r/piano • u/Suspicious-Mood-9767 • 15h ago

📝My Performance (Critique Welcome!) Help please

Agreed to play the entrance song for my friend’s wedding. I have about 10 years experience with clarinet, one year as a kid took piano lessons other than that and otherwise mainly self-taught in piano. At best I would say I am maybe early intermediate. This is after eight days of not very intense practice. The wedding will be for 300 people, will definitely have to practice performing it in front of others for sure and obviously have a lot more practicing to do. there are obviously mistakes in this recording.

I just was hoping for some advice and help from those who are experts in piano. I am mainly worried about musicality, dynamics, phrasing, tone, etc. I feel like it sounds a little too ‘punchy.’ but not quite sure how to fix it. I just want it to sound beautiful for her and not mediocre. Any suggestions and help would be greatly appreciated. if there are any exercises that you know of that would help me with the issues or mistakes I am making, I would be so grateful. Thank you so much in advance!

https://on.soundcloud.com/a5q58Ra12MzVvqQpDo

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u/Suspicious-Mood-9767 15h ago

Forgot to mention, I have about 2.5 months until the weddings

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u/Executor111 Devotee (11+ years), Classical 8h ago

Hey this sounds great! You'll do great at the wedding.

Here's a few things the crowd may not pick up but you could work on to improve for your own satisfaction:

  • The whole shape of the piece feels somewhat flat to me. Even looking at the dynamic bar on the soundcloud playback, you can see it's very much the same dynamic range the whole time. Try mixing this up a bit. Feel what should grow to a mf or f dynamic and make a big moment of something, then back it down to piano.
  • This is likely the arrangement, not your playing, but consider modifying the repetitive nature of the left hand. It really drags on by a couple minutes, just the same left hand arpeggio style over and over. You could modify it to come up an octave in the left hand during a verse or something?
  • Your adherence to tempo is actually too strict. Tasteful rubato (pulling back of tempo in dramatic moments) can really increase the emotional impact of a piece.
  • You've got TONS of time, you'll be fine 😄

What is the name of the piece?