Learning to play the piano

[Edwin]

I usually do this and look at email and facebook, sometimes, before Carol wakes up. She says that my piano playing does not bother her, at one time it did, I think when I had less skill, not that I am perfect now! But, after she got up I went in and sat down at the piano, but I could only play 4 songs before I lost feeling in my right hand. Because I broke it in a horse accident when I was 21 years old I have loss of feeling/sensation in my right hand after I use a shove, bar, or split wood. Sometimes it keeps me from sleeping at night, but usually I am more affected by not being able to play the piano. Even typing on the keyboard as I am doing now affects it, but not as bad as playing the piano. I think it has to do with the way I have to spread my fingers, and move my wrist while I am playing the piano.

[Edwin]

After Carol wakes up in the morning I usually play the piano while she is fixing breakfast, but with my experience with my hand during the night I knew that I would lose feeling right away if I tried to play, so I refrained from playing. In a few days my digging will be finished and then I will be back to playing the piano. I will be laying cinder blocks to build the wall, but I don't think that will affect my hand like digging, using the rock bar and the hammer does!

[Edwin]

This past Sunday someone actually played the piano, and it sounded so good! He was a fellow substitute teacher with me, and I also played with him in the Okanogan Valley Orchestra; he played a French Horn, and I played my Trombone. He also played the piano a few years ago for Carol when she had a CD recorded with her hymn singing on it. It was really good, and many people have enjoyed listening to her singing those hymns.

I just finished playing on the piano two songs. One of them, an old favorite was "I Love to tell the Story." The other one was "The Rock that is Higher Than I." It is so uplifting to play those old church songs! It makes me feel really good after I play them!

[Edwin]

Well, now I will be back to playing the piano in my spare time. My hand will not lose feeling/sensation for a while anyway. Block laying might be hard on my hand, I don't know because I have never done it, but it might not either. Anyway from now on my time is not going to be consumed with digging! This is the hardest job I have ever done in my life, and I have had some hard jobs, farm/ranch, sawmill, and so on. I never realized hard pan and rocks could be so hard to deal with!

[Edwin]

Now that I am finished with the main part of the digging in the cellar, I am back to playing the piano more. I just finished playing out of "New Songs for Service," actually I played all except for one song that was beyond my ability to play. I could have played it, but I would have had to pick out each note in the complicated chords, and I was tired, so I skipped it! It had very good songs in it that were fun to play! The book was dated 1929, by Homer A. Rodeheaver. The book I am playing out of now was dated 1915, and was a Presbyterian church hymn/song book. I think I have played about 10 songs out of it so far, and I like the old music a lot! Some of the songs: "All People That on Earth Do Dwell," "O Day of Rest and Gladness," "Awake, My Soul, and with the Sun," "As the Sun Doth Daily Rise," "Again the Morn of Gladness," "Jesus, We Love to Meet," "Come, My Soul, Thou Must Be Waking," "Day Is Dying in the West," "Savior, Again to Thy Dear Name We Raise," "Sun of My Soul, Thou Savior Dear." Some of these songs I have never heard, but they are fun to play anyway, and experience what people were singing in church many years ago! Fun, Fun, Fun!

[Edwin]

Well, I finished playing the songs out of the 1915 Presbyterian Church Song/hymnal book. Now I am playing out of a 1975 Baptist Chruch Song/Hymnal book! Many of the first songs were really old ones, and a few were from the 1960s and 70s. I looked through the book quickly, and it has many wonderful songs, so I am pressing forward with anticipation! I play all the songs with very few exceptions, and now I have just finished playing the Christmas songs. It is fun and very uplifting! I am reminded each time I play through a church hymn/song book that I need to be able to play better than I do, but I will get there. I have finished my digging in the cellar, so I am back to playing the piano a lot, and that is fun and uplifting!

[Edwin]

When I am 3/4s finished with my walking the sun is setting. I actually finished after sun down, but I can still see the ground well enough to be safe. As I see the sun going down I am reminded of that song, and I sing the lines I can remember, "The setting sun is sinking low, a few more days, and I must go, to meet the deeds done in the flesh, the setting sun, is sinking low!" I know I have the music to that song in one of my books and eventually I will find it, then I can remember what the other words to that song are!

[Edwin]

I am getting into some beautiful old hymns/songs of the church in the Baptist Hymnal that I am playing out of! The ones that I am getting ready to play are "Who at My Door Is Standing," and "Ye Must Be Born Again." Some I have finished playing in recent pages are "Let Jesus Com into Your Heart," "Out of My Bondage, Sorrow, and Night," "I Am Resolved," "Pass Me Not, O Gentle Savior," "I Hear Thy Welcome Voice," "Lord, I'm Coming Home," "No, Not Despairingly," "Jesus, Lover of My Soul," "There's a Wideness in God's Mercy," "He Included Me, ""Whosoever" Meaneth Me," "Free from the Law, O Happy Condition," to name a few, and they are wonderful old church songs!

[Edwin]

The piano is really happy that I am back to playing it. It is my smaller, spinnet piano. The large upright Steinway Grand has 3 notes within two octaves that don't play, so I need to have some work done on it, so that I can play it again. It was built in 1872, and I was told it is fragile. I do have a heavy touch on the piano keys, but I don't pound, so it should hold up, but the piano turner/tech. told me that it needs to be rebuilt. The only way that will happen is if I take some classes and learn to rebuild it myself, because rebuilding this piano would cost more than I could ever afford to pay! I planned to learn to work on pianos, but that got put on the back burner, but maybe soon, who knows. I have my spinnet that I could practice on, and then I have another upright in my reefer trailer that plays okay, but it needs work done on it, and that would be a good piano to practice working on. Maybe this winter I might start learning to work on pianos. I am just dreaming for now, but you never know, I might just do that!

[Edwin]

I am a little past page 300 in the Baptist church hymn/song book. Many of them are wonderful old hymns/songs. Some of them have unison written above the song, and when they are unison, I, as a rule, don't play them as well. The melody and harmony on those songs are different. Some of them have somewhat complicated chords. I play those chords with other songs, but it is difficult at this point to read complicated chords. I guess I am admitting that my skill level is still not high, but I am doing okay. Many of the songs that have unison written above the music have less than melodic sounds, often times those sounds clash. If they don't sound right to me, they are more difficult to play, because I feel like I have played wrong notes, even when I play what is written. One day I will be able to play any of them proficiently, but I am not there yet!