[email protected]

In a message dated 10/7/2003 11:25:52 AM Central Daylight Time,
[email protected] writes:


>
> There are little wooden ocarinas too.
>
> I have one of the "potato" ocarinas from the 1970's. Blue-glazed clay,
> kinda
> gourd-or-small-turnip shaped. And I have a little rosewood ocarina that
> hangs on a string around the neck, and a plastic knock-off of the rosewood
> ones.
>
>

I have one shaped like a penguin made of glazed porcelain. There's a woman
near Portland who makes ocarinas in a zillion animal shapes. I fell in love.
She also sells cool little cheater songbooks. www.eaglecrestarts.com

While we're on the subject of music, I wanted to say that I've finally gotten
around to learning piano. (We discussed adult unschooling instruments a year
or so ago, at my request.) I jump started my learning with a class offerred
at our community center called "Instant Piano for Hopelessly Busy People." 3
hours, 1 day, $45, didn't stand to lose much so I did it, even if it sounded
like an infomercial.

It was perfect for me: I can read treble clef and knew how to pick out tunes
with my right hand and this class taught chord style piano and taught how to
play chords with your left hand. So now I can figure out how to play things
out of fake books, I'm learning new chords little by little. I sit down for a
few minutes here and there and play. I'm very patient with myself and very
apprecieative of my progress.

I'm still in awe of the fact that there are so many people who can play this
instrument that requires you to do different things with each hand , without
really looking at your hands, while reading a foreign language (music). I
learned to play violin as a kid and I guess I did two different things with two
different hands while reading music too, but piano seems more complicated
somehow.

Pam T.


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Tia Leschke

>
> I'm still in awe of the fact that there are so many people who can play
> this
>instrument that requires you to do different things with each hand , without
>really looking at your hands, while reading a foreign language (music). I
>learned to play violin as a kid and I guess I did two different things
>with two
>different hands while reading music too, but piano seems more complicated
>somehow.


For me, it's having to play more than one note at a time. I still find it
hard to just look at a chord and play it the way I can look at one note and
play it. I guess you just end up memorizing the way the different chords
look written out, the way you memorize single notes and where they are on
the keyboard. I had a really neat book out of the library once, but I've
never been able to get it again. I think it was called The Way of the
Hand. I think it was jazz-oriented, and the idea was to connect the way
the chords looked on the page with the way the hand looked and felt playing
the chords.

I was always in awe of my grandfather, who could sight-read almost anything
at speed. He could even sight-read an orchestral score and pick out the
most important parts to play.
Tia

[email protected]

In a message dated 10/8/03 1:55:20 AM, warblwarbl@... writes:

<< I
learned to play violin as a kid and I guess I did two different things with
two
different hands while reading music too, but piano seems more complicated
somehow. >>

Piano's cool, though, because with four fingers you can make FOUR NOTES!!!
With recorder it can take seven or eight fingers to make ONE note!

Piano just seems much more energy efficient. <g>

Sandra