Making future memories

The stars aligned, the universe decided to play along and I ended up hitting a double a few weeks ago. At the Untertürkheimer Kulturtreff, a charming little venue for intimate performances, a local piano teacher was going to present music and musings from 40 years of piano lessons. That sounded like just what I wanted to hear. I figured everyone else in the hall probably knew him, so when I sat down, I asked the woman next to me if she was a pianist. "I'm the tuner of the piano," she replied. Even better, I thought! We chatted for quite a while, and I finally had the opportunity to ask a tuner the questions I had always wanted to ask about my instrument and about the way former tuners had worked on it. When someone is tuning my Blüthner grand piano, I feel they want to tune and not talk, so I let them go about their work.



She admitted that she was no expert on the Blüthner mechanics, but she knew someone who is. He is retired; he did his master exam with her father! So last week she told him about me and I set up a time for him to come regulate my keyboard. She is going to come along and learn about the mechanics herself. I'm really looking forward to seeing - and hearing - what can be done with my instrument to make it sound even better!


Back to the piano teacher: My daughter's friend lives next to him and her parents are good friends with him. So I got his telephone number and asked if he would listen to me play and perhaps become my teacher. After he said yes, I felt the need to tell him a bit about myself and my history with the piano, which you can read about on this blog. So I hand-wrote him a letter and, much to my surprise, received one back from him two days later, in which he expressed his curiosity about my playing. When we met, we had a lot to talk about. When I finally played my Scriabin Sonata for him, I was exposing a big part of myself. This was something I've been working on and loving for decades. My piano technique was laid bare on his beautiful Steinway "C", as I tried to recreate the piece on it - with very different reactions from the pedals - which I really only knew how to coax out of my piano.


I would have been pleased if he had said he wasn't totally disgusted by my "playing". It would have been enough to know that all those hours of practice hadn't been worthless. Well, when he used the word "beachtlich", meaning "remarkable", I breathed a sigh of relief. He was even enthusiastic about my ability and musicality. He made some general remarks and then pointed out a few specific areas I might want to work on. Just what I was looking for!
After working a bit on it, I think I've found the groove he was alluding to - something that had been missing - and now see how that brief encounter has already made a world of difference! I'm setting myself up for some exciting musical memories!

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