NO EASY TASK TO MATCH STUDENT TO TEACHER: Finding Luxury Together!
"...it is no easy task to match up the right child with the right teacher, even with the best of intention." So says piano teacher Eloise...
Rhapsodydmb.com
Hello and welcome ...
A special wish for lovely, musical holidays!
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CALL FOR READERS of and possible blurbs for the
Advance Reader's Copy of Volume 3 "Poetical Musings
on Pianos, Music & Life." Thoughtful, ordinary, senior,
or amateur pianist folk sought. It is not necessary to be
poetic or performance-oriented.Choose Word doc.
via email or print copy of paperback via snailmail;
reply rhapsody.dmb@gmail.com Copy of final
published volume will be gifted in appreciation.
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I'm a dedicated, enthusiastic, amateur senior pianist, poet, feminist, and author of - "Poetical Musings on Pianos, Music & Life" -
Volume I and Volume II (Barnes & Noble*). Click navigation button "Poems" above or scroll down to read sample poems. You may hear me read "Little Gold Dress" here).
I encourage anyone to take up the study of the piano, listen to more music, and pursue your creative muse - at any age! At exactly the right time in my life I came back to my high school piano and lessons - after retirement following a 58-year gap to pursue a legal and then a fashion business career!
Now I'd like to connect with people, experiences, things - and music - that make my body come alive, my bones shake with laughter, my mind understand, and my soul and creativity take flight.
I'd also love to connect with those who support the inclusion of women as artists, music writers, and piano technicians, as well as those who believe that amateurs can be "serious" about their music love!
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My hope resides in another day, a new song, and perhaps you --
a new friend to join my email list, submit a Guest Blog, or meet in San Francisco, CA for coffee and to share our music love!
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Ann Grogan
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*Please shop at the link to Barnes & Noble; amazon.com has consistently gotten my two poetry book listings incorrect by - without authorization - reducing the price of Vol. I and failing to post the properly submitted cover image on Vol. II)
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My heart is often aflame in the pure delight of playing Rhapsody-Arabesque, DMB (The Duchess of Music & Bliss), my rebuilt and refinished Golden Age 1927 Steinway Model M, as I discover new or remembered Romantic era compositions by composers whom I deeply respect and admire.
On special occasions I enjoy the good fortune to attend a musical event such as the lovely, intimate music salon sponsored at Brani Piano Atalier by Groupmuse in early September featuring the pianist Ian Scarfe, or the San Francisco Symphony on June 2, 2023 to hear Beatrice Rana (pictured right on the marquee). She played my favorite piece by my favorite composer Rachmaninoff, "Rhapsody on a Theme by Paganini."
W
I hope you enjoy my latest blog:a"No Easy Task to Match Student and Teacher" (12.3.23) and recordings on this page of sweet romantic pieces by some of my favorite composers. And a warm thanks to musicologist, piano teacher & writer Frances Wilson for linking to my blog and experience in leaving a piano teacher.
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Where am I now? Home I think,
And waiting there all these years,
The tears I never cried from missing...
What? I do not know. I only know,
I’ve found it now, lost no more
But wrapped in shimmering, silver tissue wings,
Aloft, in flight, rising up, in love,
In music.
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"There is a harmony which underlies all endeavor, without which there is no true greatness in art or science.”
— Albert Einstein
"I absolutely loved this second volume of light-hearted poetry about playing the piano in maturity. "Andante" or "Allegro" particularly resonated as I try to live my life at an Andante tempo, while my brain tries to force Allegro upon me! And Grogan captures the state of flow at the piano with her poem "I Heard My Piano Play"
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"I heard her join in with what I played,
but speak in a different voice,
fuller and richer than I’d heard to date.
I completed the phrase, but in a haze,
wondering what I had heard?"
This is a great collection for older adults who brave the bench, and know what it is to love the piano, the process, the pain and the deepest pleasure."
- Gaili Schoen , composer and piano teacher; UpperHandsPiano.com
(drafted 10.1.23 as homework for a poetry class,
to write a poem using metaphor)
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Barbed wire, it ran true, the lines surveyed in advance,
carefully laid out ’til the fields were surrounded,
then as cattle wandered, they could only go so far
sans escape from the estate as was founded.
Wire kept them well in and protected his own;
to guard property is surely no sin,
what all owners should do for precious treasures—
secure them from marauders who want in.
A lass happened by one day on her stroll,
spied a fur baby asleep in the grass,
her heart leapt a mile as on her face came a smile,
but the fence stood between them – alack alas!
She wanted to play with the sweet babe that she saw,
but as she approached, her prospects grew dim:
the fence, evidently practical to protect material goods
denied pleasure with the baby locked in.
Her heart’s joy dimmed quickly, no gate was in sight,
no possibility of a personal connection,
no way to pursue the joy of full being
or experience all her senses to come.
The rancher sipped coffee, some 40 miles away,
felt her shadow shape fall on his paranoia,
then quickly pass by as the lass gathered her sass
and strolled on to open pastures she’d enjoy.
Atraxis
What will equal and surpass
a summer meadow’s wild flower bloom?
What does best a newborn’s cry
to indicate the happiest room?
What suffuses one’s every pore
causing neurons to fire in tandem,
quicker than the step heard round the world
of a real lover or his requiem?
What foretells pure pleasure from repast
or beyond music from an inspired duet,
or compels atraxis, momentary in kind, than –
the first bite of a French baguette?
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Prepping for My Party
It’s been well-nigh over a year
I got the crazed idea
to present a party for my eightieth
and make it my be-all.
So I set about ordering things
to decorate the hall
invited all my bestest friends--
the ones I could recall!
And then I decided to make posters
one for each major life event,
went searching through boxes of momentos,
and found two treasures heaven sent.
A picture of me in grade twelve
standing on pink satin toe shoes,
arms on high in the prettiest circle
wearing the prettiest of dancer’s tutus.
But even better, a few days later
I happened upon the prize:
no less the proof I danced on toe:
it clearly wasn’t a lie.
I found an old, wrinkled shoebox
and lifted up the lid
to find my disheveled toe shoes
in which one day a toe bled.
I took them out with loving hands
caressed satin ribbons wrapped ’round,
and took them to show at my party—
the loveliest memory I found!
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Live Free
Upon considering the October 2023
Hamas-Israel War*
The dam burst – yet again! – and down they went,
the multitude of vegetables and out came gushing waters
flooding tiles of cracked linoleum, this morning mopped clean
but now inundated with wet – what’s that I must ask?
Their skins cracked open, they groan in despair,
yet again they are flooding the deli and its stairs
to down and down again straight into hell, it’s so clear.
The veggies they bled red with nary a prayer,
for what good would that do but repeat ad nauseum
like Groundhog’s Day repeats with hardly a pauseum.
The farmer’s they grow just like exiles build
again and again without guarantee
that a purchaser there’ll be or a market of buyers
or that peace will ever come
or they can trust their neighbors.
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Glen Canyon Park Angels on a Cool Fall Day
“I am trying to get to the next sunny spot”
the father said,
daughter running ahead
as I sped by no faster than her kinder legs.
He smiled at me, as a dad
glad for the day as was I for
a walk in the park
midst traffic jams of kinderkids.
Then came a host, a veritable cascade
of chattering angels
with dads in tow. With mobile legs
they danced their ways
down narrow paths into the wild
among the pines that sighed and swayed,
my way delayed sometimes by tiny midget angels.
They did eventually go,
some faster and some more slow,
some running ahead, some behind
as sunlit park parts
dad and I tried to find.
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Sliding into Winter
(drafted 10.1.23 as homework for a poetry class, to write a poem
as lipogram and omit one or more vowels, in this case the “u”)
Say goodbye to warm summer walks beneath tall trees,
comes the season of the sneeze and sniffle.
Little shifts begin as chill morning air
invites us in an open door.
We add a layer, button up, don our coat,
and choose our thicker socks.
But are we ready for a different day
when winter comes?
Or do we prefer to linger there in bed, who knows how long,
with a lover, two bodies joined, legs entwined,
heat irradiates two hearts and spirits,
and melting then, we sing
One song.
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Donne Italian for "women." Project of opera singer Gabriella di Laccio whose mission is to make more visible the prodigious contribution of women to music. She reports the astounding and devastating fact that, in October, 2022, almost nine out of ten pieces played by orchestras around the world were composed by Caucasian men. She provides a list of more than 5,000 women composers, and offers program consultation services to music directors who are committed to the inclusion of women, including minority and LGBQT women, to achieve a more just musical world.
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Feminine Endings: music, gender, & sexuality by Dr. Susan McClary (Case Western Reserve University) The seminal 1995 book that brought feminist analysis of musicology throughout history to the present day, into the academy; a must read!
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The Future is Female - is a performance available by prolific, talented pianist, writer, and producer Sarah Cahill featuring more than 70 compositions by women around the globe, from the Baroque to the present day, including new commissioned works. Cahill performs regularly in the Bay Area and leans toward modern and experimental music, has a fabulous website and leads a musical radio program on Sunday evenings at 8 - 10 pm live streamed on YouTube.
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National Music by Women Festival at the Mississippi University for Women, Founder & Executive Director, 2016–Present. The annual conference brings together a diverse, inclusive group of women composers and performers. Dr. Julia Mortyakova has a prodigious background in music and leadership in both academia and the community. She currently serves as the Department of Music Chair at MUW and has fostered inclusivity in all aspects of music studies and performance.
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I’m so glad you share my love of music and the piano! I want to celebrate that love and my recent journey back to music via former career paths through law and fashion corsetry. Shortly after a happy retirement in 2020, a creative muse took my hand after 63 years and chose to bring to life the musical sounds within my heart via poetry and returning to play my piano -- and she brought me fully to life again!
"Touch me with care, and the gentlest of sounds!
The piano's the thing that lifts with no bounds."