Recitalworks: Encore pieces for the 21st Century

Recitalworks FAQs (Frequently Asked Questions)

What is Recitalworks?

A source of fresh, challenging and audience-friendly piano repertoire with a clever twist—you and your students can test drive works, making it easy to find the right piece for your next concert or contest.

"Test drive" pieces? How?
It's not really possible in a conventional music store. They're not going to have recordings of every piece available for you, and they won't lend you the score to try pieces out. But because Recitalworks is online, a whole new world of options is open:

You can HEAR the piece in action

Free streaming audio performances of every work. Additional free downloadable complete MP3 high definition recordings are also available for your computer or Ipod, to help you learn the piece faster.

So finding a new piece for your students is as simple as sending them to Recitalworks, and asking them to find one they like.

You can SEE the piece...and try learning it

Free downloadable first page of every score, to check difficulty level—and to try it out for yourself.

What do I do when I find the right piece?
Once you've found something that fits, you can instantly unlock the rest of the score for $6.95, so you can get on with learning it straight away.

Better still, that one unlock entitles you to print unlimited copies, for your personal use or your students.

How do I listen to a preview?

Click the arrow next to the piece title and a performance will stream. Note that if you're using Internet Explorer, you'll need to click twice.

To reset all the performances back to the start, just click refresh on your browser.

The previews won't play!

Depending on your internet connection, they may take a minute or so to load (although they should be pretty much instant on broadband). If you've waited and it still won't play, then you have a couple of options:

1) Ensure that you have Flash installed on your browser, but more likely...
2) ...forget about streaming audio, and download the MP3 instead (see below)

What about recordings for my computer or Ipod?

There are downloadable high definition MP3 recordings and they're free - perfect for really getting to know your new piece.

To download, instead of clicking the preview arrow (which simply plays a streaming preview), look for the "download recording (mp3)" link under the piece description.

On a PC right click and then "save target as" to save to your hard drive. (On a Mac, shift-click instead).

Presto! You have your very own copy of the piece that you can play back whenever you like—to work with as you learn it, to give to students, or to help you choose between pieces.

Are the downloadable recordings identical to the streaming samples?
The downloadable MP3s are CD quality, whereas the streaming samples have had to be heavily compressed to ensure download times weren't too crazy. The streaming samples are also sometimes just excerpts, whereas downloadable recordings are always complete.

How do I view the sample score?

Look for the "Score PC | Mac" links under the main description. To view the PC score you'll need download and then double click the .exe file. The score will then load in your Acrobat viewer.

NOTE: Ignore all the warnings about "potentially safe applications" - windows does this every time you try to run a downloaded .exe file, but this one is quite safe, double checked and virus free.

Mac can download a straight PDF ready to view. But Mac users also can't unlock scores electronically (see note below, I'm working hard on changing this too!)

Once I've unlocked a score, how many copies can I print?

As many as you need for your personal use or your students. So you can purchase a score, and then issue it to your entire studio. The technical limitation you need to be aware of is that you can only print them from the computer that you downloaded them to—if you attempt to transfer the score to another computer, the copy will revert back to being a demo score only.

You are also not permitted to sell the scores, or distribute printouts beyond your immediate circle of students.

How do I unlock a score?

First of all, download and open the 1 page sample version of the score. Then click the big orange "Buy Now" button at the top of the page.

Once Paypal has processed your Visa, Mastercard or Paypal order, you'll be instantly sent an unlock code, which will convert your 1 page sample score into the full score.

Help! These scores don't work on Mac...

I know...and as a person who grew up with Macintosh, this drives me nuts too. I'm nagging the people behind the e-book technology to come out with a Mac version, but in the meantime you'll have to order your scores the old fashioned way - email me, and I can arrange to have a physical copy of the score shipped to you.

Can I email my unlocked score to other teachers?
Yes. You could even put it on a CD and hand it out at MTA meetings. But when the other teachers try to open it on their computer, their copy will appear as a sample version only.

This is because scores are unlocked for one computer only, enabling you to share samples with anyone you like, but protecting the original score from illegal copying.

Help! I've sold my old computer and my unlocked scores don't work on my new computer!
If this happens, contact me, and there's good news and bad news from there. I can arrange for fresh versions of the score to be unlocked for you...it won't be free though, because I get charged every time a score is unlocked, but it will be heavily discounted.

For this reason though, you are strongly encouraged to print out scores once you've unlocked them.

Where were these recordings made?
Unless otherwise indicated, all scores are produced, edited and recorded here at Recitalworks Studios in Canberra, Australia.