Well, my big piano recital event for which I had been practicing for a year occurred last weekend. I was happy to play, and now I'll be a little less intense for a while, before I start preparing for the MusicAppassionata piano festival in West Chester, PA August 1-6.
I've uploaded most of my recital performances to YouTube. To find them, search in YouTube for David Tao piano recital and they'll show up. The camcorder sound was compressed, meaning that the soft parts were made louder and the loud parts were softened, so there appears to be very little dynamic variation. Trust me, I actually can play soft, sometimes!
I've related music and its performance to interoperability several times in this blog. One thing that a recital teaches you is that things go awry that you totally didn't expect, but you move on. You can't anticipate everything about some keys making unwanted noises, wheel locks not preventing the piano from rolling away, slight movements in the audience causing a brief distraction and memory lapse, etc. Despite avoidance of sugar and caffeine, and conscious intent to stay under control (knowing adrenaline would amp me up anyway), I still played faster than planned. Similarly, implementing interoperability in the real world seldom goes as you envisioned it or as cleanly as what's written in the standards or even developed in a product, because each participant doesn't have control over the other participants' systems or the environment. But every time you do it, you learn and improve the next time.
Happy Memorial Day Holiday Weekend to everyone!
David
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