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It certainly is. But after almost 1000 posts in two months we still know nothing about you other than 1) you live in NYC, 2) own a Steinway, and 3) like classical music.

We know that he loves novelty threads and Chopin. haha

I suppose many meaningful online relationships have been built on less than that ......

However - I prefer to have discussions with real people.

Hello I am a new member, I am originally from Austria and have started to play the piano when I was elven. I have been lurking around on this forum for some time. I especially love the wise quotes, they give me inspiration and encourage me with the piano playing. Because our family has been moving around so much during my childhood, I wasn't able to play very regularly. Two years ago, I joined the orchestra of my university for a one-off performance, however, the concert didn't go very well. I felt I had let down everybody in the orchestra. I stopped playing for a year, but finally got over it. I decided to take a teacher, and I am so glad that I did continue to play. Now I have improved much more and gained my confidence back.

My goal is to able to play the piano at a professional standard, and my ultimate wish is to be able to play the Goldberg Variations. My dad loves them and since I was a little kid, I had listen to them. In recent years, I have come to appreciate them much more, and they are part of me already.

What, do you think I'm a robot or something?


And Beethoven, and Rachmaninoff. Those are probably my top 3 ATM.

(I didn't know what ATM meant until yesterday, when I looked it up in my new Texting Dictionary of Acronyms. )

Welcome to the forums !! Glad you've started playing again and have regained your confidence. Some of us here have had similar experiences - and the best thing to do is learn from them and keep moving forward.

666th post.

667th post!!

I'm a returning amateur pianist, having played from age 7 to 17, and then off and on after that; mostly off. Now I've got nice Yamaha grand. What got me back was a piece by Philip Glass, 'Opening'. It's so simple that, once memorized, you can't forget it, and I would use it to try out the occasional piano encountered along the way. Finally realized that when a piece stays with you for 35 years, it's trying to tell you something. Now I'm finishing up his etudes. I play every day, sometimes for hours.

Hey! I'm a high-school pianist from Canada currently working on my ARCT. I began to take piano lessons at 8 and was working on my grade ten at 13. However I got bored of classical music at that point and spent a bunch of years just writing really bad techno music and playing rock and pop. A few years ago I decided to get back into it. I did my grade 10 exam in December and I'm taking a couple months' break to learn jazz. Come summer, I will begin serious preparations for my ARCT, which I guess will have to include some history exams which I am not looking forward to.

I love romantic era classical music especially- chopin, some debussy, liszt, schubert, and rachmaninoff and some of his contemporaries. There are only two types of classical music I don't enjoy: atonal (like barber) and Bach (yes, I know... he's very acclaimed and his music is complex and stuff. But I can't stand it. At least, not on the piano.) Right now I'm working on Chopin's Scherzo in B minor, Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata, and Liszt's 'Un Sospiro.' if you have tips on these, feel free to let me know about those, via PM or whatever else.

I teach piano, and I also play guitar, cello, harmonica, drums, clarinet, djembe, ukelele and voice.

Oh yeah and I'm Canadian.

A lot of students go through these phases.


Are you working with a teacher still?




You'll grow out of the Bach-hating phase. I went through it too.

Barber's tonal! Just listen to his Adagio for Strings, or Violin Concerto if you want to hear his rich melodic gift. The piano sonata and concerto are more jarring, but overall are quite tonal. You might like the 4th movement of his piano sonata!

Do you have enough experience to teach?

Guitar, cello, harmonica, drums, clarinet, djembe, ukelele, and voice - quite a list! Maybe you'd be interested in seeing the score for my newly written Double Concerto, for Djembe, Ukelele, and Orchestra?

Did you know that you made 8 capitalization errors in just that little excerpt?

I love the works of all those composers as well, or at least most of their output. Are you into people like Mozart or Haydn at all? I imagine you don't enjoy Scarlatti, since you don't like Bach (that will - hopefully - change). How about Beethoven?

Hi pepz!

I only got into classical music two years ago and my piano playing is an astounding grade zero. But that didn't diminish my interest in classical music, especially piano pieces.

Anyway I will be starting a thread in this section hoping to discuss Vladimir Horowitz's varied tone colours. Hope to hear from u guys soon!

Cheers,
Blue Ranger

Another person who doesn't call them songs! We're making progress!

BTW, I discovered today that iTunes calls absolutely anything a song. I uploaded some language-study stuff from CD's -- and it called them "songs."

As I've said, we're fighting a losing battle.
If we choose to fight it, which I don't much.

Lol. A battle? Anyway, just for laughs, I got struck by a philosophical question along the lines of "if a man makes a mistake in a forest without women around, did he still make a mistake?"

So, if Glenn Gould called a "piece" a "song", is there still any mistake?

Hello, everyone. Poopsie is my nickname and I discovered this site and appreciated the questions and tips I got from it. I have been playing the piano for years, and have held recitals when I was a teen-ager. Unfortunately, I pursued a different career. Across the years and therefore never developed my gift to the hilt.

I am now 53 and opted to go back to really intensive practice, and after a few months, I have improved. I like the effects of playing piano on my blood sugar as I am diabetic for many years, and going back to the instrument has indeed have had profound wonders in lowering down my blood sugar and relaxing me (in support of meds of course).

I look forward to interacting with great musicians here and learn from everyone as well as contribute my own two bits worth.

Hi fellow pianists!

I am Francis Smith, have been playing piano for at least 29 years (the early 1980s when I was still a young child).

The fact that I can play the piano at all is a miracle, considering I was born with no ears at all (and other craniofacial deformities, due to Treacher Collins syndrome). God gave me the ear for music anyway!

I was classically trained in piano by two wonderful teachers throughout my childhood and adolescence (1984-1993).

The piano I grew up with and learned to play on was my family's 1914 Hobart M. Cable upright grand (made in Elkhart, IN, not too far from my home city of Fort Wayne). Since 2008, it has been on permanent loan to a family friend of ours, since I moved away to London (UK) in 2004 and my mom sold our family home in 2008.

Since I moved to Calgary, Alberta, in 2012, I now own a 1962 Heintzman conservatory model upright, which I had totally professionally refinished and stained in a gorgeous green stain (with an airbrushed painting of my green violin on the front music desk panel). This unique green piano now resides with me in my downtown Calgary high-rise apartment.

I also play the violin; I found a green violin in Hobgoblin Music shop in central London in 2005 and taught myself to play it.

Francis Smith