New! Concert Hall "Masterclass"

I am pleased to announce a new part of the Contrebombarde Concert Hall site.

Thanks to your feedback, we have created a section for people not quite ready to upload their songs for public consumption. Instead, they would like feedback to improve their performance. Only registered Concert Hall users can see this section. We call it "Masterclass".

This is the first step in creating a space for those of you with great gifting to use it to help others by leaving performance oriented feedback if you wish.

For those uploading, perhaps you can add what you wish to have help on into the comment section.

We plan to add more tools over time based on your continued stream of ideas. So keep them coming.

So please try it out. Let us know how you like it and what else you might want to see. And please encourage friends who have been reluctant to upload to join in the fun.

I hope you enjoy it. www.contrebombarde.com

Darryl

P.s. For those of you with a profile but who have not uploaded pieces. You can now email a link to your profile to anyone you choose from your profile page. So you can share pictures and information about your instrument to friends or colleagues.

[micdev]

I think that the idea is really interesting and can be a great learning tool. In another thread, there was a link to some easy pieces by Lemmens.

Along the feedbacks from the "pro", it would be interesting to have some pieces play by a "pro"; for example the "12 morceaux faciles pour orgue". By listening to it, we could how easy it is or "seems easy" to play, how it should be play and from there begin to learn it (and have feedbacks if we want).

Very nice idea. I was exchanging emails this week-end with one member looking for some guidance, what to do next etc.... I think that this "masterclass" idea can be part of the solution.

François

Hey François,

Thanks for the feedback. It is a first step, on the road to making this a mentoring environment. I hope we can nurture lots of new and aspiring organists.

I wanted everyone to know how committed we are to listening to feedback. You folks indicated that something like this would be useful to you so we have started the process.

Keep the feedback coming.

Darryl

Hello Darryl,

I am glad you took the initiative to include the Master Class feature to Contrebombarde. As such, and in response to François' above reply, I would like to offer my services to provide some musical examples of "playable" literature being attempted by aspiring organists and/or students.

For example, here is a list of more "playable" organ works that come to mind:

Bach: Individual Selections from Eight Little Preludes and Fugues; Schubler Chorales; Orgelbuchlein

* * * * * *

Alternately, I offer my services to furnish constructive critiques to the first five registered Contrebombarde members who have never posted their works in the Concert hall, either at all or in, say, the past 12 months. Some of these "non-public" performances might include portions of works someone is working on, requests for registration suggestions, fingering suggestions, help with rhythm, etc. etc. I would only ask that the person submits an mp3 file to the Master Class section, rather than simply asking, "How does one do 'such and such' to Ad Nos Ad Salutarem Undam?"

Sincerely,

Joe <jcfelice88keys>

what a nice idea!!!!

Lovely.

Thanks Joe.

I really look forward to good things coming from Masterclass; not least of which the music.

Who is going to start us off with a piece? This is great!

Thanks Joe.

I really look forward to good things coming from Masterclass; not least of which the music.

Who is going to start us off with a piece? This is great!

OK here goes..........I claim first place!

LOL Fantastic!

Hello All,

As promised, I listened to Mr. Disorganised's performance of J.S. Bach's Prelude in D Major performed on the Metz-CC. My commentary is posted in the Masterclass site; it addresses tempi, phrasing and registration.

Many thank you's go to Disorganised (real first name = John) who was the first person to offer his performance to the Masterclass in the Contrebombarde Concert Hall website.

Seeing that my text is limited to only 500 characters, it is rather disconcerting to have to keep stopping in order to load a new comment.


Cheers,

Joe

Hi Joe, I'm sorry about that. I had not forseen all the creative ways we were going to use the Concert Hall. I'll go ahead and up the limit.

The comment char limit has been upped to 5000. Please let me know if there are any more issues.

That was great. Thanks to Joe. Thanks to Disorganized for volunteering to be the first and putting it out there in front of people! And thanks to Rob for fixing the character limit.

D

Hello All,

I wish to thank John (Disorganised) for submitting his performance of Bach's Prelude in D major for commentary and critique in the Masterclass forum. It was very nice to hear prelude performed in its entirety. The D Major Prelude does contain three distinct sections: An Introduction, the 2/2 time Alla Breve, and a Grave at the end. Because of its three distinct sections, I was able to give registration tips and how I might perform the sections with respect to tempi and registration.

In my opinion, however, one does not need to submit the entire piece for critique. If any aspiring organists are learning a particular work in earnest, but are having problems with a few specific measures of the piece -- then by all means, I would suggest you submit an mp3 file of just the area (mistakes and all) you are having trouble in perfecting. In that way, I might suggest fingering or phrasing techniques that may help you through a particular dilemma.

If any given organist is having trouble with a particular place of a particular piece, then many other organists are also having problems with the same regions of the music. It would be great to carry on specific threads between student and mentor, such that repeated submittals of mp3s might demonstrate the improvement that is occurring in the piece.


Sincerely,

Joe jcfelice88keys

P.S. Many thanks to Rob for increasing the typed character limit from 500 to 5000 characters in the Commentary section. Much appreciated!

Perhaps we need someone with the cred of a Felix Hell or Paul Jacobs ? :-)