WTF-Beta

@AdagioM Aww, if I had any role in your return to piano, that makes me very happy!

And just doing it for you is the perfect reason!

But do let us know how it goes and what you're working on!

@Steve-Miller said:
And do I really need a washer that lasts 30 years? At my age I hesitate to buy green bananas!

FWIW (which isn’t much) I don’t like front loaders.

Fish

@AdagioM wonderful!

What a was the trigger that pulled you back?

@Bernard nice! that’s a gorgeous house!

Also this:

for sale for the first time since being built in 1878

Wow!!

@kluurs said:

"whatever time of the day the person can consistently focus their time."

Yep. My preference would be to practice in the morning, but it's just not possible. So it's usually night time, but even if I can only put in a little bit of time, I do. And then when i have a bigger chunk of time, I benefit from that more because I've been at the piano consistently.

@kluurs said:

if I dedicated myself to playing several hours a day and with proper instruction, I might rise from a bad player to mediocre

That's pretty much me. As you say, it doesn't matter. It gives me great joy. (And somehow, miraculously, doesn't drive my husband crazy).

So I keep playing.

@Bernard said:

@ShiroKuro Planned obsolescence

I feel like a lot of what we see with the shittiness of consumer products isn’t even “planned” though, it’s just slipshod work, a complete lack of commitment to quality, and zero sense of responsibility to consumers.

If a cost can be cut, it will be, regardless of the consequences.

Keeper

@AndyD said:
the discipline to play each through daily

For whatever reason, daily practice and consistency (like returning to daily practice if I miss a day) is the one thing I’m really, really good at. Of course, partly that’s because I worked really hard early on to make consistent practice a routine, and I read all the things online about how to do that.

Another reason surely has to do with the fact that I started as an adult and was (still am?) a little bit obsessed with piano. And then the few times I’ve had serious challenges to my ability to stick with piano (grad school, big moves, career changes) I’ve used daily practice (or at least daily playing) as a way to keep me connected to piano even when I wasn’t practicing enough to progress or improve.

Getting a good teacher is another ideal, if as is likely, I continue learning certain classical pieces. A lesson every fortnight would do.

I am a huge proponent of taking lessons, and I personally prefer in-person, real time lessons. But there are lots of good online options as well (both real time or self-paced). Have you considered something like Tonebase? I believe it’s fairly well-regarded. And if you’re playing classical pieces, it seems like a good model.

If fitting real-time lessons into your schedule is challenging, perhaps you could start with something like that?

@kluurs are/were you a member of Tonebase?

Everybody’s a critic!

I mean, you all make fair points. But there’s so much that’s awful and ugly in the news right now, I personally could use a little beauty and wonder.

Even though it’s only an illusion.

Meh

@Mark that’s wonderful!!

@kluurs said:

After answering I looked at what Bavouzet actually does - and he does it the same (4 bass notes in left hand) - see his video at around 16:34

thanks!

Both Bavouzet and Debussy would probably hate that I introduce a ritard there - but then I'm not playing for a jury.

Me neither!

Oh wait, conceivably, I could end up playing this for a jury...

(It would be my choice though)

Perfect, that’s what I wanted to know! (There was some direction on the score I didn’t understand. )

It’s rolled so I will do it that way as well. (First four notes w LH)

From the NYT:

Article: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/08/30/opinion/wonder-awe-aging.html

Text:

The World Is a Room With a Piano Waiting to Be Played
Aug. 30, 2026, 6:00 a.m. ET

By Roger Rosenblatt
Mr. Rosenblatt is the author of a new book, “More Rules for Aging.”

The older I get, the more I appreciate the wonders around me. I’m not just talking about nature’s extravagances — zebras, cuttlefish, dragon flies, octopuses, though they do still amaze — but rather the wonder attached to the everyday things a younger me might have not paid much notice to, the happy social interactions, coincidences and surprises that counteract all the sorrows and horrors, and say by their existence, we too are life, maybe most of it.

Perhaps the mundane becomes more wondrous as we age partly because we move slower. We are more careful. Each step we take becomes fascinating, an object of exquisite study, not only because the stability of your body rides on it, but also because it takes on a disembodied life of its own.

Age concentrates the mind. The moment you realize you will no longer do something you’ve done all your life. The moment you realize that you will now need to do something you’ve never had to do before. The moment you realize that what used to be will never be the same. Some of this could lend itself to melancholy. But there is also a bigness to such moments that allows for wonder. A sense that you can’t quite comprehend it all.

Like any life, mine has had its pain, yet from the outset it seems to have been graced by unbelievable people and events. An anthology of miracles. Before me and around me as a child, and with me ever since.

At times the wonder is so fleeting you could easily miss it. A glance of sympathy in a stranger’s eyes, a warm handclasp. The quiet wonder of durable friendships. Of the dependent companionship of small animals. Of the sad antique beauty of tenements. Of shared secret jokes. Of long exploratory walks. A moment when you and someone you’re with spontaneously break into song, hearing Louis Armstrong in your heads. “I see trees of green, red roses too.” And you say to yourself, it’s a wonderful world.

Some wonders you cannot see at all. More progress has been made in cancer research in the past 25 years than in all the time before it. Therefore more lives saved. Unless you’re a doctor or a researcher you cannot know how such a process of discovery works, but you benefit from it. Knowledgeable people thinking about vital problems and solving them, for everyone, unseen.

How do you find a wonder? Often they find you.

The wonder of my wife, Ginny. The wonder of watching her as she sits waiting on a bench, or reading, or wrapping gifts, or writing a letter to a sick friend. The active serenity of her. These are things she’s always done. But now, as I watch her, I realize how strongly each gesture is tied to character.

The wonder of still learning how to do new things. The wonder of writing this sentence. The alchemy of language. The scope and sweep of the imagination. The wonder of the mysteries of the weather. Of wind. Of sound. Of prayer, of faith. Of art. Of gifted people. Emily Dickinson, Fred Astaire, Ella Fitzgerald, Vermeer, Bach, Monk. These things have always brought me joy. Now I have the time to question how they do that. That I have no answers only makes these joys more wondrous.

My childhood began in New York at 36 Gramercy Park East, a magical early 20th century Gothic revival building with stone gargoyles on the outer walls and cast stone knights in armor out front. With my doctor father seeing patients, and my mother teaching public school all day, I was quasi-adopted by three ladies who lived upstairs. They read me Mark Twain and taught me card games. I was 4 years old.

On Christmas Eve they would hire a limousine and tour the shop windows on Fifth Avenue, taking me with them. I would sit in the back of the car and stare at the lights, my eyes wide with the bright stories told by the window displays, my heart content with my three ladies, with life.

In the end, the tendency for peace. In the beginning, a car ride in the dark city on Christmas Eve.

At the age of 6, I was on vacation with my parents in Westport, Conn. The day of our arrival, I went off for a walk by myself. I was always doing that, to my parents’ dismay. And I came upon a large beautiful house with a sun room with glass walls so that I could see a Steinway concert grand in the middle of the floor.

The door was open. I went in and started playing, eventually looking up to see a princess-like woman standing beside the piano and smiling. We chatted. She took me back to the rented house. My mother was appalled, and she apologized for my bold behavior. No need, said the woman. It was a pleasure to see how innocent and unafraid I was. “Yes,” said my mother. “That’s how he is. He thinks the world is a room with a piano in it waiting to be played.”

In fact, it is.

@kluurs in measure 26, for the last rolled chord, are you moving that low C into the right hand, and then having the lowest note be the Gb?

@Bernard interesting! I’m glad you found a solution that works.

The whole thing about consumer electronics and other household products that don’t last is incredibly frustrating. And so unnecessary, given the technological capability humans have acquired over the last 150 years. Today nothing of the environmental impact of all these broken products that get thrown away because they quickly become useless.

My biggest household concern is our HVAC. It is working fine right now, but it’s 15 years old. When it goes, we’ll have to choose from whatever models are available. Besides the expense of replacing an hvac, what guarantee is there that we’ll get something that will last another 15 or more years?

@Steve-Miller 6hat looks like a cool shop!

@dougg it doesn't have to rhyme (I know you know that...

More importantly, I didn't know the term wagon lit.

@AndyD said:

Looking forward to hearing you learn & play it Shirokuro.

thank you!!

I'll struggle along beside you.

Yay! It's good to have a partner! (Partner in crime in struggle)