Tuesday, September 21, 2009 - First day of autumn

Well, I think it's finally dawning on me that summer is over for good, and now even the calendar says so. It was 81 yesterday here in Cleveland town, so it didn't feel like it, especially with the humidity and subsequent rains the last few days. We sure needed it, but the pianos didn't. In fact, they're being tuned today, and unless I close up the house and run a dehumidifier (which is on loan to someone else at the moment) it will be for naught. The grand I have stays in tune about a week, and I have the BEST tuner in town! That week is pretty glorious though, and I have recently restarted work on the 1st Chopin Ballade, a beast of a piece if I ever saw one. It isn't the most difficult for others, but for me, who hasn't really worked HARD on a piece since college, it's tough.

Here's a link to Horowitz playing it years ago - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XhnRIuGZ_dc
(Why isn't that underlined????) You'll have to copy and paste into youtube to see and hear it. It has the most exciting ending I can think of. Contrary motion octaves....some of you music students might know what that means. MYC students beyond Sunbeams 2 OUGHT to know what that means!!!

Gosh, as I listen to this, I don't know if I have the chops to play it anymore. Certainly not at this speed, but hey, I can do it for the enjoyment and exercise of it! No one said I have to perform it anywhere, right? Sometimes just the joy of working through a knotty run with fingering challenges is the point of it all. I certainly know how every measure and note should sound as I heard my father (William Buelow) practice it for hours when I was a child. In fact, I used to lay under the piano and pet the dog and listen. It was SO loud there, and the closest I could get to my daddy at that moment, since he was BUSY practicing at the time! It was wonderful. I know SO much music, but have no clue what it is or who wrote it, since I just heard it.

Anyway, if I knew ANYONE was reading this blog I might write more often. Now, it seems kind of pointless., except as a journal.....:-)

Hope you're ALL well.....

Waiting for the tuner,

Lori