Does my piano need to be open when I record it?

[Teo]

Testing if the piano needs to be open when I record it. Petrov upright special edition (Czech).

https://archive.org/details/PianoOpenCloseTestScarlattiK1701710243

Nicely they allow the full quality file as converting it to MP3 would lower the quality.

OK open sounds better but is it THAT MUCH better?

Thanks googols for any comments! :smirk:

Love'n'lightness,
teo

 

[John Watt]

While I don't own a piano, and did, a few times, I like to sound as much as possible,
when I get a chance to play one.
Let me qualify myself, not being a Conservatory player, but a professional rock musician,
who, during my travels, has played a fifteen foot Steinway grand, a couple of Bosendorfers,
and many Yamaha. Here in Ontario, Yamaha took over providing Board of Education instruments.

I always open all the covers and lid and keep the sustain pedal pushed all the way down all the time.
Anyone interested in recording should want to capture as much sound as possible.
And you can't brush the strings with your hand if the lid is down.

 

[Teo]

Hi and thanks googols John!

Wow you are reminding me, when I first visited I "took all the piano's clothes off," meaning opened EVERY panel to get the most sound you can! I come from electronic music too. I've "toned down" or really volumned down, and for example, this Petrov piano's middle pedal is a practice pedal - it makes the sound so quiet someone could probably sleep next to it! Really! I used to use that a lot, now I just play like regular volume.

As I was putting together this question to post I remember how before I would put on my old huge padded headphones because it is actually loud if I play hard! Luckily my better half, the piano owner, loves Chopin most of all and reminded me how he only liked playing to small groups, and played so softly it really irritated some people!

Considering that, and the fact that it's not a Grand in a hall anyway, I've decided I'll not only leave it closed but put all the tons of scores and art and pictures and pencils and stuff that has been on top for years. Hey, it got dusted and cleaned while it was tuned, but now back to being covered in things - see I'm really doing piano to get my chops good for, ready? MY FREEBOARDS SETUP! 2 DX-100s I wear, there is a post here of that setup. So I realize this is really just for me to hear what my Scarlatti sonatas sound like on piano, then when I shift to the 2 synthesizers I'll have an idea what the low notes sound like - on piano anyway, see, Scarlatti only had a harpsichord!

Thanks for chiming in though!

Love and light being,
Teom
:alc:

 

[John Watt]

Oh! You've made me thoughtful here, when I'm usually just reacting to what I've read.

I'm surprised you've got a middle pedal that actually works that well.
I've played some pianos where I couldn't tell any difference.

When my formative years were transpiring, the late sixties,
Paul was dead, or wasn't, Syd Barrett was alive, or just admitted to a psychiatric facility,
Bob Dylan went electric, a new company starting making clones of Gibson and Fender pickups, DiMarzio,
and I had to go over the border to Buffalo to see keyboards that Andy Moog converted into a synthesizer.
I saw a console organ, curved with four keyboards and pedal on the floor, all painted white,
sitting in the middle of a big music store with a $15,000 price tag on it.

What you're getting together as keys is incredible, any kinds of sounds you want,
and any recording abilities you could desire.

It's nice to have a comfy piano at home.

The worst thing about early synths was the unweighted plastic keys,
what made it very difficult to switch between a piano, organ and synthesizer.
And thank you for piping up,
and I hope you're in tune everywhere you are.as always, John Watt

 

[Teo]

YouTube videos of Freeboards 2 DX-100s & piano performance, development in process

I went back to a piano Scarlatti I recorded and made it a Ew-Tube:

To remind myself that I'm not JUST a wiz-bang weirdo, which I am.. too! So I tuned the piano so I can get my particular tight-rhythm sensibilities on PIANO, and then go techno-nuts with my synthesizers and as you'll hear if you listen to the 2nd time of the A or B sections, I go into outer-space with a sustained harpsichord style that is fun to me because it goes way back in time and way ahead all at once.. eh?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HVdiGsq9YzQ

Is an earlier experiment, it has Spanish scales which no Bach or Handel would dare, and when I sustain them it is so fun - skip toward the end. It's unfinished meaning some parts play 4 or 5 times and usually I would edit down to the best "take" but I'll be totally redoing that one anyway, but you can hear the wildness of sustaining Scarlatti's ventures into Spanish folk, gypsy, Arab and other musics..

Since I have your ear, my Freeboards I often put each on in a channel so hopefully people have both speakers plugged in. Then just for oh I don't know, modernity, I apply a reverb that sort of merges the 2 and you'll hear reverbed left in the right and vice versa. I like both, one fellow said he hates all reverb, I like a little.

The hearing one on either side of the computer is so cool to me! It helps show how syncopated the music is as Scarlatti has wild left-right hand syncopations such as in this other unfinished one:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QVJhCwL6krM

Fun left-right action eh?:crazy:

Back on topic though, Inda and I have been talking a lot about this and how Chopin was so into small audiences and really played softly and I'm thinking what a great challenge - in the nice side of music, the soothing side, to play as soft as I can! Now I'm thinking: Leave it open when I record, and I found a nice stand to put my Zoom recorder on so it gets some ambiance, but play really soft! What a blast! As a world music wizard going straight into Schubert, Mozart, Scarlatti etc.. this is similarly going the opposite direction of most people: Instead of playing like I am in a large theater, playing like I am in an intimate room of dear friends eh?

Much of the PIANISIMO of my Scarlatti - or any other composer - will be lost on the Freeboards because there is no velocity sensitivity as you mentioned. You know.. they have a "breath controller" input? I have the physical thing to stick in my mouth, and I've also used a foot pedal to run it.. it gives expression so with that I could add expression, and if you look at some of my older videos (I'll put one here just for the sake of all-in-one-place) you see I did a lot with the foot pedal.. more options, more cables, y-jacks and opportunities to be a madman! What fun! Thanks for bearing with me, u r a dear

I tried to link to 3:20 in the video, it is a custom Clavinet Wah-Wah sound! Then I brag about the staccato, then sustaining it, legato! I think I've toned down or become .. DOMESTICATED eh?

Love'n'light beings,
Teo
:banana:

 

[John Watt]

Teo! I've been left behind in this business that is now closed, to spend the night,
which means I'm using a strange computer system,
and the first strange thing is using a swipe pad for the first time.
The negative part is not having any sound on this laptop,
and if I knew how to get it, I'd say what I always say,
that laptops aren't worth listening to, unless it's just one voice.

What I'd like to comment on are some of your comments,
and where you are at, talking about yourself.
Now that I see you as not just being a Conservatory player,
I can relate to you in terms of rhythmic playing and techno-driven noise.
I always describe my lead guitar playing as making the noise,
and that's because I like other players to be the drums'n'bass.

If there is one great void in European classical music that keeps me away,
it's not just reading the notes to play, it's the lack of rhythm.
At first, I thought you were ambitious about upgrading your keyboard to two levels,
but seeing how you want to strap them on and move around now makes me see a radical new you.

Being able to dance around and make the moves, and push the strings around with my fingers, good.
The Hammond B3 clone even had a few sliders just like the actual organ.
Okay, I'm typing too much when I've just got some things to say, not about what you play.
So I'll end with a little California syncopation trivia, where you are now living and being the lighting up.

When Fred Astaire first went to Hollywood to make movies,
he had to rehearse with drummers who would try to play along with his feet,
teaching them a syncopation they never had down before.
And as far as Hollywood movies go, before there were soundtracks, just in movie performances,
it was a producer who took a just edited movie home to watch it,
who put an album on at the same time,
and he and his friend were surprised how much background music added to the movie.
I won't add what the legalities of these new classifications of music meant, uh, for royalties,
except to say that "film music", "movie music", and "sound-tracks",created a huge new pile of financing.

I'm seeing you as a groovy player, not some-one just interested with intellectual properties.
Dropping out of high school after seeing Jimi Hendrix, Mr. George Benson and Deep Purple,
I bought a '64 Strat and ordered a Marshall from England, with effects.
As a player, I see myself as making the same sounds as Jimi,
with riffs like John Coltrane, Nicolo Paganini and McCoy Tyner.
And by the time I get going,
if I'm not dancing or moving around, I might as well pack up and head back to the room.
Drastik Measures, from Dominique, when they first came to Ontario,
won the Best Parade Band Grand prize their first year for Caribana in Toronto.
When they started their big club in St. Catharines in the Niagara Peninsula,
the home for many migrant workers from the Caribbean,
they jammed with me and asked me to join the band, playing for two seasons.
Traditional one-chop raggae, soca, suci to dance hall, to their own special polyrhythmic blend,
a very nice band, never less than twelve musicians on stage, featuring three vocalists.

Since I can't listen, I thought I'd put up a photo of me onstage with Drastik Measures,
but after looking through seventeen pages of used photos here, I can't find it.
I must have disappeared, just like me right now,
even if it isn't into your sweetness and light.

as always, John Watt

 

[Teo]

Hey thanks googols John for the really nice replies, ideas and artisticisms! You are a true gem! I'm so sorry I haven't gotten back sooner, but I've been real busy.. but I'll indulge myself and reply to your reply in detail! OK?

Teo! I've been left behind in this business that is now closed, to spend the night,
which means I'm using a strange computer system,
and the first strange thing is using a swipe pad for the first time.
The negative part is not having any sound on this laptop,
and if I knew how to get it, I'd say what I always say,
that laptops aren't worth listening to, unless it's just one voice.

Too bad if you don't have 2 speakers, it's one of the best things about how I record Freeboards now, the left and right are completely separate! Scarlatti's sonata in A.. K208, it has great left-right syncopation! Maybe that's a reason I am loving Scarlatti, he spent much of his life in Spain mixing the musics and obviously taking in RIDDIM!!!

What I'd like to comment on are some of your comments,
and where you are at, talking about yourself.
Now that I see you as not just being a Conservatory player,
I can relate to you in terms of rhythmic playing and techno-driven noise.
I always describe my lead guitar playing as making the noise,
and that's because I like other players to be the drums'n'bass.

If there is one great void in European classical music that keeps me away,
it's not just reading the notes to play, it's the lack of rhythm.
At first, I thought you were ambitious about upgrading your keyboard to two levels,
but seeing how you want to strap them on and move around now makes me see a radical new you.

Being able to dance around and make the moves, and push the strings around with my fingers, good.
The Hammond B3 clone even had a few sliders just like the actual organ.
Okay, I'm typing too much when I've just got some things to say, not about what you play.
So I'll end with a little California syncopation trivia, where you are now living and being the lighting up.

When Fred Astaire first went to Hollywood to make movies,
he had to rehearse with drummers who would try to play along with his feet,
teaching them a syncopation they never had down before.
And as far as Hollywood movies go, before there were soundtracks, just in movie performances,
it was a producer who took a just edited movie home to watch it,
who put an album on at the same time,
and he and his friend were surprised how much background music added to the movie.
I won't add what the legalities of these new classifications of music meant, uh, for royalties,
except to say that "film music", "movie music", and "sound-tracks",created a huge new pile of financing.

Oh man I used to love the pageantry! I was most animated in Reggae bands, dancing a lot, changing hats, famous for upside down shades, and when they called out DUB! I would leap from the stage and dance with cute women, then the drummer would feel jealous and yell RIDDIM! then I had to leap back to stage and bang and bubble my parts and lines.. I always admired showmen who did antics, a guy PO in Berkeley was maybe the best I worked with but I have had a lot of calypso, salsa, funk and jazz fusion band experience..

In World Music Class my book covering well, AIRTHANG! I had a page that said after all the rehearsals, sectionals, fine-tuning, now we work on staging, dance steps even if just subtle, eye cues and so on.. but I took that page out (I like my scores to all start on a left page, and as I'm editing I realized for classical - the next section of scores was classical music - you don't really do that stage antics -- except I think baroque music!!! Again, Scarlatti's daze.. he he..)

I have come to realize, the classical violinists, why do they need scores when they play the exact same thing every night? Then it hit me! It is BEST if they HAVE TO stare at their sheet music, not get distracted! So I've turned that page, now I'm a LITERATE-IST.

I'm seeing you as a groovy player, not some-one just interested with intellectual properties.
Dropping out of high school after seeing Jimi Hendrix, Mr. George Benson and Deep Purple,
I bought a '64 Strat and ordered a Marshall from England, with effects.
As a player, I see myself as making the same sounds as Jimi,
with riffs like John Coltrane, Nicolo Paganini and McCoy Tyner.
And by the time I get going,
if I'm not dancing or moving around, I might as well pack up and head back to the room.
Drastik Measures, from Dominique, when they first came to Ontario,
won the Best Parade Band Grand prize their first year for Caribana in Toronto.
When they started their big club in St. Catharines in the Niagara Peninsula,
the home for many migrant workers from the Caribbean,
they jammed with me and asked me to join the band, playing for two seasons.
Traditional one-chop raggae, soca, suci to dance hall, to their own special polyrhythmic blend,
a very nice band, never less than twelve musicians on stage, featuring three vocalists.

Since I can't listen, I thought I'd put up a photo of me onstage with Drastik Measures,
but after looking through seventeen pages of used photos here, I can't find it.
I must have disappeared, just like me right now,
even if it isn't into your sweetness and light.

as always, John Watt

Doctor John:
I knew so tiny about Classical 14 years ago and my friend showed me Rodrigo's Concerto de Aranjuez and Liszt's Rhapsody #2. I said, "That's Flamenco!" "That's Can-Can party music!" I eventually learned that no, Rodriqo and Liszt wrote some of the most beautiful classical music, and sure flamencos play parts of the Aranjuez or list includes sultry dance jams in his rhapsodies, but they are classical!
The reasons I've "converted" to classical are:
1) I love music. If I want to hear it at all when I'm 100, I need to be careful with my ears (already a slight tinitis whistle).
2) Classical is truly timeless. OK OK OK a pop singer is well known, but.. THIS YEAR'S HIT IS BY DEFINITION NOTHING NEXT YEAR! I've come to see how Mozart is timeless, and much has to do with how many pages came out of that youngster's hand in his short life! No copy machines! He penned all those what, 41 symphonies? 27 Piano Concertos? tons of sonatas, operas, string quartets, romances, a requim mass.. wow! As I'm seeing the gem of my youth, SOUL MUSIC dissipate because the younger generation just call everything I love "old school" and don't care about it, I realize whatever fame or notariety I could get in popular culture is dated, meaning expires at some point. Beethoven will be forever! Satie, Paganini, Chopin, Schubert, Brahms, Tchaikovsky, Handel, Scarlatti, the Schumann's.. they will live forever.
3) Upholding great traditions I come to see I really admire. There are still unsung heroes that need to be researched and enjoyed! John, have you heard Ernestine, an opera by Saint George de Chevalier? So soulful! I have an aria from it I special ordered from paris by Remenyi House of Music. Also his Adagio, I have these scores and no one knows him, A BLACK CLASSICAL COMPOSER! Met Mozart, taught Marie Antoinette, had a 1000 man revolutionary army, was a big time lover, exposition fencer, COMMISSIONED THE 6 PARIS SYMPHONIES OF HAYDN!!! There is Turner, "Motherless Child," another brother. Then lately I'm loving Spanish composers - being Portuguese I wish I could find a Fado-naise! Anyway the Albéniz Tango I recorded a few days ago is masterful! I play some Sarasate, Sor, Falla.. and I can find an art movement in just pushing or CHAMPIONING great artists I admire! For that matter it includes Bach, Debussy, Rachmaninoff, Borodin, Shostakovich, and maybe Steiner and Stanley Myers (Cavatina)!

I usually say I'm going the opposite direction of most classical musicians, and it's true! From everything not classical, I play congas, rumba, flamenco, fusion, blues, etc.. NOW I rearrange Liszt, Schubert, Rachmaninoff, Mozart, Bizet.. when people ask if I play LATIN MUSIC I can really confuse them: Yes, I play Ave Maria, and Laudate Dominum!

Back to the topic though.. Because I'm going to record Scarlatti (and others) on my Freeboards, I wanted to record the songs of piano first, then be able to compare or help me rearrange - only 5 octaves on each synthesizer! Now that I've started recording the piano, I'm feeling I like it better than the synthesizer! The only advantage is.. see.. anything I can do on piano some other pianist can copy me and do.. ANYTHING. But.. he he.. no one can do the dual DX-100s custom sounds, specialized pedals and so on.. so I will record those for like MY CONTRIBUTION and my fantasy would be I can walk around and play harpsichord or organ with a baroque orchestra! Sounds fun eh? But that's after I have plenty of budget, no more poor-musician-blues for me, NONE. I can simply play for YouTube!

Thanks for bearing with me. Thanks for the answer too!
Love'n'lightbeing,
teom

 

[Teo]

Cooleridge-Taylor wrote "Sometimes I Feel Like A Motherless Child." A british brother, big afro even! Classical composer from the 19th/20th century. If I had my druthers I'd find the Billy Strayhorn compositions they used to complain were "too classical" and find out for myself!

I have also rearranged a Trio by Clara Schumann wow she is hot stuff! I play 2 of her piano pieces and she has the most ornaments per staff I have ever seen by anyone, and I play about a dozen Liszts, work on a lot of stuff but she takes the cake. Of course because she was a woman no one took her seriously but she was amazing! You know who else? Fanny Mendelssohn! Wow I think better than her brother Felix but that's not fair he was incredible.. I do a song of hers and THE EXACT SAME melody is in Songs Without Words that I started Time-For-Romantics-2015 CD with, THE EXACT SAME MELODY! I want to be able to play them back to back and just let the listener guess if 1 .. influenced .. or copied from .. the other! Also I play El Arreglito and I should play Carmen because they are the same song! I rearranged Carmen but for Trio not solo.

Because I love Flamenco and Scarlatti includes so much Spanish music it feels like coming BACK OM to play him on harpsichord sounds that are well, WERE guitar-like. Except a guitar has expression, velocity to be technical but piano-forte, kapitsch? My Freeboards don't, OK that's a negative, but neither do harpsichords! BTW I have the cutest "breath controller" that can go in my synthesizers, I used it by hot-wiring a pedal into the breath-controller jack, the fake WAH-WAH I made is an example, so well? If I REALLY want to go bizarre I'll try the breath controller on classical on the synthesizers, but as I mentioned above, I'm feeling more piano inclined just now.

A great Berkeley guitarist friend Ethan sent me a 2 CD set of Liszt Trancendental Etudes by a guy he say perform. If Ethan, a blues man who knows every Hendrix including bootlegs, plays leftie or righty, got me into Reggae bands in the first place, is giving me Franz Liszt piano influences, this also pushes me that way.

OK Enough blah blah blah.. I decided to try, for the time being, recording the piano with the top open, and the newest technique is I put the Zoom recorder right on top of the open piano! Then I try and not use too much sustain pedal, so here I'll attach the Tango by Albéniz I recorded, I think it's finished! There are 2 Handel Airs but maybe another time. Strangely being able to communicate in here really helps because there are so many ideas / issues / guesses / inventions I'm doing! BTW I like to lower the bass an octave, I did, and had to rearrange some left hand parts - I'll make a YouTube video and probably show both scores - high enough quality to print and use! I'm an EDUTAINER see?
peas and love
Teo

 

[Krummhorn]

Testing if the piano needs to be open when I record it. Petrov upright special edition (Czech).

OK open sounds better but is it THAT MUCH better?

Hi Teo,

Responding late but none-the-less a good topic.

Most of the sound from the piano vibrates through the soundboard, either to the rear of an upright of from the bottom of a grand. I find that opening the lid of my Young Chang makes the tone brighter, but for most of my playing it stays closed.

At my church the piano I play most often is a K. Kawai GS-40 (6'1" grand). There are three sticks for the lid - for general service playing I use the shortest of the three rendering additional brightness in the tone which also makes for an easier touch when playing. I can control the timbres of sound much better with the grand lid open at the lowest point (4" stick).

It's all a matter of how we like to listen I guess. Open can sound better but for me it only makes the overall sound brighter.

For an annual event at which I play the organ (a Hymnfest of choral and congregational singing) and another person plays the piano, they take the lid completely off their Boston grand to help get the sound from the front to the rest of the congregation.

 

[Teo]

Hi Krummhorn, thanks for the answer!

Most of the sound from the piano vibrates through the soundboard, either to the rear of an upright of from the bottom of a grand. I find that opening the lid of my Young Chang makes the tone brighter, but for most of my playing it stays closed.

Brighter! Exactly what I think!
There is fully open, this huge piece of wood leaning against the wall, or a little stick that opens it about 8"

At my church the piano I play most often is a K. Kawai GS-40 (6'1" grand). There are three sticks for the lid - for general service playing I use the shortest of the three rendering additional brightness in the tone which also makes for an easier touch when playing. I can control the timbres of sound much better with the grand lid open at the lowest point (4" stick).

Inda said yesterday maybe just open it that little bit or "is it supposed to be fully open?" which of course I am guessing and I said to her fully open.

The problem is, either way I have to leave the mountain of scores off of it, usually there are 50+ scores that I wade through when I feel like working on Liszt, Beethoven, Strauss, Chopin, Clara Schumann, Fannie Mendelssohn, oh there are conservatory books and whew! They are all now on a chair on the other side of the room.. a mess..

It's all a matter of how we like to listen I guess. Open can sound better but for me it only makes the overall sound brighter.

For an annual event at which I play the organ (a Hymnfest of choral and congregational singing) and another person plays the piano, they take the lid completely off their Boston grand to help get the sound from the front to the rest of the congregation.

Really what happened is I am about to get into recording Scarlatti sonatas on my Freeboards, but I wanted to play them on piano first to see what I'm missing or 'hear what they really sound like' with my playing anyway. Also, on the synthesizers I have to shift octaves and sometimes not play something as low as Scarlatti wrote it, so as usual, a piano is the COMPUTER OF MUSIC is the way I say it, EVERY INSTRUMENT practices with the piano so I'm using it as the highest musical tool..

And now I'm wanting to stick to piano instead of synthesizers! The advantage of the synths though, are 1) no one else can do what I'm doing on them, which I'm adapting my fellow Torontonian Glen Gould's quote: Only do a song if you have a contribution to make. So because a pianist can copy anything I do, well, they can't copy my synthesizer weirdness! 2) in class we were shown some baroque orchestras and they were almost all standing! This takes me back to playing carnivals and sort of partying while playing. OK if they have sheet music maybe it isn't like when I was playing in Caribbean music bands, but at least I could theoretically WALK DOWN THE STREET with an orchestra, and play organ or harpsichord sounds! However cheesy the sounds are, at the same time, it is novel, unique and original, and has the function or use of being social in a new / ancient setting!

So I'm riding 2 horses over the stream, and at this exact moment the piano was tuned so I'm recording as much as I can.. some Tchaikovsky Nutcracker today, but the Scarlattis mostly.. oh! Maybe I'll attach the 2 Handels I did! Again, these are with the piano open, and the mike right on top of the piano! Maybe too close to the soundboard?

 

[Krummhorn]

My Young Chang upright has another feature where the middle pedal drops down a sheet of felt between the hammers and the strings. Interesting effect on tone even with the lit partially open - almost 'lute' like.

 

[Krummhorn]

My Young Chang upright has another feature where the middle pedal drops down a sheet of felt between the hammers and the strings. Interesting effect on tone even with the lit partially open - almost 'lute' like.

For recording I like to place my Zoom H-4 about 4 feet from the piano so I can reduce any mechanical sounds as much as possible. For recording the organ at church I place the microphones (and/or the Zoom H-4) at least 20 feet from the source (pipes or speakers as the case may be).