Fyrewurks

I couldn’t sleep this morning – I was wide awake at 4:00 and couldn’t get back.  I tried the usual plane crash daydreams but to no avail… so I thought it was the perfect opportunity to start my new regime. I’d been planning to make some changes this week anyway and was falling behind, so [...]

If you’re getting back into piano after a ten-year break, don’t try to jump back in with Liszt’s Hungarian Rhapsody #2.  (No matter how much you really really want to play it). No one plays this like Horowitz.

Back when I was going to college, there was this bizarre guy there – didn’t fit into any social niche whatsoever (which is typically appealing) – in fact, the best words I can think of to describe him are “disheveled” and perhaps “disquieting.”  Anyway, once a friend of mine told me that he was in [...]

…practice, practice, practice! The old joke couldn’t be more true, though.  Since I started taking piano lessons again last Thursday, I’ve realized that as much as I love to play, despite that love I can still fall into the pitfalls that only self-discipline can cure. I hear all these beautiful songs and I want to [...]

It’s been nine years since I really played piano; I stopped taking lessons and took a break when I was pregnant with my daughter and now that she’s older and I have some extra time (especially if I get up at four in the morning), I’m going to start playing again – and I am [...]

The Van Cliburn Foundation recently introduced a YouTube Competition for Amateurs in which the winner will win an automatic entry into the sixth International Piano Competition for Outstanding Amateurs in 2011. You see, I have a keen interest in the competition because I have a fantasy of entering it.  And that’s why it was unsettling when I realized that [...]