(with apologies to a certain William Shakespeare) … i.e. I have finished forty-eight tracks altogether, and now have two CDs as a result. Now I have to decide what to do with them…
As I mentioned before, one of my aims was to see how much things had changed since my last recording efforts now almost three years ago. Overall, I have to admit that the sound quality is very good. I doubt that many people would be able to work out that the equipment that I used was not exactly what you would find in a professional recording studio, but nonetheless it is the overall sound that matters and not how you got there.
Secondly, I find it much easier to listen to these new recordings than it does to listen to my old ones. That is not to say that my old ones weren’t good – I’ve had some very good comments from people about those – but it is just that I seem to be more at home with the piano (this is not surprising) and that my interpretations are much more consistent over a range of styles.
There is no doubt that you can produce professional sounding results without having to resort to a professional studio, or even expensive ‘professional’ equipment. Whilst it may be argued that ‘professional’ equipment gives better results (and certainly 24bit 96 or 192 kHz recording gives a better quality overall) when the results are distilled onto a CD it is very difficult to tell the difference.
I’ve found out a great deal about how I play the piano these days, and how I’ve needed to adjust to compensate for my eyesight problems. Certainly it has helped that my memory is improving, although I still have a long way to go to really get it back into the kind of shape I would like, and that may not be possible given my advancing years, but if I play music that doesn’t require much jumping around the keyboard then the results normally come out well.
My control of the pedals and dynamics of the piano is fine, and I’m able to bring out many nuances in the music that perhaps the composer did (or even didn’t!) intend to be emphasised.
Now for my next project …