Hello all, I joined about 10 days ago, and thought I ought to say "Hello".

Like many brought up in WWII, I started with piano lessons as pianos were then common in many homes. At first these were from a wonderful lady, Mrs Heywood of Urmston, near Manchester. Unfortunately, after about a year my father's work moved us to Cheadle south of Manchester, and it was some time before my parents found me a teacher whom I got on with. My first teacher, a somewhat whimsical spinster was still learning herself, and tried to get me to play in something called the "Viennese" manner (hope my memory is correct!) with masses of body twisting, raising and lowering of hands, flexing of arms etc. and this was well before I was really able to hit the correct notes! Our piano needed tuning, and this was done by a Mr Hart who also taught piano, and I managed to get lessons under him. Much better, and I started enjoying music just as much as I had with Mrs Heywood. My repertoire was some Chopin, Liszt and the easier Beethoven sonatas, with the usual hymns and Christmas Carols etc.

It was said that the church we attended had the best organ in Cheadle, and for a short period I also learnt organ in the now demolished Cheadle Congregational Church, under their organist. I played for the Sunday School, and during my time doing National Service I played the harmonium for some of the services at our base in Germany. After National Service I continued my education at Cambridge and for two terms was able to hire a piano for my room. This was a revelation - Beethoven piano sonatas which at home had always sounded not quite right in the chordal harmonies, now sounded superb on this hired piano.

In later life, we had an old Broadwood upright (non-square tuning pins) which sounded OK but never held its tuning, and also suffered from a worn action. My interests then moved to broadcast and recorded sound, and it was only in 2000 that I bought a Yamaha Clavinova CLP 860, and started playing again. At about the same time my deafness was getting quite bad, and I'm now hearing the world through an NHS hearing aid. Not good, but not too bad.

Two of my three daughters are quite musical and that's very pleasing. Recently, I've started enjoying organ recitals - perhaps these are less affected by my hearing aid. My main hobby is photography.

Bye!

Welcome to the forums Malcolm

to the forums, hope you enjoy your time here!

Hello! Hope you enjoy joining in here!

Hiya, and

Hi Malcolm and welcome!

Sorry to read about your hearing. I struggle nowadays with certain sounds so you have my sympathy!

Hi Malcolm and welcome, have a bit of a problem myself with hearing but not to bad my biggest problem is tinnitus ( whistling and buzzing in the ears) really bad at the moment especially at night when it is really quiet in bed, hearing aid was suppose to help with this problem but did nothing for me even if I play with my headphones on can still hear the tinnitus, piano player by the way or should say learning grade 2 at present as any one else on the forum had this problem and might have any answers to help, once again welcome Malcolm

Hi, nice to meet you (virtually) and hear about the history of your piano playing. Very interesting