Moonlight Sonata, need some feedback on first recording of it.

  • Thread starter Thread starter Trent Reznor
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Trent Reznor

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Hey guys. I basically started teaching myself to play piano over the last 3 months just so that I could play one song...Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata. :heart:

For years I knew a little on piano such as how to play a few chords, but that's basically it. I couldn't play anything, just used it to add some ambience to some other recordings I did. So I've always had the dream of being able to play Moonlight Sonata on piano, but always figured piano was just too hard for me to learn. Well that changed around 10-12 weeks ago. I started teaching myself how to play the song. I can't read music very good or sightread, so I had to study up on it and actually take a week or so and write every single note on the sheet music down. I had to do this a few times because I'd learn something new about accidentals and realize I notated it wrong so I'd have to double-check the whole piece and fix the errors.

So I slowly learned it, forcing my fingers to somehow work in unison and strike all of the right notes....It was a tough "first song" to learn, and I debated giving up nearly every day, or at least just trying to learn a simple song. So I spent an average of 10 minutes a day learning it bar by bar and a few days ago I finally learned the last few measures. So now that I have the notes learned, I need to work on the technique and "feel" of the song. I've kinda worked on it a little as I go, but I could use some feedback. So I recorded a version of it and I hope you guys will listen and tell me what you think. It's really hard to mic up a grand piano, but I did the best I could for the time being.

So please listen to this and tell me what I'm doing right and wrong. Thanks :)

Originally posted at Keep Music Alive, but I wanted to share it with you guys also.

 
One of the most beautiful pieces of music ever written. Congrats on taking the time to learn it.

Recording sounds good. With a little more comfort you can really aim to put as much emotion into it as you possibly can.

Just remember to take what you learned with this one and apply it to everything else. Pretty soon, you'll be bangin off the hits of the 90's ughh the 1790's :D
 
Thanks for the comments!

The piano is a 1913 Harwood regular grand that hasn't been tuned in a long time. Some of the very low bass octaves are off by a quarter tone or so. I'm afraid to tune it because the soundboard is pretty fragile. I'm hoping to get a Korg Triton Studio or something similar now that I know I will be playing piano for a long time. :)
 
I love that piece.

you played it pretty well. Definitely better than me and I have played piano since I was 8.

The mix sounds like there is some sort of phasing on it. Or maybe that just how the piano sounds.
 
CyanJaguar said:
I love that piece.

you played it pretty well. Definitely better than me and I have played piano since I was 8.

The mix sounds like there is some sort of phasing on it. Or maybe that just how the piano sounds.
Click to expand...
It might be the way I mixed it. I only had one mic on the piano so what I did was copy/paste the track so that there were 4 identical tracks. I had the tracks mixed like this...

Track 1 - 100% left - very subtle hall delay
Track 2 - 65%left 35%right - slightly stronger and wider hall delay
Track 3 - 65%right 35%left - slightly stronger and wider hall delay
Track 4 - 100% right - very subtle hall delay
The hall delay is a stereo delay. So maybe the effect created a little bit of phase, I don't know, I'm a noob to recording.
 
CyanJaguar said:
I love that piece.

you played it pretty well. Definitely better than me and I have played piano since I was 8.

The mix sounds like there is some sort of phasing on it. Or maybe that just how the piano sounds.
Click to expand...

sounds better than my attempt as well. good job. i have a hard time with the whole piano thing cuz i learned all my songs by ear, i haven't really looked at sheet music before.
 
That's a pretty nice rendition for only playing for three months. Nice job. Pretty good sounding reverbs - sounds like a big room for sure. How did you mic the piano - just one mic? What kind(s)? Yeah I can hear rthe tuning a bit too but it's not too bad really. I would look into getting a new piano or try to tune this one. I can listen to this type of playing for hours.....soothing yet interesting at the same time. Good One! :)
 
LOL I just realized where the phase was coming from. It's because the mix I posted is one that I altered in goldwave. I took the original and slowed it down a little so the phase effect is because of the time-warp. So I'll post the original now, it is a little faster (50bpm instead of 40). But it is clearer and more organic. So thank you all for your comments and if you get a chance please listen to the original mix here...




I miced it up with a crappy Shure PG-48(I think) dangled about 12" above the soundboard, up by the hammers.
 
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