so i've talked about this before, but i wanted to say it here too. there's a reason why none of my piano songs longer than 1 minute have performance videos: their "recordings" are exremely meticulously edited patchworks that severely over-represent my actual piano abilities 1/

it took a full day's work, going back and forth from keyboard to computer, to produce the 10-minute "recording" of my latest composition. among other things, i have zero sense of rhythm or tempo, my fingers are weak af, and i have no control over how loud i play any given note 2/

having to use a relatively cheap keyboard with a two-state sustain pedal doesn't help, but if i recorded on an actual piano i wouldn't be able to do multiple takes for each little fragment and then go through and tweak the timing and velocity of each note in garageband 3/

i do these kinds of tweaks for the instagram etudes too, but i'm limited there because the audio still needs to sync up with the video. it's also a lot easier to play at a constant tempo when i can use a metronome at double time, which i did in my new piece too for some parts 4/

i have an overactive conscience, and i feel guilty whenever the thought occurs to me that someone might hear one of these recordings and think it's just an unedited clip of me playing piano, and not the equivalent of a tool-assisted speedrun or an insane photoshop touch-up job 5/

my goal with these recordings has never been to display my piano skills; it's to show off the composition in its best light, and to create a pleasant listening experience. but the more work i put into that, the less i can reasonably say that it's actually me doing the playing 6/

it would take years of grueling work for my skill in classical piano performance to even approach my skill in composition. as it is i'm never satisfied, even when i do perform my pieces live, and my hope i guess is that some day a better pianist than me will do them justice 7/

til then, if you want an actual sense of how unreliable i am at hitting literally any note properly you can listen to my improv weekly series with fresh uncut piano recordings every week at http://youtube.omaitzen.com ! hah bet you didn't think this thread would end in a self promo 8/

exremely