Tory The Four Legged Turkey

This is a picture of Tory, the four-legged turkey that spent Thanksgiving  with us in 2004. 

Tory was a memorable bird who also took a very nice picture, wouldn't you say?

Anyway, this old bird has quite a story. If you enjoy a good story,

Click Here, (you won't be disappointed).

A Williams Sonoma Thanksgiving Planner

Here is my favorite Thanksgiving planner. It was published by Williams Sonoma in 2000 and has been my Thanksgiving Buddy ever since. It is just chock full of useful information that works year after year. It begins with a menu and ends with a checklist. In between there are preparation tips, all the recipe's, and lots of information about turkeys. 

Click here to view this great Thanksgiving planner.

Wendy Vo With Just Four Years of Study

Wendy Vo, an eight year old Vietnamese girl, started her musical study at age four. Take a look at this video of her playing Tico Tico. I think she has been very diligent about practicing.

Wendy is pretty extraordinary and got a nice write-up in Forbes, in an article entitiled "10 Role Models 18 And Under".  She's fun to watch and will probably be fun to follow. Isn't it amazing what we are capable of doing?

Musical Toys

They say the only difference between men and boys is the price of their toys. And if they haven't, its about time somebody did! I gathered some pictures of my Kawai CP451 and my Wurlitzer 4520, along with my son Robert's favorite guitars, and uploaded them to a Picassa Web Album, and here is the link: Instrument Slides
I wanted to do something with a slide show because my Blogger classmate, Selah, has lots of photos she wants to share. She has a very well written blog going. It makes for quite interesting reading. Click here to view it.

Wurlitzer 4520. From roadhouse to my house
and now needing a new home.

Now then, about these instruments, Pictured above is a Wurlitzer 4520 that was made in the 1970s and still has that wonderful Wurlitzer sound with all voices, keys and pedals in perfect working order. 4520 was my first real buddy before I hooked up with CP175, discussed in Current Piano Musings.
The other instruments in the slide show belong to my son, Robert, who is an actual performing bass guitarist.

Robert and Baxter

Baxter

1962 Fender Bass

Robert calls the Fender bass, Robby Jr. because it is the same age as he is. 

He also has a Baxter and a traveling bass and lots of other stuff that I don't know anything about.

Summer Players, Summer Not

It always fascinates me to watch a good piano player. They have this gift of being able to use their hands to express their emotions. To some it comes naturally. To others not so much. I am in the latter category. More than that, I'm more of an autumn player and maybe even a winter player. Still, I'm grateful for what I can do at a piano.

When you watch someone play, it looks really easy. So people say to themselves “I’d like to do that. Maybe I should take a couple of lessons.” Then they take a few lessons and discover that it takes more than just attending a class. They discover that they have to work at learning how to do it. Then they think they would rather do something else at that time. Then they forget about it. There’s nothing wrong with that. It’s just human nature. We try a thing to see if it's right for us and if it isn’t, we move on.

So here is what I think is the big secret about learning to play piano in the summer of our lives… 

You just have to love it!

If you love it, you’ll make time for it. The exercises won’t be boring and it won’t even be work. You’ll practice, and you’ll love the practice. You’ll keep practicing and you’ll keep getting better and you’ll love it even more. And the next thing you know you’ll be saying what you’ve always wanted to be able to say… “I can play!”

No matter what the season, just being able to say that, will make you feel pretty doggone good.