Whew. I thought being able to read music would help but no such luck. Looks like thge key of G with a C# accidental for a little trip into D. Moonlight Sonata maybe?
Wishing you an artistic day.
I believe you're right, Pixi...When I was in High School my mother finally got a piano. She had played when she was young, and she was able to sit down and play again immediately. I had the same love of music she did, but I didn't have time to take piano lessons. She said she thought I could pick it up on my own, and she showed me the proper fingering to do. I knew treble clef because I was a flute player, but she had to help me to learn bass clef. The first song I learned to play (besides "Chopsticks") was "Moonlight Sonata." (I was ambitious! ) Since I really couldn't just look at the music and play automatically, I decided to memorize it, one measure at a time. It took me about a year, but I did it! I could play it, with great feeling, from beginning to end with my eyes closed! It was the only song I ever learned...I got married after my first year of college, and we never could afford a piano...sniff...
Anyway...all this to say this song does look like it could be from Moonlight Sonata!
pixipixil
Jan 15, 2016
Maybe you could get a piano free. Sometimes people give them away. I have one that is so old the pedals are half worn off. We went into a piano store basement to look at the cheapest ones they had and this one was sooo ugly but it had keys that weren't stiff and a good tone in all registers.
It ended up costing $1000 because of the price to move it. It's a mahogany upright and weighs a ton.
I memorized a Bach Prelude in G. It's only a page long but fun and flashy. My hands won't reach the arpeggios in the Moonlight.
I think memorizing is the key to learning to play. Your fingers need to go fast to get it and your head won't go fast enough when you are still learning to read.
JoyceRogers
Jan 15, 2016
I haven't had the best of luck in pianos. We once found a really inexpensive one in an ad in the paper. It looked beautiful on the outside and had the most beautiful bench with it. It was horribly out of tune, but I knew a piano tuner, so we bought it. When the tuner came to tune it, we found out why it was so cheap. The entire soundboard had pulled away from the back of the piano. It couldn't be tuned! We had to pay to have it hauled away to a place that reused old piano parts.I gave the beautiful bench to my Preacher's wife.
My mother's piano remained with my father after she passed away. It was never played, but it stayed in beautiful condition. I asked if I could have it after my dad remarried, but my stepmother said she'd always wanted to take lessons. She never did, and the piano remained un-played. After she died of cancer and Dad was in the throes of Alzheimer's, he was in an Assisted Living home. We needed to sell his house, but my sister and brother and I all lived in different states. My stepmother's sister decided to 'help us out' by selling all of his furniture and MY PIANO at rock bottom prices. She never asked if anyone wanted any of it because she figured it would cost too much to ship it home. I was heartbroken. And now, with my hands hurting all the time, and it hurts my back to sit up for too long, and my memory is too shot to memorize anything (! )...there's no way I could even play a piano now anyway. Oh well, opportunities lost...
pixipixil
Jan 16, 2016
I feel your disappointment and frustration. I have been so lucky to get so many of the things I always wanted and yet suddenly I find myself too old for things to matter any more. It seems I struggled for years to be good at this and excel at that only to find I couldn't (piano) or no one would give me a good position or chance or maybe I was just wrong in thinking I had done things well. I sold a few paintings and sang (paid if poorly) for church and that's all I got from 3 degrees and much work. Then my son...I feel like a total failure but I have to remind myself I wasn't put here to succeed at earthly things. I only hope Jesus takes me in when the time comes. I haven't done lots wrong but I haven't done much good either.
My aunt had a piano she promised to me but I bought the one I have and then she died and we sold the other one since I didn't need two. ( I needed one before she died as I was taking a music degree. ) I'm sorry you never got your mother's.
JoyceRogers
Jan 16, 2016
Pixi, it sounds like you have a lot of regrets in life. I'm sure you have a lot of blessings, too. Just remember that Jesus can forgive anything! Now you just need to forgive yourself! I've been there, too. I feel like I've spent my life trying to please others, and now none of those people seem to remember any of the good things I did. But I know that Jesus remembers them! So I don't have to worry about it anymore. About the piano, I too am realizing that I need to pare down my earthly belongings, so the piano is one less thing to worry about! I have saved so many things that I thought my children would like to have, but I asked, and no one seems to want them. One of my sons is dreaming about moving his family to Hawaii someday, so they are paring down their belongings so they don't have much to move. The other son and his wife have very "modern" taste, and nothing I own would look good in their home. Well, I'm glad I had a chance to enjoy them while I'm here, and maybe if I sell everything, it'll pay for me to live out my life in a nice nursing home! ;)
pixipixil
Jan 17, 2016
Oh Joyce, I am sorry you have to do that. Lately people who have moved into retirement homes (not even nursing homes) have been inviting us to visit theirs. No matter how lovely they are I find it depressing. I hope when you do move you will find one that is uplifting.
I know what you mean about thankless.When I first got our son (adopted) we had a big farmhouse and very little money. I supplemented my husband's salary doing free-lance art which helped and was necessary, but we never had extra money to put in the bank. His sister who had helped raise him because his mother was very ill, had been asked to leave the convent she had joined. My husband thought it would help me have more time to do artwork if his sister (whom he considered a saintly woman and a great cook) were to live with us. We took her in and in spite of his family being large, no one offered any assistance. This sister took over my house. She did the cooking which gave my baby son diarrhea because she put vinegar in everything. She moved everything in the kitchen around so I couldn't find a thing. I thought "well she's cooking so I won't say anything. I'll just learn where she has everything."
It took 2 weeks until I got used to it but then she moved it all again. She would be up before breakfast and swab the kitchen with ammonia which stunk up the place so I politely asked her to wait until after breakfast because of the smell and she said, "It wouldn't stink if you bought scented ammonia instead of this cheap brand." She had hand allergies so she had to wear $7 lined rubber gloves and she ran through a pair a week. In 1980 that was a lot of money to us. I never complained. I just bought them. My husband asked me to take her to Mass so I did and we were on time but that wasn't good enough. She said, "If you can't get me there any earlier than that you might as well not take me at all." When she left in a huff because I got angry & yelled at her after telling her not to have my son in the bathroom with her when she was going to the toilet and she kept doing it right in my face, none of his sisters "had room" to take her so she ended up in another sister-in-law's house and drove the poor woman to tranquilizers. She was back with us the following summer. No one ever said thank you including her or my husband. One sister of hers found her an apartment across the street from a church which we all chipped in to help with on the rent. When she finally got too sick to live alone the same sister had found her a nursing home run by nuns and it was free. When she died another nun had a funeral the same day and all the nuns went to that one so I ended up singing her funeral. It made me smile to think how that probably annoyed her. She couldn't give that away to the thrift store like she did with 2 gifts I gave her.
I have seldom done anything "good" for anyone where the person was such that I felt good about it later. I usually felt angry and upset with myself as well for being angry. I just don't volunteer to do goog works any more. Seems I am just not the servant God needs for that.
I think it's wonderful you saved things for your children. As they do the same for theirs, they will look back in appreciation eventhough they didn't take the things you saved. I still have things I saved for my son. We will be cleaning them out eventually.
JoyceRogers
Jan 18, 2016
Pixi, my statement about selling everything so I could live in a nursing home was really said tongue-in-cheek! The truth of the matter is that I probably won't live long enough to need to move out of my own home (my mother died at age 58 and I'm in worse shape than she was)...my husband is doing a good job taking care of me now, and if need be, we would probably get some home health care. I actually think it would be fun to live in a retirement/assisted living home - with activities to do, all meals prepared for you, other people your own age to visit and make friends with, and even excursions (field trips! ) if you're able. It's like preschool for the elderly! My father was in one and he thoroughly enjoyed himself. I spent 6 weeks in a rehab center, and I made the most of it. If it weren't for the excruciating physical therapy, it would have been like summer camp!
As for all the family heirlooms I have saved for the kids, I'll just leave it all to them anyway, and when I'm gone they can figure out what to do with them. hee-hee! Payback!
Sounds like your sister-in-law was a very cantankerous woman! First hint...why was she thrown out of a convent??? :) I went through a very similar situation with my own brother. I rescued him out of prison (no, he's not dangerous -he was framed by some unsavory "friends" when he wouldn't give them his prescription pain pills) and took him into our home for nearly 10 years. He had had several botched back surgeries over the years and he is so addicted to pain meds that he can't function as a normal person. I thought I could help him get the help he needed. But there's such a thing as "Caregiver Complex" and he saw me as the enemy. He wouldn't take advice from his "little sister." He was a hoarder, and he caused a LOT of damage to our house and yard. I won't go into details because it would take too long! But most things he did could be interpreted as insanity! He started accusing me of lying to him and stealing from him. When he started threatening me, my husband made him move out. NO ONE WOULD TAKE HIM IN. He is now living in a commercial garage in the office area, and all of his "stuff" is in the garage part. All of his friends have abandoned him, and none of our extended family are willing to let him live with them after what he did to me. He now has to pay rent (he lived here rent-free), and he lives all alone with his cat who is on its ninth life. He can't eat anything but soft foods because of dental issues. He has a bathroom, but no shower or bathtub. He is still driving his truck around (when he can get out of bed) to stores and dr appts, and I fear for not only him but all the other people on the roads! I am worried sick for him. I call him every week or two, and we have the same exact conversation, because he can't remember anything I told him the week before. My sister and I spend hours on the phone lamenting over what to do with him. We both fear that we will get a call someday that he died alone and he was lying there for 2 weeks before he was found.
Have you ever considered how many thousands of people have been blessed by your music and art? Good deeds are not just organized activities where a group of people volunteer to do things that benefit others. Sometimes it's just in the way you live. It sounds to me like you are a pleasant person who loves those around her. You bless me and many others on this very site every time you post anything. I look for your name every day because I know you'll have something encouraging or humorous to say. God uses people right where they are to bless others!
pixipixil
Jan 18, 2016
Dear Joyce: I am so sad to hear of your health being so poor. I'm glad your husband takes good care of you and that you would not be sad to be in a retirement home if it came to that.
What you went through/are going through with your brother is so sad. Unfortunately the medicines we get these days solve one problem while causing another. My neighbor died when medicine for her heart destroyed her liver. It sounds like the pain meds have caused psychological imbalances in your brother. Since he won't take advice I doubt there's much more you can do than monitor him.
No doubt some day that phone call will come as it did with us, but never blame yourself. Ten years of living with him is much more than most anyone else could have done. The blame is with our healthcare system which no longer aids people with mental problems like his, and with the drug companies that push dangerous drugs onto the public.
You made me laugh about leaving the heirlooms to the kids anyway. :-D Eventhough they didn't take them now they'll probably fight over them then. Ahh the irony of it!
pixipixil
Jan 18, 2016
Forgot to thank you for understanding about my sister-in-law. My husband's family always said she was a saint but we in laws who tried to live with her could tell another story. After I told you I was worried you would think me unkind.
JoyceRogers
Jan 18, 2016
You? Unkind? Never! My brother can appear totally normal in front of others, and then his mask comes off in front of anyone who tries to tell him what to do. I totally understand!
This was hard it took me nearly 20 minutes to finish I am not into music notes but I do love my classical and country and western music. It has been a busy and upsetting week. I can't understand why people are so bossy, nosy, interfering and back stab behind your back. Some can't mind their own busy. We've been having hot weather, but today was cooler and it is climbing to 40 again. I sympathize all the Americans who are having it tough with their weather, snow, rain, floods, storms and so on. It must be dreadful and it is happening in England as well. Lift your spirits and ask God for help in answering whatever prayer you may have and he will guide you. God bless all. Tia from Sth Aussie.
I feel your pain, sweetie. Some people must not have any real troubles so they go around stirring up excitement. Others just never grew up; in their heads they're still in middle school, sittin' at the "cool kids" table and tearing everybody else down. All we can do is be glad we're us and not them.
Wishing you an artistic day.
Anyway...all this to say this song does look like it could be from Moonlight Sonata!
It ended up costing $1000 because of the price to move it. It's a mahogany upright and weighs a ton.
I memorized a Bach Prelude in G. It's only a page long but fun and flashy. My hands won't reach the arpeggios in the Moonlight.
I think memorizing is the key to learning to play. Your fingers need to go fast to get it and your head won't go fast enough when you are still learning to read.
My mother's piano remained with my father after she passed away. It was never played, but it stayed in beautiful condition. I asked if I could have it after my dad remarried, but my stepmother said she'd always wanted to take lessons. She never did, and the piano remained un-played. After she died of cancer and Dad was in the throes of Alzheimer's, he was in an Assisted Living home. We needed to sell his house, but my sister and brother and I all lived in different states. My stepmother's sister decided to 'help us out' by selling all of his furniture and MY PIANO at rock bottom prices. She never asked if anyone wanted any of it because she figured it would cost too much to ship it home. I was heartbroken. And now, with my hands hurting all the time, and it hurts my back to sit up for too long, and my memory is too shot to memorize anything (! )...there's no way I could even play a piano now anyway. Oh well, opportunities lost...
My aunt had a piano she promised to me but I bought the one I have and then she died and we sold the other one since I didn't need two. ( I needed one before she died as I was taking a music degree. ) I'm sorry you never got your mother's.
I know what you mean about thankless.When I first got our son (adopted) we had a big farmhouse and very little money. I supplemented my husband's salary doing free-lance art which helped and was necessary, but we never had extra money to put in the bank. His sister who had helped raise him because his mother was very ill, had been asked to leave the convent she had joined. My husband thought it would help me have more time to do artwork if his sister (whom he considered a saintly woman and a great cook) were to live with us. We took her in and in spite of his family being large, no one offered any assistance. This sister took over my house. She did the cooking which gave my baby son diarrhea because she put vinegar in everything. She moved everything in the kitchen around so I couldn't find a thing. I thought "well she's cooking so I won't say anything. I'll just learn where she has everything."
It took 2 weeks until I got used to it but then she moved it all again. She would be up before breakfast and swab the kitchen with ammonia which stunk up the place so I politely asked her to wait until after breakfast because of the smell and she said, "It wouldn't stink if you bought scented ammonia instead of this cheap brand." She had hand allergies so she had to wear $7 lined rubber gloves and she ran through a pair a week. In 1980 that was a lot of money to us. I never complained. I just bought them. My husband asked me to take her to Mass so I did and we were on time but that wasn't good enough. She said, "If you can't get me there any earlier than that you might as well not take me at all." When she left in a huff because I got angry & yelled at her after telling her not to have my son in the bathroom with her when she was going to the toilet and she kept doing it right in my face, none of his sisters "had room" to take her so she ended up in another sister-in-law's house and drove the poor woman to tranquilizers. She was back with us the following summer. No one ever said thank you including her or my husband. One sister of hers found her an apartment across the street from a church which we all chipped in to help with on the rent. When she finally got too sick to live alone the same sister had found her a nursing home run by nuns and it was free. When she died another nun had a funeral the same day and all the nuns went to that one so I ended up singing her funeral. It made me smile to think how that probably annoyed her. She couldn't give that away to the thrift store like she did with 2 gifts I gave her.
I have seldom done anything "good" for anyone where the person was such that I felt good about it later. I usually felt angry and upset with myself as well for being angry. I just don't volunteer to do goog works any more. Seems I am just not the servant God needs for that.
I think it's wonderful you saved things for your children. As they do the same for theirs, they will look back in appreciation eventhough they didn't take the things you saved. I still have things I saved for my son. We will be cleaning them out eventually.
As for all the family heirlooms I have saved for the kids, I'll just leave it all to them anyway, and when I'm gone they can figure out what to do with them. hee-hee! Payback!
Sounds like your sister-in-law was a very cantankerous woman! First hint...why was she thrown out of a convent??? :) I went through a very similar situation with my own brother. I rescued him out of prison (no, he's not dangerous -he was framed by some unsavory "friends" when he wouldn't give them his prescription pain pills) and took him into our home for nearly 10 years. He had had several botched back surgeries over the years and he is so addicted to pain meds that he can't function as a normal person. I thought I could help him get the help he needed. But there's such a thing as "Caregiver Complex" and he saw me as the enemy. He wouldn't take advice from his "little sister." He was a hoarder, and he caused a LOT of damage to our house and yard. I won't go into details because it would take too long! But most things he did could be interpreted as insanity! He started accusing me of lying to him and stealing from him. When he started threatening me, my husband made him move out. NO ONE WOULD TAKE HIM IN. He is now living in a commercial garage in the office area, and all of his "stuff" is in the garage part. All of his friends have abandoned him, and none of our extended family are willing to let him live with them after what he did to me. He now has to pay rent (he lived here rent-free), and he lives all alone with his cat who is on its ninth life. He can't eat anything but soft foods because of dental issues. He has a bathroom, but no shower or bathtub. He is still driving his truck around (when he can get out of bed) to stores and dr appts, and I fear for not only him but all the other people on the roads! I am worried sick for him. I call him every week or two, and we have the same exact conversation, because he can't remember anything I told him the week before. My sister and I spend hours on the phone lamenting over what to do with him. We both fear that we will get a call someday that he died alone and he was lying there for 2 weeks before he was found.
Have you ever considered how many thousands of people have been blessed by your music and art? Good deeds are not just organized activities where a group of people volunteer to do things that benefit others. Sometimes it's just in the way you live. It sounds to me like you are a pleasant person who loves those around her. You bless me and many others on this very site every time you post anything. I look for your name every day because I know you'll have something encouraging or humorous to say. God uses people right where they are to bless others!
What you went through/are going through with your brother is so sad. Unfortunately the medicines we get these days solve one problem while causing another. My neighbor died when medicine for her heart destroyed her liver. It sounds like the pain meds have caused psychological imbalances in your brother. Since he won't take advice I doubt there's much more you can do than monitor him.
No doubt some day that phone call will come as it did with us, but never blame yourself. Ten years of living with him is much more than most anyone else could have done. The blame is with our healthcare system which no longer aids people with mental problems like his, and with the drug companies that push dangerous drugs onto the public.
You made me laugh about leaving the heirlooms to the kids anyway. :-D Eventhough they didn't take them now they'll probably fight over them then. Ahh the irony of it!
God bless you all and may He fill your heart with His eternal song.