Monday, January 13, 2014
Monday, December 2, 2013
Allegro re-do
Well, with the sound of Da Vinci's viola organista in my head ever since yesterday (Mark and I listened to a youtube of Slawomir Zubrzycki playing his marvelous instrument, made from sketches--not plans--by Leonardo Da Vinci) I attempted a slower tempo on Bach's Allegro. My last post had the metronome cranked up to 146, I believe! This time it was a more reasonable 125, but is it still too fast?
I admit, I had a really good take, but there were twangs on the recording because the levels were too high, so I couldn't post them...tried again and this time had problems with intonation (just being slightly too sharp the whole time wasn't too terrible, but I just hated the idea of posting it knowing it to be so) and so I tried again and am now completely out of time.
Monday rust has been somewhat attended to, though :)
Tuesday, November 26, 2013
Bach C Major: it's not easy to record oneself
Well, this recording will make it painfully clear why musicians don't post their recordings of themselves...and I almost didn't, except that's the point of this blog! I didn't have much time to work on this, so I "had fun" recording the piano part and then the flute part, using a metronome to keep myself together. Some musical choices I would have liked to do differently, but I sure learned a lot.
Another item to note is that I didn't take any repeats on the Allegro movement. My friend Sarah thinks I never take repeats, but I do...just not when I don't have to :)
I miss Sarah a lot. She's a huge reason why I'm doing this. Before she left to sail around the world (see clipperroundtheworld.com) we played duets every week and had orchestra together, too. She's doing what she loves and I'm so proud of her! Can you imagine sailing around the world? Well, I figure what I'm doing isn't so interesting or brave or even challenging as that, but posting this link is like the deal breaker: either I really embarrass myself or don't do it at all, and I guess I'm going to just do it.
Yes, the second movement is too fast. That's the kind of thing you find out when you listen to yourself, but don't realize when you're actually playing. And I've learned this lesson before! I should know better!
Happy Thanksgiving!
Another item to note is that I didn't take any repeats on the Allegro movement. My friend Sarah thinks I never take repeats, but I do...just not when I don't have to :)
I miss Sarah a lot. She's a huge reason why I'm doing this. Before she left to sail around the world (see clipperroundtheworld.com) we played duets every week and had orchestra together, too. She's doing what she loves and I'm so proud of her! Can you imagine sailing around the world? Well, I figure what I'm doing isn't so interesting or brave or even challenging as that, but posting this link is like the deal breaker: either I really embarrass myself or don't do it at all, and I guess I'm going to just do it.
Yes, the second movement is too fast. That's the kind of thing you find out when you listen to yourself, but don't realize when you're actually playing. And I've learned this lesson before! I should know better!
Happy Thanksgiving!
Saturday, November 9, 2013
Kuhlau Flute Duet
8 years ago I got a wonderful "cube" called a Whisper Room off Craigslist to put in the garage and have my own space to practice flute and try not to wake the babes. I think it was one night soon after (maybe even that first week!) I recorded an entire CD's worth of some favorite music and told myself I would "work" on it and make a real CD. That's been my New Year's resolution ever since.
A couple of weeks ago I was talking to Mark about how I thought again...this year...it's not going to happen. After a few years of also reading cooking blogs, I thought, wow, maybe the answer isn't to be perfect, but just to get something out there, learn in the process, and take a different approach towards making that CD (now a relic of an idea) and do a blog a la all those home chefs changing the culinary arts scene.
He said that was a good idea, and I should probably just record every day (ha!) and take the best recording at the end of the week and post it. I said, but....I don't get to play every day, and sometimes the most I could do is play my scales. He said, "Don't play your scales. Just record." Are you laughing yet? Well, he had a point because after I hemmed and hawed just a bit more he said, what do you do after you play your scales? And there it was, I usually just play them again and then again. I like scales.
So....this is happening. I'm going to post a flute diary where I sometimes have played my scales, and sometimes not. Forget the cold fingers, the bird squeaks (lots of bird noises in there from our two parrots), the dog bumping into the wall, the kids, the neighbor's lawn mowers and blowers...I'm going to see if I can move beyond "that's not good enough" and find something I really like the sound of. I hope. I need to improve technical aspects of recording as well as my own playing, so feel free to comment or suggest.
I am so fortunate to have Mark supporting me, but I'll admit that the biggest element of his support is the critique. If you have a remark that you'd like to send to just me, feel free to email me at amelia.archer@gmail.com, but otherwise you can comment here or on the soundcloud file. That would be great.
Here's the first post:
A couple of weeks ago I was talking to Mark about how I thought again...this year...it's not going to happen. After a few years of also reading cooking blogs, I thought, wow, maybe the answer isn't to be perfect, but just to get something out there, learn in the process, and take a different approach towards making that CD (now a relic of an idea) and do a blog a la all those home chefs changing the culinary arts scene.
He said that was a good idea, and I should probably just record every day (ha!) and take the best recording at the end of the week and post it. I said, but....I don't get to play every day, and sometimes the most I could do is play my scales. He said, "Don't play your scales. Just record." Are you laughing yet? Well, he had a point because after I hemmed and hawed just a bit more he said, what do you do after you play your scales? And there it was, I usually just play them again and then again. I like scales.
So....this is happening. I'm going to post a flute diary where I sometimes have played my scales, and sometimes not. Forget the cold fingers, the bird squeaks (lots of bird noises in there from our two parrots), the dog bumping into the wall, the kids, the neighbor's lawn mowers and blowers...I'm going to see if I can move beyond "that's not good enough" and find something I really like the sound of. I hope. I need to improve technical aspects of recording as well as my own playing, so feel free to comment or suggest.
I am so fortunate to have Mark supporting me, but I'll admit that the biggest element of his support is the critique. If you have a remark that you'd like to send to just me, feel free to email me at amelia.archer@gmail.com, but otherwise you can comment here or on the soundcloud file. That would be great.
Here's the first post:
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)