the confidence of youth

Glad I wasn't the only one in the mist Gaggi

I must not be very perceptive as any Brexit theme at the beginning of this thread completely passed me by - what was all that about?

Good story, Elena I've seen those keyboards, and that's why we sold ours for next to nothing.
There are many pianos for sale on ebay etc but no-one ever seems to bid for them.
Another problem is the cost of transport, keyboards are so light. But they don't have the quality or range of tone that a good piano has.

We are looking to buy GD a new digital piano, they do not have room for an upright. I spent a long time yesterday doing research and listening to various models, I had music in my brain all night

Thread has put me in mind of this.......!

g.co/kgs/NqfE6a

It’s true you don’t even have to play a piano these days. I was in a music shop in York and they had some wonderful electronic pianos. There was a white Yamaha grand with a five figure price tag. I said to the assistant “Do you sell many of these?” “Well”, he said, “we sold one recently to someone who couldn’t play a note. He just programmes it to play for his dinner guests.” I mumbled something about a CD player being cheaper, but it takes all sorts.

All this talk about pianos made me think,about 10 years ago when I was 60,I told my husband I'd like a keyboard for Christmas,he said " it will end up in the loft"After an initial stab at it,that's where it ended up.Untill one day I had a brainwave,I had an idea that I could go around to all the old people's homes and play for them.As you could just key in the tune or song,and touch any key and it would play.There are lots of homes within a 10 mile radius from where we live.So I duly approached them and regularly visited 6or 7.
I just charged expenses.I enjoyed entertaining them.
Then one day as I arrived the nurse said" one of our ladies is a retired concert pianist"and she would like to do a duet.OMG my heart was thumping!Oh, I mumbled I don't do duets!I went through my usual repatoiur,She eyed me suspiciously," you have a very unusual style my dear" she said.I fled never to return?

Oh, I'm sorry to hear that Fennel
That must limit the things you can do, especially if you were right handed.

Jalima wrote
"Are you going to buy something to replace it after you've moved Fennel?"
I doubt it, although I'd love to. I have a physical problem due to damage to my right shoulder when I fell a few years back.
It never really healed and I've lost most of the strength in my right arm and hand. Left side has taken over.

I did a fair amount of improvised piano shifting when I was in my teens and twenties, 50-odd years ago.

I got up to Grade 4 with my one and only piano teacher, then the poor man died. But by then I'd got the skills to tackle a big range of music.
As a teenager I had a book of Fats Waller songs (anyone remember?)
I had an email from the young man who bought the piano to say he got home safely - 250 miles each way!

DD's piano teacher has retired now but for a few years before she did retire a good proportion of her students were adults.

It’s an expensive business these days, learning to play the piano. I started to learn again when we stopped globe trotting and bought our first house. I got to grade 5 and came to the conclusion that I wasn’t going to get any better than that, and I may as well save the thirteen pounds fifty per half hour that it was costing me. Totted up over a year, it amounted to a goodly sum. When I started, it had been ten pounds. I liked my piano teacher. We got on okay except for when I told him that I didn’t care for Mozart much. I thought he was going to throw me out of the house bodily!!

Three years of weekly lessons and an hours practice every evening and I still can't play. The teacher was very nice but the old style of teaching music that I did not know was never going to work.

merlotgran's reference to a milk float reminded me of a house move when I was a teenager. We were moving across the road to what had been a very old village pub. Our piano was extremely heavy so neighbours were enlisted to haul it across the road on a farmer's milk float, heaved it up the front steps and down a creaky wooden floored passage to what we called 'the end place'. It was a few days later that dad discovered that the passage was suspended above the beer cellar and was propped up by a rotten pillar - he said that his blood ran cold when he thought of what could have ensued.

I never got beyond 'In an English Country Garden' - and my piano teacher didn't believe in exams either. So I didn't even get Grade 1.

Ok I've read from the beginning and still don't get it! Who said what and why are folk getting annoyed. I'm either very naive or simply a bit thick!

So hope the piano arrived in one piece and that his girlfriend loves it.

Jalimal108
My piano lessons were wasted too. My teacher was a b*** and would let me carry on and take my mothers money knowing I would never make Carnegie.

Hear hear Fennel.

And who can forget Morecambe and Wise with Mr Preview?

Rather like me, playing all the right notes - but not necessarily in the right order.

Surely Laurel and Hardy did the definitive demonstration of how not to move a piano in 'The Music Box'? Including taking it the more difficult way round like your young neighbours, Chewbacca!

I know a gentleman who was given piano lessons by his stern Scottish grandmother when he was a little boy. He hated them and gave up as soon as he could.

He recently decided to start learning again and has been having lessons. He passed his grade 1 with flying colours and is enjoying grade 2. He will be 70 next birthday!

Yes indeed, she's a lucky girl!

Are you going to buy something to replace it after you've moved Fennel?

Bought myself a baby grand when I retired. Got it home myself, seller helped me lift it in and my hubby helped me lift it out.
I can only imagine how happy his girlfriend is going to be. What a gift and what thoughtful young man.

varian If that wasn't what you meant, why the unpleasant comment?
You could just apologise if you did not mean to be unpleasant but you are being a bit disingenuous.
I would always encourage young people to be optimistic. There are too many 'what if' people in the UK - it is the one thing that I prefer about the US - but people need encouragement and to know that failing is not the end of the world.