Tag / piano

by Eileen 配仪

Piano repair found and lack of productivity this weekend.

So yay there is someone in the big wide world of Singapore who could fix the piano and he promised it would be good as new. I am rather looking forward to the good as new. I never actually experienced it good as new. I had sticky keys from day one and there was no one who could repair. Not even Kawai. The best was a few months ago when someone named AutumnWoods on carousell managed to fix some but not all of the problems. That was a significant improvement.

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I was rather unproductive this weekend. I was writing at home with cafe noises and classic FM on the radio. I was distracted by the need to make lunch, wash things in the sink and other chores. I managed about 450 words before kids returned home and I stopped.  I started only after they left in the morning for classes. I felt more productive in a room full of strangers and I completed 500 words a lot quicker.  What I didn’t really like was thinking that I was downing sugar (Hot Chocolate) or caffeine (can’t sleep with caffeine) at close to $8 a cup at a rather warm cafe. Perhaps it was the coffee or chocolate that drove the word count, not the room full of strangers

by Eileen 配仪

Funny thing, life.

Daily writing prompt
When you were five, what did you want to be when you grew up?
View all responses

It occurred to me that what I said I want to be, was merely a thing I did at 5. Being a pianist was one of them. I was indifferent to playing. My piano teacher heard this indifference. She also heard that I had no feelings to express and complained about it. The funny is, she heard me. This inner core that was the same from 11 to 50.

She put me to playing Bach after discovering that I could express Bach better than any other composers. It was a relief really, having to just execute the notes like an efficient typist. Mainly because there were less complaints, not that she stopped complaining.

I did eventually dislike practicing. I was beaten and shouted at over the piano a lot. So it’s a funny thing that 12 years ago or so, I went to buy a piano. I had no intention of wanting my kids to learn then. It was just a toy. I sing kids songs on it when they were small. The only closest use to actual music use was last year, for my daughter’s choir audition.

It stopped working a month ago. It wouldn’t turn on. I was ok until two repairers told me that there might not be parts.

My brain went into overdrive. There is absolutely no reason to replace it. I don’t play it more than 1 day a year. My daughter makes some songs with it but that’s about it. Yet, I want to replace it. The brain could not compute.

The funny thing about life is that at 5, this tiny person with a barely formed brain makes a decision – I want to be a pianist. And then at 50, despite having a logical thinking brain, this adult continues to (maybe) want to be a pianist.

It’s just like painting. An insurmountable mountain that I want to climb. Why? Maybe I just like suffering – who knows. I don’t care that it is a furniture for 364 days. Ok, likely way more. It’s just weird when it’s not there.