thursday - killer piano memories

[egg_shell]

Cold again. -10F this morning. Nasty cold. Glad I don't have to do much outside - just chicken chores and take the mail out to the mailbox, fill the bird feeders out front. The grandkids are on their second day off from school. My piano lesson was cancelled yesterday because of the cold. I'm supposed to have it today instead. The sun is shining so

Comments

[jwg]

Speaking of Twinkel, Twinkle:

for an interesting challenge there is:

Mozart: 12 Variations on "Ah, vous dirai-je, Maman", K.265

https://musescore.com/user/84251/scores/245746

[egg_shell]

Thanks for that link. Looks challenging and fun.

The lesson book my teacher has given me has 3 other variations on Twinkle Twinkle that are fun - repeating the notes in rhythms. That made it much more interesting to practice too.

[kabuldur]

I was wondering how you were getting along in the cold.

That piano looked really good quality for a kid's piano. A pity about the rose chafers.

I think that's a good idea to play just notes. My ukelele book had both. It's a pity it's been lost, along with my Grade 1 piano book.

Good progress, by the way!

[egg_shell]

For a toddler toy piano it was probably pretty good. Though that kind of piano is more like a xylophone inside - the hammers strike metal keys - kind of a tinkly sound. I wish I had better, more sure, memories of it. I must have done something to it to ruin it or why else did we throw it out? I do remember the Christmas I got it - I loved it. I have a memory of putting rose chafers in a decorative puzzle box too. It must have been a different experience to me to be encouraged to kill something - usually I was taught to love all animals. Confusing for a little kid.

[kabuldur]

We had a toy piano, too, but it didn't look like that. It was a grand piano style. I think the hammers still hit different lengths of metal, though. It sounded a bit 'tinny' but I was surprised at how good it was for a toy. It fell apart after a few years and much use by many kids. I think it belonged to my sister.

Funny how we are taught to kill things. It doesn't come naturally. We have to be taught. Once my sister killed a half a wheel barrow of cane toads. I was quite shocked. (We were all killing them, it's just that my sister killed the most, and she was trying just to be good.)

[shutterbug]

I'm reading posts out of order today, and I was noting how you said you were feeling unmotivated about the art, jewelry, and possible exhibition. I wonder if all this time spent with the piano and ukelele is what is satisfying that part of your spirit such that the art has taken a back seat for now.

[egg_shell]

I agree - I think that is what has happened to me! There is only so much a person can do - something had to go when something new came in.

[anonymousblack]

i desperately want to read an autobiographical lyric essay about your rose chafer experience! it feels so resonant, though i can't remember any similar experiences from my childhood, exactly. just that the second house we lived in seemed to be built over a thin crack in the earth that was always boiling up with different kinds of ants. they were everywhere, even upstairs. i remember crying about them more than once.

when i was a teenager, an earwig emerged from the electric typewriter i was using. i'd never seen an earwig before and i was so repulsed. i eventually forgave the typewriter, but wrote longhand for a few days immediately after. :-D

[egg_shell]

It's funny. Lots of mixed feelings about that tiny piano. Of course I was very little and didn't understand a lot of how things worked in the world either - still forming my morals. Maybe I was more repulsed by the fact I was supposed to kill them. Maybe putting them in the piano was a way to save them! Who knows now? I'd probably need deep long term therapy now to figure it out! :-)