Having looked around, da SDC has to actually be in the top 10?
There’s -
Pianoworld forums
Pianostreet forums
Pianophilia forums
Other places like sections of Talk Classical etc.
There are Facebook groups which seem quite active.
And of course there is plenty discussion in the Youtube Comments section for different vids, but most of it is not interesting
Considering how active/inactive most of those are, da SDC is actually up there!
I’d forgotten all about pianophilia. The problem with the others is they’re lame. I used to be active on newsgroups and yahoo groups in addition to the various piano forums in the early 2000, but I think most of the email lists died off, and I never liked the ‘arbiter of taste’ attitude of people on groups like RMCR.
My IP seems to be banned from pianophilia and I’ve no idea why. 88st is practically dead atm. Lots of visitors, fuck all posting. Piano society is dead. I’m an admin there and log in once a month to delete spam. Unsung composers is piano plus other music and pretty active but tends to deal in the almost hilariously obscure composers you’ve never heard of. PW seems fairly active.
Pianostreet was such a clusterfuck. Although it did have a lot of unintentional CG, kind of like the Chopinfiles.
You mean the Christian obsessive woman? Plus the in joke about da shoe conc has run for ages. I genuinely do fucking hate it btw 
Yes. Pianistimo was the one that made me leave that place. Also the cult who worshipped ‘bernhard’ as some such of genius, while espousing all that Chang bullshit.
Pianoworld banned me the first time I joined in the space of about 2 hours.
I think Pianostreet forum actually had some genuinely good stuff there and the owner of it actually joined da SDC, he seems like a chill Swedish dude.
Pianoworld on the other hand seems like a very rigid and strict place.
The forum where you discuss PIANOS has more discussion than the one where you discuss Piano MUSIC!
How fucked up is that?
She got a posting ban iirc. There were some good musicians there at one point though. Da wood obv, Marik and a few others.
I thought Nils hated you? Are you sure you’re not confusing Robert from Chopinfiles/piano society? He was a good dude, who joined here briefly iirc.
Yes, I liked Marik a lot. He had the insight that comes from playing at the highest level and having a lot of performing experience.
Who’s had more 88st aliases, comme or skepto? 
Haha yeah but it led him to get into arguments with a lot of shit-talkers. There were a couple of unintentionally hilarious incidents 
No, after a while when da SDC started to get going I gave up being anything but politically correct on Nils’ forum. We had a couple friendly exchanges via PM there afterwards.
And yeah I remember Robert :
https://www.pianostreet.com/smf/index.php?topic=31143.0
I’m opus10no2, ironically the account that’s remained longest.
Ha, I know you are
I assume it was no coincidence that I was the OP in that thread 
LEGENDARY!!!
Hahaha fuckkkk da 10/2!!! Already surpass many of da pre-Ho golden age mofoz!!!
Yeah I hunted down that thread as I think it was our first interaction.
You play Cziffra a bit like Grosvenor plays him. Very smooth.
The crazy accelerandos and volatility are something I’ve not heard anyone but Cziffra pull off.
Were you ever tempted to forego smoothness in favour of Cziffra-style crazyness or would it end up in a mess?
Cziffra seems to be truly unique in his ability to use volatile tempo fluctuations and somehow still maintain technical control.
@Ashley_Tervort Ziff has much better reflexes, almost superhuman, he can accelerate out of nowhere. That’s part of the equation imo. The other part is probably that my natural bias is to the lyrical side of things. I’ve played absolutely bucketloads of bel canto paraphrases and it kinda sticks to you as an interpretative style. I was probably more trying to be true to myself than to Ziff tbh, I did feel that if I had one thing I could bring to the piece it’s that I’m an absolutely compulsive improviser and I wanted to play as if I was improvising. I think da Ziff’s rec is much better than mine because not only is it better technically, it has his unique “spikiness” about it, that extra kick.
Very honest assessment! Cziffra is my favourite pianist and I didn’t want to come across as overly critical. If I wasn’t as intimately familiar with his recordings then I’d have reacted a lot differently.
It reminds me of hearing Yuja Wang play Tatum. It’s a bit odd because she’s playing his notes but she lacks his rhythm and feel, and his magic. But if I step back and take away my prejudice - I hear her smooth take on it for what it is and I begin to enjoy it as an alternative.
You’re awesome at the smooth bel canto stuff, I’m not sure if you’re aware but your albums were available on Demonoid, I did illegally download them. Wasn’t sure if you’d be pissed off at this or happy for the distribution 
Haha, well let’s face it we’ve all downloaded stuff off illegal sites, so I’d be a bit of a hypocrite if I took offence
I don’t know exactly how they get on torrent sites, but it was a bit of a surprise to learn that the second paraphrases album was on one less than a week after release. I suspect nobody except major artists expects to make money off albums nowadays, just look at Spotify pay rates, tbh. Sure making the albums is hard work and costs a bit too, but I just accept that the discs got made for the love of the music on them, there wasn’t really a financial motive, and if people enjoy what they hear, that’s reward in itself (particularly when with any luck I’ve done something vaguely useful by producing recordings of pieces there’s almost zero chance anyone else will play).
I don’t think Wang or Scherbakov get the Ziff magic either. Even Volodos and da Katsarse are inferior imo in da bee, due to inferior, less imaginative pedalling.