# Chopin Prelude in A Major

Here's the video of me playing the piece, but the audio quality of the WAV file below the video is much better.

Your browser does not support the audio element.

## Introduction

Chopin completed the 24 preludes while in Mallorca where he spent the winter of 1838-39 in an attempt to escape the damp Paris weather.

Similar to Bach's preludes and fugues in the Well Tempered Clavier, Chopin's preludes cover all 24 major and minor keys. Unlike Bach, these preludes stand on their own. They are not followed by fugues or any other pieces.

It is now common for pianists to perform all 24 preludes as a complete cycle, but Chopin himself never performed more than four of them at one time.

The A major is the shortest of all the preludes, so I figured it would be the perfect piece to kick off my 12 recordings in 12 months goal.

## Performance Critique

The piece is written in 3/4 time and consists of eight two-measure phrases. Each phrase follows the same rhythmic pattern with a quarter note upbeat followed by a dotted rhythm leading into three repeated chords.

As I worked on this piece, there were four challenges I needed to grapple with: 1) voicing the main melodic line to not get lost in the beautiful harmonies of the thicker textures, 2) creating a sense of momentum with the dotted rhythms leading into the repeated chords, 3) an awkward stretch in both hands (with the right thumb playing two black keys simultaneously) at the end of the 6th phrase, and 4) a quick movement into a short, light ornament preceding the final three chords.

A quick review of my rules for these recordings. I let myself play the piece three times and forced myself to choose the best one. No cutting and pasting allowed to create an unnatural composite. So, there were things I did better and worse in each of the recordings, but this is the one I decided to go with.

So how did I do with the my four challenges I identified? Let's break it down line by line.

### Line 1 - Phrases 1 and 2

The voicing of phrase 1 was just okay. Ideally, the B in the top of the right hand would sing out above the rest of the chord more than I managed. I can hear the G-sharp too strongly, mostly on the first chord on beat 2, and then I think it sounds better on beats 3 and 1. And I think the A on top of the right hand in phrase 2 is a bit better.

As far as momentum... I think my dotted rhythms sound a bit languid and not as crisp or poppy as I would like. And I would like the two repetitions of the chords to fade out a little, rather than be repeated at a similar volume. This basically applies throughout the whole piece, so I won't bring it up again.

### Line 2 - Phrases 3, 4, and 5

In phrase 3, the F-sharp is a bit strong, drowning out the top voice. Similar to phrase 2, the voicing in phrase 4 sounds better, and it's no coincidence that there are only two notes in the right hand chords for these phrases. Easier to do the voicing with thinner textures. I think I liked the way I played phrase 1 better than phrase 5.

### Line 3 - Phrases 6, 7, and 8

I feel pretty good about the awkward stretch at the end of phrase 6. I like the way my right hand sounds in phrase 7, but I would like to bring out the bottom of the left hand descending from F-sharp to E more strongly. I didn't quite nail the finish. In anticipation of needing to shift my right hand quickly to play the grace note, I popped the C-sharp - A chord on the dotted rhythm a little too harshly.

## Production Notes

Don't be fooled by the two microphones inside the piano on the video. This was actually recorded only on my cheap Fifine mic. My intended recording setup is as follows:

- 2 x Rode M5 condenser mics in an X-Y configuration ~6" above the piano strings
- Fifine condenser mic for room ambience & reverb
- Focusrite Scarlett 4i4 USB audio interface
- Ardour digital audio workstation for mixing the audio
- GoPro HERO11 Black for video
- OpenShot video editor to combine audio and video

Before recording, I spent a lot of time fiddling with my audio interface because I didn't think my Rode mics were working. I thought it was an issue with the phantom power that the audio interface is supposed to supply to the mics, so I kept switching between lots of different USB cables trying to find one that worked. After lots of frustration, I realized they had been working all along, but the LEDs on the audio interface just weren't lighting up!

But then when I actually sat down to record, I didn't double check that they were live, and I had messed something up in Ardour, so they didn't actually record anything. But since I had the Fifine recording the room, I was able to use that audio instead. Now that I've worked out some kinks, I expect the recording process to go much more smoothly next month.

On the editing side of things, the audio straight from the mic sounds pretty good, but somewhere along the way when I was putting it together with the video and uploading to YouTube, it now sounds much worse. My initial guess is that I need to double check my audio bitrate settings in OpenShot. Even on the audio file, there is a bit of a buzz/rattle occasionally, which I think is a result of the surface I had the mic resting on. Need to take a closer look at that as well.

## Conclusion

So that was my first recording in my 12 recordings in 12 months challenge. There were some struggles getting my workflow figured out for this first one, but I think the result turned out okay. And it's better than nothing!

Next month: Edward MacDowell's "To A Wild Rose"