WTF-Beta

When I was learning Bach's First Contrapunctus from the Art of Fugue, I listened to various recordings - and after I had it in my hands, I started playing the piece while listening to recordings. It was illuminating - and helpful. I learned how different artists phrased and accented the piece - and tempo variations that I didn't fully appreciate while listening to them perform the work. It was VERY helpful.

My teacher who chaired the piano department at the American Conservatory liked for us to listen to performances and recordings of works we're working on. The best it can do is give on some ideas. As for "imitating" a master, that would require having their technique.

On the other hand, one of my favorite pieces is Albeniz's "Evocation". I play it more luxuriously than any recording I've ever heard. Decades ago, I played it for a pro classical pianist - and she told me she loved what I did with it. Nice thing about not having to perform for a competition - is one can occasionally break the rules a bit.

More recently, I learned "Standchen" by Schubert/Liszt. I fell in love with the way that Khatia Buniatshvili plays it. Still, I again have played along while listening to her through headphones - and gotten some ideas. No one will confuse my performance with hers - but I have stolen some of her ideas.

@DougG said:

yeah, I pretty much download books to my iPad and that’s it.

But that’s just me, I can’t speak for the older set…

Yeah, and I remember you telling us about when all the tablets you read were made of clay.

And here I thought you were talking about when Adam and Eve were showing the fence around the Garden of Eve to Doug.

The quest for a piano is fun - do try them all. If you've got it in your budget, NYC is a great place to see everything even if you don't buy in NYC. If you'd like an upright and unconstrained by price, do include Bosendorfer in your quest. But frankly, Yamaha and Kawai make some very fine uprights.

If you go to high end grands, you're talking some big money - and value can often be found in the previously owned inventory - especially in down markets.

Wish you both the best in the coming days - do take care of yourself as well.

They were making money delivering Amazon packages but a certain President threatened them helping to build the case for Amazon to develop their own network for delivery

Always scary. A long while back, I was running with a young guy on a very warm day. Our group would run 4 miles before stopping at a park, let everyone catch up - and then run the last half of the run. In any event, the young man and I were the first people there having run pretty hard. He turned to me and collapsed in a seizure. At that time, I didn't carry a phone. It took a couple of minutes to find a person with a phone - called an ambulance and got him to the hospital, notified his grandmother with whom he was living. In speaking with him later, he had medication that controlled the seizures but stopped taking it because 1) he didn't want the expense and 2) he wasn't certain he needed the meds. Lesson learned that the meds were necessary - and while we offered help with expense, he said he'd be good.

So sorry to here this news. Prayers for you both.

My father was born in Canada to Canadian citizens, lived there about 2 weeks and then moved to the US. I applied for Canadian citizenship about 6 years ago and now have joint citizenship there. It took over a year.

With you Steve. We humans are weird in the things we're attracted to. I think the days started better watching Captain Kangaroo than listening to the news. There's some comfort in that. Best to get out of our houses - and take a walk in the forest - or look at the stars from time-to-time for a counterpoint to the madness that exists outside. Find a quiet place to retreat to from time-to-time.

It's a brave new world. That's for sure.

I've had some success on FB Marketplace - buying and selling fitness equipment and some electronics -BUT I've also given away a lot of things - and have more to dispense with. Last night I was giving away some Arcteryx and other high end gear at our running club - but it is amusing that some folks are funny about things - even if gently used or in a few cases new. Didn't want to even look at the stuff. They're above that. Ok - whatever...

He did a few humorous things for TikTok

NYTimes, WSJ, Atlantic, New Yorker, Harpers, New York Review of Books - dropped Washington Post.

HOAs frequently have rules about the number and placement of Dougs within the community.

My spouse likes it cool... Thermostat is set at 60, but our living room not infrequently gets into the upper 50s. I want to knit sweaters for our birds. One gets used to it. I do wear fleeces - have a flotilla of them from lightly warm to the point where a couple of them are as warm as a medium weight coat. Winter is easy.

What's challenging are the summer months when my spouse wants to think of our home as a very large refrigerator.

@DougG said in The end of an era:

wow, you must be really old.

But congratulations. I have really enjoyed retirement the two or three times I’ve done it.

You're just afraid of having too much time alone with a banjo.

Up at 3:15... Of course, that's not the whole story as prep has been going on for a while. Mrs. Kluurs took off yesterday to do prep as well. House organizing, prepping has gone on for a while.

We have written a quite detailed SOP for Thanksgiving. This has helped limited arguments discussions of how much soda, food, wine, etc. are needed the SOP documents what was used last year, amount left over, suggestions for improvement for the following year, etc. It is now at 3 pages of detail.

The reason for the 3:15 rise was to make sure the bird was fully prepped and ready for the roaster. In days of yore, we'd used our convection oven - but the last couple of years we've used an electric roaster as that frees up the oven for all kinds of things.

We'd had the roaster on the back porch in past years - but given outdoor the predicted outdoor temp and the hurricane level of wind predicted for today, we opted to place the roaster in the basement. Spouse doesn't like cooking bird smells in the house - but hopefully the hurricane winds oozing through the house - along with the basement location will limit the aroma from being noticeable.

We have a 19 lb bird in the roaster - slightly smaller than past years but the main bird is supplemented by 3 lb turkey breast which will go in the air fryer - to ensure turkey supremacy. In some years my spouse, in her zest for friendliness has given away ALL of the turkey to her relatives for leftovers. As a result, I've ended up cooking a turkey the day AFTER Thanksgiving.

Our dining room can comfortably sit 10 - so it was ordained that we have 13 people attending. Thus, there is the infamous "kids" table - and propitiously, there are kids.

I've conveniently positioned chairs in front of the stereo monitor speakers - hoping to protect them from destruction. Horror stories on internet abound with children and adults tearing the tweeter off the speaker, assuming it is meant to be abused - a $1,500-$2,000 mistake we hope to avoid. A substantial amount of art and art-like objects have been removed from key rooms so as to minimize insurance liabilities.

Festivities reach their apex at about 2:00 this afternoon - and hopefully, we chase the last of the attendees out the door about 6:00. We then have the rest of the night to restore some of the order to the house - and sleep the sleep of the damned.