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we have got a piano!!!!
it arrived yesterday. I think this just about completes the list of demands polite requests that I moved in with over twelve years ago when I first came to live with Tim. Actually, it was not at my request that the piano finally arrived. It was only after Sara had taken over a year of piano lessons on the 5-octave electric keyboard that Tim finally said, "Sara's worked really hard at this and it would sound so much nicer on a piano..."
I bought the keyboard for myself, a couple of Christmases ago, because I was so homesick for the American tunes to "Oh Little Town of Bethlehem" and "It Came Upon a Midnight Clear."
May I add here: The genius of Mozart, the REAL genius of Mozart, is not that he wrote amazing music. It's not even that he wrote quite a bit of amazing music that any old dope with a little bit of musical ability can play. The REAL genius of Mozart is that he wrote quite a bit of amazing music that is relatively simple to play AND--this is the genius part--he makes you feel like a virtuoso while you're playing it.
I bought the keyboard for myself, a couple of Christmases ago, because I was so homesick for the American tunes to "Oh Little Town of Bethlehem" and "It Came Upon a Midnight Clear."
May I add here: The genius of Mozart, the REAL genius of Mozart, is not that he wrote amazing music. It's not even that he wrote quite a bit of amazing music that any old dope with a little bit of musical ability can play. The REAL genius of Mozart is that he wrote quite a bit of amazing music that is relatively simple to play AND--this is the genius part--he makes you feel like a virtuoso while you're playing it.
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-- Tom Lehrer
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I have shed tears because I can't even PLAY the first movement of Mozart's 21st piano concerto in C. I sit there and think, hell, I can't even PLAY this, I will NEVER be able to play this--imagine having written it.
And yet here's this little sonatina that I *can* play and it sounds so pretty and makes me feel so talented.
...
apart from the fact that I am now able to procrastinate in exactly the same way I did in high school, by playing the piano whenever I should be doing something else!
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O Little Town of Bethlehem is a big improvement.
My husband is talking about getting rid of our (old, funky, upright) piano and possibly replacing it with a keyboard. I'm resistant, even though it gets played maybe twice a year.
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The woman who sold me this piano bought it 15 years ago for her daughters to learn on, and they've now left home. She sold it without telling them. I warned her that she would probably get in trouble...
BTW, I meant to say thank you for coming out to Readercon that afternoon--it was very nice of you and I was very flattered! I hope you weren't too overwhelmed by Amanda's presence (I think some people were). I spent much more time socializing with old friends and cousins than I did actually attending the convention. And of course I didn't go ringing at ALL. the whole summer was like that--everywhere I went I thought, geez, I should have planned to stay here a week, not one night.
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mentioned the tunes for Christmas carols as being something that bothered her. They've been living in Cambridge (that one) for around 30 years now. Maybe she's gotten used to them.
It was a lovely afternoon. Amanda seems to have a forceful personality, much as does Cousin Blodwyn, but in a positive way. I found it restful to mostly listen to the two of you talk, and I've put Amanda's book on my to-read list.
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cool!
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We have a little spinet that goes out of tune if you look at it, and has keys that stick when it gets humid (like, all summer in Iowa). If all goes well this year, I'm getting us a new one (a new used one, I mean). The neighbors will appreciate it, at least.
Good luck to Sara as she continues her lessons.
Oh, and Mozart kills me. When I play Mozart all my lack of technique is revealed, woe.
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huhhhhhhhh... gee, I wanted a piano to put in my dining room, not to play in Carnegie Hall.
It is just one of those snooty weird European blips that I have resigned myself to. Ours is called a "modern upright" and is not much bigger than a spinet, but fortunately it has the full 88 keys--another weird blip I've discovered here is that you often get these bizarre 83-key keyboards--the top five keys taken off, presumably in an effort to maintain "European concert standards" while still building a piano small enough to fit in your dining room.
I have no technique, I never took lessons. I play like Algernon, missing out many notes but with great feeling.
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Congrats on the piano!
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She's going to be so happy. I was taking piano for years without a piano of my own (I'd stay after school and use theirs when I could), and the day we finally got one, this second hand paint peeling one that needed a tune-up... i was in heaven!
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...I am so clueless. I didn't even know those two had alternate tunes. I only know "Away In A Manger".
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These are things you tend not to discover until you leave the country.
not a piano but a bell ringer
(Anonymous) 2007-08-31 06:42 pm (UTC)(link)And seeing that you are in Perth . . . I am coming to Edinburgh and forward to St. Andrew's to deliver my son to his first year of studies there at the end of September, although I may allow his mother this privilege and visit a month later. We did visit last April which was the first experience of Scotland for all of us. At last I understand why Scots are so offended when someone mistakes them for being English. They are altogether a different people.
Finally, the change-ringing is a newly emerging interest for me. I am living in Boston and have found the several active towers here. I have only ivisited a tower and sat through a practice and was invited to get the feel of a ring. Very very appealing, so to say. Sctland has many fewer towers (it not being England!)and it rather surprised me that St. Andrew's had none.
Best wishes,
Joseph Taylor (can.patller@gmail.com)
P.S. I have just remembered that there is a link to "randon unpublished work" that I have not explored yet. Perhaps the bell materials are there.
P.P.S. The girlfriend of the young man attending St. Andrew's is aimed toward a career as a pilot and I have sent here the link to the Ninety-Nines.
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As for Mozart, I entirely agree!
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And oh man do I ever hear you on this one.
But this Christmas I will be back in the States for the first time in years!! YAY!!!!
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And if nothing else, going back to the States where everything now seems really really cheap thanks to the dollar-pound exchange ratio, just in time for holidays? Rah. =)
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