Piano Society Book Club

Oh, Andreas - I'm just sneaking in here for a moment to tell you something. I'm reading chapter 15 right now, and found something in it that you will like!

 

Hi Monica,
I was really to curious to read on, so that I have finished chapter 15. (Sorry, Nathan, but you can write something also to the previous chapters and we could discuss it, if you like, this would be very nice anyway.)

Thank you for your nice advice, Monica. I can imagine, what you mean. There is mentioned an old Grotrian-Steinweg-grand from the 20th, which was restored for an old lady. :wink:
In this chapter I find interesting Luc´s behaviour to people, who have to sell their pianos, but are not in fact ready to separate from them. He is full of respect and comprehension. I think, his idea, that the people should burn their old pianos, if they aren´t to repair and to use anymore and to cook their sausages on them, is a good one. So, they could process their close to a certain part of their lifes better, I suppose, as if they just give it away and always remember it and suffer from this. What do you think?

I think, Carhart does narrate in a sensitive and descriptive manner of singular fates related to pianos. This is very interesting and increases the pleasure to read this subtle work of literature.

I really ask me, if pianos in our times of today still have so much meaning to so many people like it is described in the book. (Though it´s written in 2000, isn´t it?) I´m sure, there still exists men, who feel so and who can find themselves in the novel of Carhart, but the number of them probably decreases, I suppose. Do you agree?

 

I'm supposed to be working right now, but I'm not. haha

I'll write notes on chapter 15 later. Nathan - yes, go ahead and post any thoughts you have on the earlier chapters.

 

Good – you are catching up fast, Nathan.

I never lift the lid of pianos I see in different places and play them. I’m too chicken. Although a couple years ago I was in Liberace’s museum and took a picture of one of his pianos with my cell phone camera. I had to sneak it!

I can very much relate to our character's terrifying experience at his recital. I get that way now! Nerves didn’t bother me as much when I was younger. Don’t remember my first recitals, but I do remember the one when I was 12 and played a Chopin Waltz. It was my first Chopin piece and I felt like a grown-up playing it.

But I absolutely hated playing for people when they came to our home. When I was very young, like between 5 and 13, every time my parent’s friends came over, they always said, “Let’s hear little Monica play something.” I was extremely shy back then and would try to run and hide. There was one solution to the problem, though: We had a grand piano in the living room and an upright piano downstairs, so to help alleviate my fear, I was allowed to go downstairs and play that piano, while everyone else stayed upstairs and listened.

How about you, Andreas – what was your first public performing experience like?



more book time – regarding chapter 14 – burning an old piano and cooking your sausage over the fire. Well, I have never done that! Actually, I’ve never seen a piano being burned. I think that would make me cry a little.

I dunno – I think people today still get hooked on their pianos. It might be that I am too biased, though. I get hooked on anything that I happen to like and then I don’t want to part with it. Others may not feel as sentimental about objects. Not really sure what I think about this one….

 

I love smores!

Nathan, looks like you have definitely caught up!

 

Pianolady wrote:

My first performing experience was, when I played guitar before my class in elementary school. I was seven years old. I think, I have played some melodies of well-known songs and little pieces of my guitar-school (Dieter Kreidler, Gitarrenschule, Band 1).
I have enjoyed it and got much applause!

BTW, what are "smores"? I couldn´t find the word in the dictionary.

Nathan, wow, I can´t imagine, how someone can read so fastly a book, and even in English :lol: . I have needed two weeks for coming to chapter 15.

 

This is how you make a smore:

1. build a fire

2. find a long stick

3. Stick a marshmallow on the end of the stick and then stick it in the fire. :lol:

4. The marshmallow may catch on fire, but that's ok - just blow it out.

5. Then take a graham cracker and break it into two equal pieces (squares).

6. Take half of a Hershey chocolate bar and but it on one of the graham cracker squares.

7. Then put the hot marshmallow on top of the chocolate and put the other graham cracker square on top of that.

8. What you get is like a sandwich - graham cracker, chocolate bar and marshmallow. Because the marshmallow is hot, it starts to melt the chocolate and the whole thing gets a little gooey. It's messy to eat, but it sure is super yummy!

Ok, I'm reading chapter 16 now.

 

Thanks, Monica. Sounds really tasty.
First I´ll play a bit Chopin, thenI´ll read chapter 16.

 

Ok, I just finished ch. 16.

I like that music school that Thad found for his children. And isn't it neat that Debussy and Albeniz (others as well) also studied there? I am hoping to go to Paris in a couple years. If I do, I will try to find this building. I'm also going to visit every place where Chopin visited and lived. Maybe if I am lucky, his ghost will pay me a visit me too.

 

Phew, I have finished chapter 16.
Yes, it´s really a school full of history and atmosphere, I think. I like Thads idea, to look for a piano-teacher for his daughter, which will motivate her and not to teach her "solfège". This kind of theory has made me dislike music, too, when I was a child. I still could play the guitar, which I learned in private lessons, and sight-read, when I had to learn "solfège" at the civic music-school, where I first started to learn Cello with 11 years. After a half year I stopped with this (very beautiful and soulful) instrument and changed to piano, because this was my very wish.
It must be a very interesting atmosphere with all the old Erards, Pleyels and Gaveaus on the one side and the more modern instruments on the other there in the Schola Cantorum.
My tuner says, that the individual characters of the piano-brands decrease more and more, because they all try to approach to the Steinway-like piano-building and give up their old manners to built pianos. As an example he mentioned Bechstein. They always said, that their manner is better and that they don´t need steinway-like building-manner, but now they have taken over some techniques of piano-building, which Steinway uses.

All this development is really a pity IMO! Sometimes I wished to have lived in 19th century. :roll: May be we should open a synthesizer-forum to stay up to date and write a book called "The synthesizer-shop on the right bank", isn´t it? Oh my dears, we are on the headed south. :wink: :lol:

Monica, if you´ll meet the ghost of Chopin, tell him, I´ll try my very best to play his third Scherzo and send him my regards! 8) :lol:

 

Albeniz was very good friends with Granados.

 

How good was the "very"? :shock: :wink:

 

Oh, you guys....:lol:

I'll explain in a few minutes. Just walked in the door from shopping and have to unload my car.

 

Ok, I'm back. (not that you knew I was gone - LOL)

Anyway, Albeniz and Granados were not that THAT close. I put that heart next to my last post because I love Granados! If I could go back in time and meet with him, I would flirt with him a little. Well, maybe a lot.

Granados and Albeniz were just good friends. They hung out with each other almost daily, usually in a cafe where they ate the wrong kinds of foods, drank too much wine, smoked too many cigars, talked about their problems, told about all the women in their lives, (secret love affairs) etc... Each of them had their own health problems because of that kind of lifestyle. When Albeniz died, he had not yet finished a piece of music he was working on, and so his wife or daughter - can't remember which one - asked Granados to finish the piece, which he did. I think that is kind of touching - don't you?

 

Pianolady wrote:

You really touch me with this, Monica.


Seriously, wow, that were really friends. That´s very nice and very touching.