherwise stated in the music.