Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Pianist Corner Poll (sort of): Will the 'acoustic piano' become a relic?

Yes, let's not forget that. A piano (acoustic or otherwise) is just as happy gathering dust as getting pounded daily by a ham-fisted would-be virtuoso. Or being used as an over-sized tray, or as an objet d'art, to impress the snooty arty types.

Ideally, of course, a piano should have at least two purposes, just as all humans (not just of the fairer sex) should be able to multi-task. Life is too short to be single-tasking in today's frenetic age. So, my piano is used as a tray, to hold some of my voluminous volumes of music scores, stacked up high on either side of the music stand; it is getting pounded daily by a would-be ham-fisted virtuoso (me); and last but not least, it is also gathering dust (as I haven't dusted it since it arrived in my humble abode).

Not to mention that those same cultures that arrange marriages generally won't allow marriages to fall apart. Marriage statistics in such a culture are practically irrelevant. These people are culturally forced to accept their lot in life.

I don't care if some cultures claim that arranged marriages have their virtues or higher success rates - I think it's a basic human right and responsibility to choose one's own spouse. People should be able to take responsibility to determine their own destiny (regardless of whether half of them end in divorce). Whether or not a marriage hangs together is not the only thing at stake in marriage. There is freedom, risk and discovery in choosing your own spouse - and so there should be. We shouldn't view marriage as something that is locked in and guaranteed just because you manage to get somebody to sign on a dotted line. The relationship must promote growth and happiness, and if it can't be made to deliver that, it should fall apart.

Some relationships aren't meant to last forever - doesn't mean they don't function in highly significant ways to a person's life. We are on this earth to develop every bit as much as we are to live in a stable domestic home life. Most people who divorce or remarry are just as happy with how their life has gone as those who rigidly stuck to the one person their whole life and resented many things about that life.

No amount of "cultural" talk has ever convinced me otherwise on arranged marriages. It's a regressive step for humanity. Something from the dark ages. Controlling behaviour, impeding freedom, promoting class-based societies. Not for me. I'd take 50% failure rate of marriages in a free society over 100% success rate marriages in an arranged marriage society. The former allows personal growth, the second holds people by rules.

Anyway, anyone like pianos?

As long as they are two consenting adults, I don't see that it's any worse. Love is usually a passing notion. More hormones than anything else.



I see a lot of evidence that people want to marry for financial benefit. You can live with someone and "love" them without getting married. Just ask Goldie Hawn or Susan Sarandon.

Would you agree that maybe that's just one kind of love?

Yes... It's attraction. We all have it all the time. But the other kind of love.. Lasts for a long long time.

That can happen. I am hoping so.

Sure, but I wouldn't marry for the other kinds.

You would feel right at home in my city. Prostitution is legal by the act, by the minute, by the hour, by the day, you name it.

No marriage contract required to get a materially less well off partner to prostitute herself or himself in a longterm transactional relationship in exchange for money ...

Who is the arbiter of what is reasonable? Pianoloverus, I presume?

Your strong objection to others being allowed to express their value judgments regarding the Steinway-as-furniture motives of piano purchasers is itself a value judgment which you wish to impose on others here...

Quite unreasonable, if you ask me.

You mean by having it always at the ready to serve as a sideboard to set drinks on?

The piano was never played at parties (which occurred once per year, exactly). I don't know why - either she didn't invite anyone who played, or, if she did, they still didn't play it for some reason.

But then, AFAIK, she never had it tuned, either - who knows what it would have sounded like. It was a Steinway, if I remember my landlord's description of it correctly.

Where I live, there is a neighborhood magazine specifically catering to the wealthiest area of the city, and in it, the society column announcing engagements and marriages is called "Mergers and Acquisitions". Need I say more?

Here in the UK, well-heeled young women go to débutant parties organized by their parents where the rich and the good of both sexes get together to socialise, swap phone numbers.....and eventually marry. That way, they get the partners of the same standing in society (whatever that is), and none of the wrong class......

Going back to arranged marriages, there are a lot more problems than just incompatible partners and love (or lack of it). There is a very significant genetic problem because these arranged marriages aim to keep wealth etc within the 'family', which means first cousins often marry each other, leading to a very high incidence of genetic defects like microcephaly in their offspring. This is unfortunately very common in countries - and cultures - where arranged marriages are commonplace.

If you actually think using a piano to commit murder and using a piano as furniture are equally reasonable or equally unreasonable you are in a very tiny minority.

I have no objection to others being allowed to express their value judgments and never said anything like that. I said I disagreed with those those judgements which is totally different.

That was quite a leap. The only other kinds of love that I recognize are the kind one has for their parents or children, children being the closest to unconditional love. The kind of love that would have me seek out a prostitute is the same that would have me seek a wife. In my later years now I prefer to be a hermit. Your city holds no attraction for me.

Welcome to MarriageHome.com! (which actually is a site (up for sale) so don't click it!

Indeed. That was what I understood.

We seem to have very different ideas about the foundation upon which a healthy marriage should be built. I can understand why being a hermit might be preferable to such an arrangement.

You say now:

While you said before:


To strongly object to those who complain is not the same thing as strongly objecting to opinions held or values not shared.

We can't read your mind, we can only go on what you write here. And your words seem to be quite clear.

I think my words were clear as I originally wrote it and they meant what I said in my last post. When you put part of what I said in boldface you conveniently didn't boldface the rest of the sentence which completed the thought. If one objects to those who complain about something specific, that would normally mean one objects to what they said and not simply to the act of complaining.

I thought you might be leaning towards the idea of a "soul mate" which, in my book, puts you in unicorn-land. Companionship is perfectly legitimate but I don't equate that to love.

Just because you couldn't find it, or had it one day and lost it, doesn't mean it's not there. Obviously something bad has made you think this way, and I can only feel sorry for you.