This is my first attempt at recording myself. You can hear some of my poor editing throughout the track. Recording myself playing piano has been a resolution of mine for quite some time, in lieu of the recitals of when I was younger.

To talk about the piece a bit: Chopin wrote what I thought was 19 Nocturnes but was in fact 22. This one was posthumously published and it turns out he didn't like it! I think it's one of the better ones. Anyway, Chopin was a real virtuoso pianist and fantastic composer. He doesn't have any symphonies, he has a couple piano concertos that utilize an orchestra, but he really is known for his solo piano work. It took me a couple months to learn this one and I've been holding it in the back pocket for awhile now. Not incredibly difficult, but a good challenge.

A Nocturne is simply a piece inspired by the night, and for my money this piece takes place during a storm at nighttime. The play between the two themes is the storm intensifying and yielding, and the very first hint of dawn occurs on the last chord of the piece. I had a teacher who always made me interpret pieces as I learned them, so, there ya go ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ 

In the future, I'm sure I will lament the following things about this recording:

* Not performed particularly well, which is at least partially a symptom of still getting used to my audio interface, and also of lacking skill
* A few technical errors, particularly in the middle with some of the ornaments
* Bad editing job, which is because this is the first time I've done this
* Rushed a decent amount in a few places

Still, I'm not too upset. My goal is to upload one a month. Enjoy.

Frederic Chopin - Nocturne #19

Been awhile since I've uploaded anything. This is a meh performance of Johann Sebastian Bach's Prelude #1 in C major. I recorded this one a few times and just can't end up happy with it, so here ya go.

This is slower than I traditionally play it, and you can hear some of the weakness in my fingers resulting in me playing a bit choppy at points. I also misplayed one of the bits near the end. On the plus side, it actually sounds considerably better on Soundcloud than Garage Band, so it's not quite as bad as I thought it'd be.

In any case, it's a pleasant piece. I've known it for a long time, decided to just smash out a recording of it pretty quick and this is the result.

OBLIGATORY INSPIRATION: This one reminds me of walking through a meadow.

J.S. Bach - Prelude #1 in C major

One of the all-time most recognizable piano pieces (well, one third of a piano piece), by Beethoven. This is the first movement (of three) of the Moonlight Sonata (which acquired its name postmortem). My intention is to learn all three, but the third movement is ... difficult.

This is one of my favorite pieces to play, in particular because it requires really good use of the pedal, dynamics, and tempo. My frustration with this recording stems from the fact that I did all of those things not-great or, at least, worse than I normally would. For some reason, I just play worse when I hit the record button :/

Anyway, I'll continue to enjoy playing it. Fairly mistake free and only had to record a few times, and I think I overcompensated for the change in sound my audio interface produces. This is made more apparent by the fact that the entire piece is marked pianissimo and piano (very quiet and quiet), even though Beethoven noted separately it should rise to mezzo-forte (moderately loud) at points.

I kind of have a dual influence for this one:

First, nighttime-on-a-lake imagery; the right hand triplet is the ebbing and flowing of the water, the bass in the left hand gives a weight to the piece that is reminiscent of nighttime, and the melody is the moonlight reflecting off the water.

My second influence is actually a bit more interesting, it's something maybe inspired by like, Edgar Allen Poe's The Raven? Around 2/3 into the piece the main theme shifts into the relative major key, and it's like this relief from insanity where you're almost thinking it's gonna end happily, but then it descends (literally) back into the minor, dramatic, dissonant, mezzo-forte section again before unraveling C# minor chords and ending with this somber finality. So kind of a bummer, really!

jokedovis