# Annoying camera work on video recordings of performances



## violadude (May 2, 2011)

Am I the only one who, once the fugue starts at 1:32, found himself yelling at the cameraman...I don't care what the church ceiling looks like, or the back of her head, just show me her GODDAMN FINGERS!


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## kv466 (May 18, 2011)

Haha,...seriously,...sometimes I'm watching some piano vids and they focus on the hands during all the whatever stuff and then when it gets going and the playing gets intense, they show the face and how much they're straining to play this complicated piece...come on, show me the hands!!


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## Webernite (Sep 4, 2010)

Especially from 0:48 onwards.


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## Delicious Manager (Jul 16, 2008)

Boys with toys (but no taste), I'm afraid.


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## bigshot (Nov 22, 2011)

I kept wanting to throw things at the screen when I watched Ken Burns' Jazz. He would let the first verse and chorus of a song play, but when the solo started, he'd cut to voice over narrations and talking heads. He didn't seem to realize that the improvisation was the meat of the song, not the statement of the melody.


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## Polednice (Sep 13, 2009)

If you play the two Bach videos at the same time, it actually makes Bach sound interesting.


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## Webernite (Sep 4, 2010)

The flute partita isn't interesting. The prelude and fugue is, but unfortunately Bach's kind of hard to make work on the piano - as you well know, Polednice.


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## Sofronitsky (Jun 12, 2011)

Webernite said:


> The flute partita isn't interesting. The prelude and fugue is, but unfortunately *Bach's kind of hard to make work on the piano* - as you well know, Polednice.


My life is a lie...


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## Webernite (Sep 4, 2010)

It's true. A lot of the note values are too short for pianists to play accurately, and there's hardly any contrast between bass and treble. Studio recordings work, because the engineers can adjust the sound levels and so on, but the fact remains that Bach's music isn't exactly suited to the instrument.


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## Sofronitsky (Jun 12, 2011)

What you've said must also be true for harpsichordists. Bach wrote many works for the harpsichord and I think the piano is superior in interpretation to that instrument. The voices are actually clearer on a piano recording than a harpsichord one, and I bet that has nothing to do with engineers increasing the volume of the voices.


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## Webernite (Sep 4, 2010)

The advantage the harpsichord has is that its keys are much lighter to push in (you only have to tap them), and that means harpsichordists can play all those demisemiquavers and trills more accurately than pianists.

But you're right, the harpsichord has its own problems - a lot of people hate the clattering sound of it, it's hard to record, and we're not sure exactly what kind of harpsichord Bach had when he wrote what. (There are recordings of the _Goldberg Variations_ on harpsichords from the 1600s, which is absurd.)

My point wasn't to argue that the harpsichord is better than the piano. I was just trying to warn Polednice against judging Bach on mediocre performances.


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## Webernite (Sep 4, 2010)

Personally, I think the most beautiful way of realizing a lot of Bach's music is to transcribe it for guitar (or harp), but that's not always possible.


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