Debussy Reverie

Anyway, I could say a thing or two about this performance, but I'll save it for after everyone is done picking it apart

Hey, i am in serbia where veoh is not available. Any other way of watching this? AFF

I didn't know that. Does it work when you try to directly load it from the flash player? If not, I will have to upload it on youtube, or maybe host the video directly.

Try this: That will get you to veoh.If it does not work, go to zend2.com and type in the url. You need to hide your Ip, use proxy...

OK I finally watched it (I'm in Miami). The pianist (is it you?) has really nice tone, and a really good sense of how to get the best, most healthy sound out of the instrument, which sounds like a pretty good Steinway am I right? His hands are nice: relaxed but not flaccid. Relaxed in a way that lets "bone power" manifest in a nice way. My criticisms are more musical - he seems so intent on tone production that the phrase suffers at times, and also a sense of orchestration. Physically, if you use your arm that much on each melody tone, you are bound to get "bung, bung, bung" instead of singing... Individually beautiful tones do not necessarily a great performance make! Anyway it is a really good start, don't abandon your dedication to really beautiful piano sound, just continue to refine... AFF

Wow, you're a great guy for watching this video even so long after I originally tried to get it to work, thank you! Anyway, about the playing itself, your comments are basically what I thought the biggest problem was. It seems I developed a habit of moving my arm on every single note from years of playing with very lazy fingers. Thus phrasing suffers. I also thought, that maybe the forte section with the main theme in octaves sounded a bit forced, and the one right after that (With the melody in the left hand) could've used a bit more differentiation. You also can't hear it that well in the video, but there seemed to be a bit overpedalling. There's also some flubs here and there, but those will probably dissapear when I finish memorizing the thing. Thanks again for your comments.

Yeah, but when you memorize don' forget to take the 'stodginess' out. Ask yourself more rigorously what's the emotional tone, and how can I express that more by making the melody more sinuous? All the best, AFF

I've just re-recorded this piece after a year; I think it's improved a lot. Apologies for the terrible quality; the video camera isnt' compatible with my new laptop so the webcam was used instead:

I like this very much! A pity about the sound quality, which is REALLY bad! But everything you're doing seems right to me. THere's a real musician there, listening well to what's happening and using his hands well to express the musical thought. And your hand also seem to understand the specifics of piano tone, you are getting really free vibrations and good orchestrations, nice phrase lines. A pleasure to watch despite the lousy microphone. Please play it again and put it online when you've resolved the compatibility issues between your handycam and the new laptop! AFF