Monday, November 23, 2020

A Wonderful Little Piano Memoir

Sometimes reading about someone else's passion can be just the key to discovering your own. In what Publisher's Weekly calls "a warmhearted insight into a private Paris" an American expat writer Thad Carhart shares his rediscovery of the piano later in life and also provides a window on a side of Paris few outsiders will ever know. A year ago I purchased a keyboard after years of appreciating from afar the beauty of the only instrument that can also serve as a piece of fine art furnishing. Having grown up with a piano in the house but never having learned to play, I decided that as part of a desire to live more artfully, I wanted to learn to play. The piano instructor at my school gave me a few tips, handing me the introductory manual for his beginners piano class, and for the past year for maybe an hour a week, I have fooled around on the piano. Thad Carhart's beautiful gem of a memoir The Piano Shop on the Left Bank: Discovering a Forgotten Passion in a Paris Atelier has inspired me to continue my practice with the hopes of someday being able to fill my house with something approaching music. I really loved this little book as a meditation on art and life.

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