Gomit and Chewie and Heidi and the Piano
So here is a little history about me. I come from a family of musicians. My Grandfather had a gorgeous tenor voice. My grandmother was going to be a professional pianist - concert pianist. Instead, she fell in love and got married to my grandfather. Two Nowegians Lutheran Musicians. Sometime after they married, my grandfather sold his violin to buy my grandmother a baby grand piano. Today, it still has ivory keys and lives with my very dear uncle as my grandmother has left this life. As she died she told the minister her one regret was that she never wrote a concerto...
I don't know that she knows this but I have always aspired to play piano as well as my mother. I didn't compete with her but I just wanted to be as smart and steady as she was with her music. My Mom also can sing. I did not get any of the singing genetics - I can carry a tune, but I don't have the voice of my mother or grandfather - or for that matter many of my other family members. My uncle and my younger brother inherited the voice - I don't know really if it was my grandfather only, but I just know it was my grandfather that I heard so many times.
My grandmother, my mother and I often played piano together. Sometimes my aunts would get into the mood and play with us. I remember times when my uncle would attempt to play our family duet with one of us. He would laugh so....His laughter can warm any room. Even my older brother who has no idea how to play piano would sit down and attempt to improvise the duet when he couldn't read the music...well, at least he had the rythm right ...There is a family duet -- Qui Vive - that has lived on for generations. We would trade parts, and switch parnters, like some people do when they play bridge - laughing and counting out loud, stepping on each other's foot because we didn't know who should control the loud pedal ....I have no children- so I don't know how to help the tradition live on. I played it with my mother, my grandmother, in college with my sorority mom, after college with my mother at MacPhail Center for the Arts, 50 years after my mother studied at the same school....
These memories are some of my favorites, things I pocketed away and long ago realized not everyone understands why I might cherish them so much. I also realized that not everyone was unencumbered by a sing a long, or sight reading sheet music or understood why
I can play piano...some people think I play well, and after 30 years of studying piano - because I enjoyed playing piano and learning about music and felt like I could lose myself in something - well, I think I play okay, but I don't have the heart of a professional pianist - I just don't, but still enjoy it. I can say I know what it is like to sit down and absolutely focus -and think here, this is what I know about this music and I want to feel the audience while they hear what I play... but I have seen the likes of people who thrive and are engerized by an audience - it is not me...I am not that way, and I can never be as good as them and I still love playing piano.
My last piano teacher was a bit eccentric. I have had some good teachers but this guy made me play better than any of my college instructors. I have a new found love for Chopin since meeting this man - and I have grown affectionate for some Russain composers.
My oldest cat Tiace, came to me after living the first few years of her life on a resort and farm in northern Wisconsin. I was very worried about her living in an aprtment with me and my then kitten Schmadios. When I played piano Tiace would come and sit on the couch in the living room and listen. It was the only thing that brought her out on her own...
My cat Buddy was a bit of a composer and would walk up and down the keys - he has long since passed on...but Gromit and Chewie - they like to sit with me. They come into the piano studio whenever I play. They like to just be around. One night when they were a bit punchy but I wanted to just sit down and enjoy my piano, I gave them a each a marrow bone. I was trying avoid the barking at any noise they might hear in our city location . So I pulled out some nice romantic, calming music - I was ever so carefully voicing out the melody and careful to swing the dynamics from soft to medium soft to .....teeth gnawing on soft bone....to louder music and then louder gnawing on harder marrow....then I could feel a jaw on my pedal foot going back and forth while gnawing on the bone and fnally - well - sometimes you just have to let go and laugh....we had an animal communicator tell us that Gromit loves music. Honestly I am not sure that Chewie notices much more than that I am so focused on something other than him. Gromit on the other hand will lie down next to me, bone or no bone and just listen. I just think it is fun to notice that they notice this pleasure of mine and want to somehow be with me when I am doing this thing I love. They just like to be around - how nice.
I don't know that she knows this but I have always aspired to play piano as well as my mother. I didn't compete with her but I just wanted to be as smart and steady as she was with her music. My Mom also can sing. I did not get any of the singing genetics - I can carry a tune, but I don't have the voice of my mother or grandfather - or for that matter many of my other family members. My uncle and my younger brother inherited the voice - I don't know really if it was my grandfather only, but I just know it was my grandfather that I heard so many times.
My grandmother, my mother and I often played piano together. Sometimes my aunts would get into the mood and play with us. I remember times when my uncle would attempt to play our family duet with one of us. He would laugh so....His laughter can warm any room. Even my older brother who has no idea how to play piano would sit down and attempt to improvise the duet when he couldn't read the music...well, at least he had the rythm right ...There is a family duet -- Qui Vive - that has lived on for generations. We would trade parts, and switch parnters, like some people do when they play bridge - laughing and counting out loud, stepping on each other's foot because we didn't know who should control the loud pedal ....I have no children- so I don't know how to help the tradition live on. I played it with my mother, my grandmother, in college with my sorority mom, after college with my mother at MacPhail Center for the Arts, 50 years after my mother studied at the same school....
These memories are some of my favorites, things I pocketed away and long ago realized not everyone understands why I might cherish them so much. I also realized that not everyone was unencumbered by a sing a long, or sight reading sheet music or understood why
I can play piano...some people think I play well, and after 30 years of studying piano - because I enjoyed playing piano and learning about music and felt like I could lose myself in something - well, I think I play okay, but I don't have the heart of a professional pianist - I just don't, but still enjoy it. I can say I know what it is like to sit down and absolutely focus -and think here, this is what I know about this music and I want to feel the audience while they hear what I play... but I have seen the likes of people who thrive and are engerized by an audience - it is not me...I am not that way, and I can never be as good as them and I still love playing piano.
My last piano teacher was a bit eccentric. I have had some good teachers but this guy made me play better than any of my college instructors. I have a new found love for Chopin since meeting this man - and I have grown affectionate for some Russain composers.
My oldest cat Tiace, came to me after living the first few years of her life on a resort and farm in northern Wisconsin. I was very worried about her living in an aprtment with me and my then kitten Schmadios. When I played piano Tiace would come and sit on the couch in the living room and listen. It was the only thing that brought her out on her own...
My cat Buddy was a bit of a composer and would walk up and down the keys - he has long since passed on...but Gromit and Chewie - they like to sit with me. They come into the piano studio whenever I play. They like to just be around. One night when they were a bit punchy but I wanted to just sit down and enjoy my piano, I gave them a each a marrow bone. I was trying avoid the barking at any noise they might hear in our city location . So I pulled out some nice romantic, calming music - I was ever so carefully voicing out the melody and careful to swing the dynamics from soft to medium soft to .....teeth gnawing on soft bone....to louder music and then louder gnawing on harder marrow....then I could feel a jaw on my pedal foot going back and forth while gnawing on the bone and fnally - well - sometimes you just have to let go and laugh....we had an animal communicator tell us that Gromit loves music. Honestly I am not sure that Chewie notices much more than that I am so focused on something other than him. Gromit on the other hand will lie down next to me, bone or no bone and just listen. I just think it is fun to notice that they notice this pleasure of mine and want to somehow be with me when I am doing this thing I love. They just like to be around - how nice.
Comments
Post a Comment