Yes, the word is certainly inadequate, but I now understand what you meant. Thanks for the clarification. Since I agreed 100% with what Steve was saying, it was disconcerting to then see his words labeled "homophobic". The ol' defense mechanism kicked in, and well, there you have it.

I know that "the road to heck is paved with good intentions", but I hope that until we old guys fade away, good will still counts for something.

(And I can't believe the software editor just changed "h*ll" to "heck"! )

Yeah, that really doesn't make sense. You can say it on TV, but not on PW? Hmmmm...

lol

I love Gimme Gimme Gimme

Consider the possibilities.....

"Go to heck!!"
"Burn in heck"
"When heck freezes over"
"A cold day in heck"
"Heaven and heck"
"Been to heck and back"
"One heck of a pianist" (well perhaps this one isn't so strange)

But I digress......

A further digression.

"The gates of heck"
"Heck on earth"
"Heck, Michigan"

and ... dare I? ... I dare

"Heck hath no fury like a woman scorned."

Don't laugh...

I sometimes wonder, if as a straight male I need to find a feminine side in order to bring out a better more musical sound. It's hard to describe.

Heck yes !!!!

I was reading an interesting book about Heckenistic Greece the other day..

What did it have to say about Hecken of Troy?

Is this what we've become?? I think Kreisler's prophecy of several pages ago has finally come to pass.

"...my guess is the thread will go sour soon enough."

Perhaps not quite soon enough.

Your post interested,

When I lived in Chicago, and went to school there it seemed there were two groups. The students from Asia, who were about half of all the pianists and seemed to group together, and Everyone else. In the everyone else category, most of the guys were gay. 8/10 or something like that.

As I finish my undergrad, after my own problems kept me from school for a few years. I now got to school in Central indiana. Out of all the pianist, which is a much more unsegregated group those numbers seem to be in the reverse. In fact here, most of the pianist are ultra conservative people who would prefer to stay at home.

Unfortunately it is funny that you should say that, because the other day i was just musing the possibility of breast augmentation surgery in both the male and female pianist as a method of not looking at ones hands whilst playing, if ( I mused) the implants were of a suitable size it would indeed be difficult to see ones hands while at the piano and may well be helpful.

The only downside I could think of is that every mouthfull of pie one consumed would have to go "the long way round" from plate to mouth, but saying that , even that may be beneficial in those amongst us that eat to fast anyways?

I'd love to get a poll of the gender & orientation break outs of PW posters. I think we'd find a higher proportion of homos here than in the general public. Much higher.

I think it's funny that some people think that the subject of gay pianists is a prurient one. In fact, I think of it as exactly the opposite - it's a search for identify amongst those of us who seek to understand our place in the world, through the lens of people "like us" whom we respect. Also, to better understand how lucky we are in this day and age, and how fortunate we weren't born in an earlier era. I can't help but think about what it must have been growing up as Van Cliburn, or Pletnev, or Richter, or Glenn Gould. Can't help but think if they channeled their frustrations into their music, and htat helped to take away the pain of being different.

Also Nelson Freire. I wonder, hey, if he were straight, would he still be best buds with Martha? One of my favorite Martha stories is of her and Nelson at a Horowitz performance of the Rach 3, holding hands, enraptured. It conjures a sublime happiness that I can only explain by associating it with my own memories of feeling truly safe in my own skin confiding in a female friend in those tormented teen years. Of course, Martha is a whole 'nother story - she is to many gay male pianists what Cher is to ordinary gays of a certain age. Or Judy. Or Madonna.

Anyway, I know I'm late to the party, and maybe this thread is just dying embers now, but just thought i'd weigh in!


PS. Debrucey. Your largely ignored joke about wiping was the funniest thing I've read in ages. I spit my drink all over my laptop when i read that. Magnificent.

That was Fugue14's joke.

Haha, no, that wasn't the joke, he just was making an analogy... debrucey was too clever by half & turned the analogy on its head.

I think the subject of society's perception of homosexuals and professions associated with it is something we can't ignore as the impact is very real. Allow me to illustrate with my own experience.

I have mentioned this before in Piano Teachers' Forum that I started piano very late at 17 years old. A main reason for this is because my parents were vehemently against giving me piano lessons despite repeated requests from me. I come from a traditional Indonesian Chinese family and males are traditionally expected to go into 'macho' professions such as doctor, lawyer, engineer, businessman, etc. Music is viewed as a 'sissy' profession because of this skewed belief that males who learn music will turn gay. And a lot of musicians are gay, so it kind of reinforced this point.

So only when I was 17 when I had some savings I started piano lessons. Needless to say, this exasperated my parents to no end. My mother pleaded me to stop learning because she was genuinely afraid I would turn gay. She also said her aerobic mates were making fun of her because she had a son who learns piano and only gays or girls learn piano (I am not making this up). Imagine the bombshell when I told them I wanted to pursue music full time. But well, I soldiered on and along the way I fell in love, married, and now have a son. At least this alleviated their major concern that I was gay, eh.

So, I am wondering after what I had gone through. How many potential musicians out there are denied chance to pursue their dreams because of society's objection. The large number of musicians who are gay, could it be because the straights are denied a chance to study music?

Are you implying that Gould was gay? I don't think he was. Or do you mean just that he grew up being "different"? That is certainly so. However, it's debatable whether someone like Gould "in this day and age" would have a less painful or frustrating experience of growing up compared to decades past.

Geez. A breath of fresh air on this thread.

I think there are most certainly cultural differences. Around the turn of the 20th century, in the US, the piano was definitely view as a girl's instrument--that is, if I'm to believe statements I've read by Gershwin and Morton.

In the US, at least, and to my impression, which may be very flawed, the piano as an instrument no longer has that stigma (say, compared to the flute), though perhaps classical music might. Certainly, music isn't viewed as manly as a pastime as, oh, football, but I never got the sense growing up that it came with a particular effeminate stigma. But I wasn't a part of that music study subculture.

While the plural of anecdote isn't evidence, I find that most of the (predominantly mainland) Chinese people I work with (in tech) want their kids to study an instrument, including piano, regardless of sex.

What, would you posit, is the difference, in this regard, if any, between mainland and HK Chinese culture and Indonesian Chinese culture?

Don't kid yourself. Guitar is cool. Piano not so much.

In what is likely a majority of small town America in the " outlaying rural areas " between the two coasts, classical piano is still definitely seen by the general culture as " gay " , " sissy " or " for girls ". A boy with any kind of social standing might as well put a pink tu tu on and hang a sign on his back " kick me here ".

What has changed is that there are now more kids who, through everything from the fact that the fastest growing religion in the US today is " no affiliation ", mass media changes with from matter-of-fact Will and Grace episodes through Glee through " it will get better " youtube videos, etc. don't feel perhaps as isolated, alone or estranged or suicidal from fear and bullying and outright assault.

http://www.itgetsbetter.org/

On my street in Amsterdam with lots of families and an estimated 30+ maintained pianos in the homes, not one boy has dared to take piano lessons over the past 15 years. Drums yes. Guitar yes. Those are the bold and daring choices. The safe choices of the popular boys? Field Hockey or Soccer. Period.

Right, every Smalltown USA is an @$$backerds hicktown. How you came to that wild generalization, I've no idea.

heck, you're right Old Man. Is the software from the Bible Belt (@$$backerds hicktown)? In which case I'm surprised discussions like this are allowed. Hey! It doesn't do heck with a capital! Not only prudish but ungrammatical to boot.

As far I can see, you are the only one making that statement.

Having a different idea in your head is one thing. But it would be more interesting to hear you lay out a rebuttal in the form of a substantive contribution. At the very least have the intellectual honesty and graciousness to quote accurately what your fellow interlocutors have actually stated rather than missattributing them or making up your own hyperbolic strawmen.

Having grown up in that sort of environment, I can say, backed up with experience, that you are somewhat right, but there are still many variables at play in how any individual kid will be treated. For one thing, the character of those communities are not all identically repressive and vicious, although there's no doubt they are usually far more conservative than big cities.

But there are many variables involved with an individual kid, too. Simply having an engaging and warm personality can dramatically affect how things go, for example.

Indeed. Attractive, empathetic extroverts with charm and poise can get away with murder. Also, those strong, independent kids with an irrepressible love of l'art pour l'art who don't give a damn what others think can create for themselves more freedom of choice than those who are more gregarious social animals, despite the details of any specific limitations inherent in their local situation -- assuming there are competent piano teachers on hand and a household budget that can support such extravagance.

I think one reason the piano no longer has that "stigma" is that the piano is no longer even there in most middle-class homes, and it certainly doesn't play the same kind of social role it once did. Its role as a center for socialization has long since been supplanted by the Weber grill and sports on the giant flat-screen TV, which I think are usually "guy" things.

That's a very good point, I think.

But you have to also factor in that a certain number of gays avoiding being identified as gay (known as being "in the closet") will also avoid the pursuit of "gay" careers like classical music, and will instead take up ditch digging or medicine or tech or whatever, instead of their real love.

I also find it extremely odd that interest and careers in classical music are specifically associated with "gay", but the same is not true in pop music, even though there are pop musicians who are gay and out about it. What's that all about?

Interesting. Forgotten is not the same as despised...

After the singing of " Happy Birthday to you", a couple mad rounds of Guitar Hero is about as close as many households will ever have come to actually have made music together at home.

Pop music is heroic, accessible, ubiquitous, forward-looking, free, open and relevant.

Classical music is passe, fussy, formal, confining, prissy, closed and irrelevant.

Liberace is the limp-wristed hood ornament on the classical piano vehicle in the public's unconscious mind's eye.

Elton John, despite the funny eyeglasses and the husband, has us humming the tunes rather than rolling our eyes.

Relevant to what???? Most of it may be relevant for the moment - but it quickly becomes passe, largely forgotten, and replaced by something else with a similarly short lifespan. That's why I personally don't follow it anymore.

Sure, whatever - but it seems to have great "staying" power amongst those who make the effort to understand and appreciate it.

Society has changed dramatically (did I say DRAMATICALLY ?) since the 1950's. As timed marched on, even Liberace became more flamboyant and over the top in his public persona - without losing his appeal to general audiences. And, anyway, the "public" that you are referring to is dying off - and most young folks today don't even have a clue who Liberace was.