🔴LIVE! 7/10 MASTERCLASS (Chopin & Szczepanek)

Welcome! Today's stream kicks off with Quentin Grand playing Chopin's Prelude Op. 28 No. 4. We will listen to Quentin and spend some time talking through the details of his performance! Then we will shift gears to hear ‪@bethanywakim6175‬ play my own arrangement of the theme from Mission Impossible and also talk about her performance! Thanks for coming to the stream, and I hope you have a great time AND learn something new.
▶️▶️ If you'd like to submit your own video performance for a masterclass in future episodes, upload your video to Dropbox or Google Drive and send me a link at [e-mail]
▶️ All of Charles' courses on Thinkific: pianist-academy.thinkific.com...
▶️ Pre-Save Charles' new album release of transcriptions, "The Solo Piano Project": lnk.dmsmusic.co/charlesszczep...
▶️ Visit Charles on his performance channel: / charlesszczepanek
▶️ Visit Charles' Website: www.charlesszczepanek.com
Charles Szczepanek is an international prize-winning pianist, has collaborated with GRAMMY Award winners, and has taught music for over 20 years to everyone from his next-door neighbor to finalists on NBC's America's Got Talent. Through Pianist Academy, he now brings that wealth of knowledge to you: the beginner, the intermediate, the professional, or the fellow music teacher.
#PianoPractice
#pianolessons
#piano
#musiclessons
#PianistAcademy
#CharlesSzczepanek

[@CD-lz7rt]

Excellent playing by Bethany. Plus an excellent arrangement of the Mission Impossible theme. The original tv program is one of my favourites, the later films not so much.

[@PianistAcademy1]

Yup, Bethany did a great job! And thanks for the compliment on the arrangement!

[@antoniomaccagnan7200]

Hi Charles, great masterclass, as it always is when you answer my questions 🙂. I rewatched what you said and have another doubt. Let's say that I mix 3 different microphone perspectives on one same line, are there any guidelines as to what percentage of each microphone should be used? Like, mixing 60% close, 30% mid, and 10% far would create a balanced close perspective (and vice versa)?

[@PianistAcademy1]

As long as the mics are phase-aligned, you can choose whatever balance you'd personally like! It really comes down to a matter of taste. The DG recordings you seem to favor sound like they are made predominantly of a mix of the middle distance (about 10 feet away or so)... citing the Yuja Vienna recital album, if there were even 3 sets of mics (I can see 2 sets in the trailer video), I'd guess it's about 70% the hanging mics just off stage (about 10 feet away), 20% the close mics near the rim of the piano, and 10% ambience from far mics OR faked ambience in post with reverb at about this amount.
As an engineer, even in halls, I like to favor a closer perspective for the intimacy of it. In the recording I mentioned on the stream, I used about 40% of the close mics, 50% of the mid mics, and 10% of the far room mics. That sort of balance looks "on paper" like it still favors the mid mics, but the immediacy of the tone from close mics makes them very prominent very early or low in the mix. In my final recording, even with that balance I cite, it sounds like you're sitting near the lip of the stage, 3 to 5 feet from the piano.
Recording in my home studio for this channel and my other, I almost don't have a choice. I can either close mic or... close mic a little further away lol. The absolute furthest I can mic is probably about 3 or 4 feet from the instrument, which by classical standards, is still quite close. And I'm forced to do that because of how small the room is. If you want some examples in my own spaces... Listen to my Schumann "Of Foreign Lands and Peoples" annotated recording. That was mic'd with a very spaced pair (about 2.5 to 3 feet apart) and about 4 feet from the lid of the piano. My recent originals (listen to "Holding Hands" for example) were mic'd with a closely spaced pair (about 1 foot apart), angled at about 90 degrees, but away from each other (so approximately an ORTF pair), and were about 6 inches outside the rim of the piano. All of my streams here use a very close pair so that my voice is as isolated as possible from the piano. So here on the stream, my mics are under the lid, about 2 to 3 inches from the strings themselves, near the bridge and pointed straight down. I've experimented with having multiple pairs up in my place, but too often its been a waste. My room is just too small (even at nearly 600 sq ft) to get the benefits of mid distance.

[@antoniomaccagnan7200]

@@PianistAcademy1 Thanks for taking the time to give such a detailed answer even though you obviously do not dig the subject 🤣. I'll listen to your recordigs and treasure your advice for my experimenting with the bitklavier library. SFZ opcodes also allow easy micromanaging delay which adds another variable. Playing jazz the reverb effect is not always appropiate but still fun to play with.

[@leeciap]

Watching afterwards...Great content Charles, really great playing Bethany👏👏👏 if anyone sees this is that a Kawai digital Bethany is playing? model? Really nice sound/tone to it.

[@PianistAcademy1]

Thanks! Bethany’s digital is a Kawai yes, not sure which model. She runs Pianoteq for her sounds. This one was different than what I’ve heard her use in the past, so not sure which instrument she likes most!

[@antoniomaccagnan7200]

Bethany's the star of this channel.

[@RhodesyYT]

Hi charles i emailed you yesterday i hope you got it for this Wednesday

[@PianistAcademy1]

Got it! Will review and get it ready to share in 2 days!

[@leeciap]

These are Wednesdays? at what time (& zone)?

[@PianistAcademy1]

Every 2nd and 4th Wednesday of the month, at 10am Mountain Time, USA. 👍🏻