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@@moonshifter0 funny story about that piece. I wrote a Piano Sonata when I was 15-16yo that I used as an audition piece for the then-named Prep Program at MacPhail in Minneapolis. The director told me that I had almost copied Rachmaninoff, but I had never even heard of Rachmaninoff yet. He showed me that Rachmaninoff Prelude, and all the life drained out of my face because my Sonata was extremely similar to his Prelude even though I had never heard it before. It really cut down my confidence because I was petrified of copying pieces that I wasn’t even aware of. Thankfully, the instructors at MacPhail were stellar back then (each were nationally recognized at that time), and they helped navigate me through it to gain my confidence back. Then the Imposter Syndrome took over… 😑

@@seancregomusic how come? This is a great reason to be proud, as Rachmaninoff was an ingenious composer. I am prompted to believe, that your ability as a composer is very much alike to that of Rachmaninoff, solely because you were able to compose something akin to one of his pieces, and not out of deliberation. You should view this as an accomplishment and a compliment.

​@@seancregomusic Very understandable. I wonder if any of the greats ever felt that way in their formative years. As we go through theory and composition, we learn that the greatest musicians and composers are thieves. We steal influences and ideas, then change and modify them enough that we make the concepts our own art. It's been happening for centuries, and will happen for centuries more. You just happened to do it before hearing the Prelude, haha! But as we grow as writers and composers, we become aware of when we're taking those influences and turning them into our own art. At that point it is an intelligent decision or an awareness of the influence rather than it happening randomly or by chance. Such is the case for a Gnossienne I just finished writing. (The MuseScore playback is on my channel). Very heavily influenced by Satie's Gnossienne no.1. But different enough that it is my own work, and as I've been working on Chopin a lot lately, I wanted to diverge a little by using some influences from Chopin in my writing (mostly with the tuplets and the tempo rubato section). I have the score uploaded onto MuseScore under my online name as well, so feel free to take a look and see if you like it. Back in my high school days, I didn't have access to a theory or composition teacher. I didn't really start actually writing until I started recording (and lots of editing post-recording) using midi in the late 90's before college. Though, I did a fair bit of improvising and generating ideas at the upright piano in our home. I wrote a bit more in college, but it was all still pretty naive stuff, and a lot of my influences and passions were from video game music and remixes of said music. I wrote a couple string quartets in college which were basically a procession and recession for a wedding. But the wedding got called off. At least I still have the score, and I updated it and uploaded via MuseScore. It's a bit formless, or maybe through composed, not quite what I'd call a fantasy. I need to do the same with my trumpet quartet at some point, but it's a bit more monotonous with the mixed meter. At least the trumpet quartet has some much more intelligent ideas in terms of structure and development.

There are sooooo many tiny nuances in the piece that I wish I could point out with the score in hand, but it would take forever--things that put me way ahead of my days. This was back before my days studying composition formally. These were my self-taught days before moving on to MacPhail and then university. I kept this piece hidden for 30+ years because I was embarrassed by the cheesy final section. :) I just wish that I had been more aware-in-the-moment back then. I am glad you liked it!

@seancregomusic I don't think the final section was cheesy at all! It is a beautiful but complicated piece and still can't believe you composed it at 14 before taking formal composition classes.

@@shivarahimipiano I did lots and lots and lots of listening during that time of my life. Dozens of hours of listening a week, so that is how I "studied". I also was into the theory more than the music itself when I was taking piano lessons. If I spent a few weeks learning a piano piece, most of that time was spent studying how the piece was constructed. Then I just applied what I was discovering to creating my own compositions. Life seemed so much simpler then! :)

@@davidlee2822 because people just do what they want and call it artistic license. 😆 Part of it is having a deep understanding of (or lack of) performance practices of the time period, but also because pianos of the time were vastly (understatement) different then.

@@Damster587 glad you enjoyed it. It’s an Intermediate level piece, but most pro recordings mess it up. There are specific rests in the LH that contrast the RH, but everyone just blows it by holding down the pedal, for example. It drives me nuts when pros are inconsiderate about easier music. As a former pro myself (you can read the video description), I’ve been sure to put no piece below me, and I give them all the utmost care! The Sibelius Impromptus from a few videos back are good ones, too!

@@Damster587 mine is actually too bright for me, but everyone seems to line the sound. I’ve been having my tech bring it down little by little. PETROFs normally aren’t bright pianos, so it’s sort of strange how bright mine is!

@@Damster587 I did the regulation myself. To get you thinking about specs, there is a video on TH-cam about 12 steps for piano regulation. I’m not saying that you should do what’s in the video, but it can help start a conversation with your tech. A PETROF from 2003 is a really solid year, so you shouldn’t have to replace anything unless it was severely neglected. The “worst” would probably be getting new hammers, but that would be the most drastic thing. The hammers came lacquered from the factory, and not all stores would prep them properly. Even mine still had the original lacquer on them, so mine had to be voiced extensively when I got it. I still get mine voiced a little here and there with every other tuning. The big thing that I had to do myself was adjust the repetition springs because mine were completely dead, but you would only notice that if you are an advanced player.

@@seancregomusic Thank you! I'm glad you brought up repetition springs because If this has to do with the speed at which the key rebounds, then I need to address this also because I Noticed when trying to press the same key in quick sucession that is sometimes skips or is not hitting string.

@@Damster587 could be a few things, but I couldn’t repeat notes quickly at all until I adjusted mine, and now I can repeat notes quickly with very little effort and no double striking the string.

@@denisenewland8455 yep! I have six videos on my channel! They aren’t too far back.

@@ki2000ki awww, sorry you feel that way, but if I “just get to it,” then I have to go through 1,000 follow-up questions because I didn’t say enough! Can’t make everyone happy!

@@calebg6587 I should write headlines for the newspaper!

Hmmm, since it's intermittent and you're setting up positions the same each time, I'm thinking it might not be the Zoom H2n (unless the microphone position was a good few inches off which is a possibility). With the season transition, how has the humidity and temperature been in the room? Maybe something environmental is affecting the piano, causing more prominent upper harmonics or something in the tone. In my own home, I need to consider putting a humidifier in the room. I saw the relative humidity drop to around 35%, but the temp stays stable around 75F plus or minus a couple degrees. So yeah, the relative humidity is getting a bit low for my liking. (though I did have the living room window open as we had a power outage and I decided to put in some extra practice time. The cats love the open window, and they often keep me company while I'm playing, particularly with Chopin.) Just had my Petrof regulated end of August. The C5 hammer wasn't quite raising back to full height sometimes, so that's one thing I had him look into. It's a lot better now, but I do still occasionally have it happen. I'm suspecting the humidity got a little high one week, and maybe the wood swelled a little. I'll have my tech look into it again end of next month when he comes to tune it. On a good note, it's held it's tuning just fine since June. So I think it'll be fine on a 2 to 3 times a year tuning schedule. If your health permits, I'd encourage looking into some "easier" Clara Wieck-Schumann, Fanny Mendelssohn, or going a little later, some Amy Beach. I've decided to work on Clara's Ballade op.6 no.4 for Spring Recital next year. The companion piece will be Theme of Love from the Final Fantasy IV/V/VI Piano Opera book (as at my skill level it's the first thing I can tackle from that book) It'll be a good exercise for getting me used to using the sostenuto pedal along with the damper. I'm also planning to get a Barenreiter Urtext book to study Bach's F minor keyboard concerto BWV 1056. I'd like to start studying a short concerto even if I might not be able to play it for recital (or who knows, maybe I'll be able to scrounge up a string quartet!) And I think BWV 1056 is very approachable as a first concerto. Also on the list is Scarlatti's K.30 "Cat Fugue" Onward and upward! Best Wishes.

Thank you so much! It's very encouraging to hear that.

@@bolldamm3966 you can certainly play anything fast on the harpsichord that you can on the piano. In general, things are played way too fast these days. Just because one can doesn’t mean they should! Hewitt definitely plays this Sinfonia too fast, especially her live recordings.

@@seancregomusic Thank you for your reply, Sean. There seems to be an online consensus that the tempo in any given piece by Bach is up to you and how you play, which is fair enough, but I can't help feeling there's usually a reasonable range for any given piece. If I were the composer, I'd want my audience to appreciate the main details of what they're hearing, not necessarily on a first hearing but hopefully after two or three hearings. My conclusion is that the tempo should be sufficient to keep the audience interested, so maybe it depends as much on the audience as anything? In any case, thank you for your videos, which are refreshing.

@@Damster587 good luck!

@@miavos3610 thank you so much! Being able to demonstrate this on a harpsichord is finally a dream come true!

@@shivarahimipiano thank you! I was going to record all the Sinfonias and Inventions on the harpsichord, but I just don’t have time!

Thank you so much!

@@lydiavliese8246 it had just been tuned, but the c# unison slipped a little. And being the key of the piece is c#, well, it was rather unfortunate. I usually tweak the unisons before recording, but the microphone picks up tuning issues and exaggerates them even though you can’t hear them in person. 😖

@@seancregomusic Oh,I see.

@@dl57758 tee-hee! 😆

@@advannederpelt9217 I would never preform it this slowly, but it was in response to a trend at the time of people playing it waaay too fast and using it in so many social media videos. That being said, I’m still able to carry the line, which makes it ultra-challenging.

@@marcusvaldes no kidding? That’s awesome!

@@marcusvaldes a bunch of grunge bands that were pretty big at the time if you were into that sort of thing. They were huge in Europe, too. They also were part of some Grant Hart projects. RIP.

@@JJones-xt8id the Chopin fingering? He didn’t write in fingering there, so there is no “Chopin fingering”. Sorry.

@@seancregomusic haha my bad then. The way i learned it was 3241 3241

Sorry, I just saw this comment. I did a lot of research on historic fingering reading the Couperin and CPE Bach books, as well as researching organ fingering of the time (organ and harpsichord fingering were the same back then), and a college prof of mine from decades ago also wrote on Renaissance (and earlier!) fingering. I don't know who Maria Boxall is, but I will certainly do some more research!

Historic fingering tries to avoid the thumbs and pinky as much as possible by "crossing" 3 over 4 and 3 over 2, depending on the direction you are moving, with exceptions for black keys. Also, in Renaissance music, you can only cross fingers on the strong beats; in Baroque, they crossed fingers any time, and then by CPE Bach's time, it was beginning to look very much like our current fingering system.

How do you know exactly what you need if you don't know exactly what you need? (Voicing/ regulation etc.), I'm asking for a very real problem I'm having with a 2003 5'8" Petrof Piano that I just bought. I've had a technician confirm there is nothing wrong with the action, however a strange sound still persist on a few specific keys. The technician confirmed he heard (1) key making a strange sound and told me the string needs to be replaced., However I am hearing at least (4) other strings with a similar strange sound. So my question is: Can I resolve this issue by simply replacing the strings? Since it's not the action, what else could it be? It would have to be the Strings... Right?

@@Damster587 you must consider 3 steps one by one. But it all costs so go in this direction 1. Voicing 2. Strings replacements 3 a look into a crack in soundboard. Which can be filled glues and polished off. But as last choice

Great update about your piano! Regarding Scarlatti, I’m working on a few Sonatas now, and they work with the 57 keys, but I do use the highest and lowest keys often!

Yes, me, too! I have most of the Preludes recorded as well as the Childhood Scenes on my channel. I plan to tackle one of the Sonatas after I get through a few other projects as long as my health allows me to.

Ren music on near-period instruments and technique is my happy place! Thank you!