1907 upright piano transformed into gorgeous desk

[anon36155390]

@zathras

The desk actually looks like pure kitsch to me.

Oh, it’s not that bad. It does have a kind of visual interest, and it is fancier than a ordinary table. But I wouldn’t want it in my house, and I think that the putting the striking mechanism up top like that is a little questionable. It’ll be a total cobweb magnet I bet.

[renke]

@zathras

If modern medicine can’t keep a human alive, should we make a sculpture from their bones?

Körperwelten is fascinating.

[LearnedCoward]

@Donald_Petersen

Well, no… I don’t think it was necessarily the result of a parental urge to make their kids seem cultured as such, not in my neck of the woods. Music lessons in general were thought to enhance a child’s ability to appreciate and enjoy music, whether or not the neighbors were impressed by how this knowledge and skill made the kid classier.

This was something I definitely did not have in my life. My parents didn’t really enjoy music, so they didn’t really care if we did either. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t hold it against them, and I prefer that they just let us go out own ways rather than trying to regiment us into learning things we couldn’t appreciate yet. I learned music on my own, mostly from listening to recordings and live musicians. I like this approach better for myself, because there’s a lot I can get out of a piece of music if I listen to it, and really listen.

@Donald_Petersen

And at least one of the kids I grew up with did indeed go pro, playing with the local symphony at 12 and still teaching and composing and performing 30 years later.

Nice!

In my experiences, these kids weren’t the ones in regular piano lessons from the little old lady at the church, but they studied at conservatory programs and Talented And Gifted programs.

@Donald_Petersen

the actual choice of instrument was secondary

You rarely ever see that these days. It’s usually just piano and violin.

I played trombone and tuba in marching band, cello in orchestra, and bass, guitar, and a little bit of keyboards when I played in bands. I never got the hang of woodwind instruments. I like the idea of being able to play any instrument at least a little bit, so I have a good idea of what the instrument sounds like, what its range is, and what it can do musically.

@Donald_Petersen

We know very different people, it seems.

Maybe. But what’s expected of a guitarist vs a pianist? Compare what your guitar playing friends can do against what’s expected of these Type A classical piano kids. I know guitar players who can play on that level, and they are serious musicians. Your friends probably are as well. They can play well because they studied music in one way or another, not because they are unconscious musical geniuses. To be good at any instrument, one needs to take it seriously.

@Donald_Petersen

I’m used to it being an ordinary facet of a public school education.

Ours was somewhat limited. We learned how to read music, and we had basic recorder lessons in elementary school and a brief music appreciation class in middle school. The music appreciation teacher tried hard and was a good teacher, but couldn’t really cram all of music appreciation into one unit. It was probably lost on a lot of kids.

There were band classes in middle school and high school. Around this time, I also learned upright bass for jazz band, on this turn of the century Czech or German instrument that had been neglected almost to the point of firewood from sitting in a humid closet over the summers The people at the school were nice enough to let me take it home over the summer so I could learn classical technique on my own time, and I applied that technique to cello when I was in orchestra in college.*

My neighbors in Ohio have guitar lessons through the school starting in middle school. I’m not sure if this is a thing everywhere or not, but it’s nice to have.

*Our college had no music program. Making the orchestra was an accomplishment but not that impressive.

[zathras]

@anon36155390

Interesting. So at what point does it stop being recycling and repurposing, and start becoming a travesty?

Does it have anything to do with the rarity of the original item?

I’d guess it has to do with the sanctity of the original item.
And that definitely lies in the eye of the beholder.

Religious items have sanctity, in the eyes of religious people and and of those who have made “respecting the religious feelings of others” part of their value systems.
Rarity breeds sanctity, in the eyes of people who care about our ever-dwindling connection to the past.
Monetary value breeds sanctity. Even people who care about money only to a moderate degree will disapprove of a waste of money.
Patriotic symbols often develop a certain sanctity.

And in my family, musical instruments always had that air of sanctity about them.

@LearnedCoward

None of these kids were going to grow up to become professional pianists, but they were going to grow up to be the type of people who played piano. It’s a skill that shows a cultured upbringing.

Of course the point is not to “become professional pianists”. But it’s not about “showing a cultured upbringing”.
But the people who invest in piano lessons for their kids don’t do it because they think that it “shows” cultured upbringing, but because they consider it to be cultured upbringing.

Of course, the meaning of “cultured” is not universal. But I know that my mother encouraged me to stick with my piano lessons because she herself was able to derive a lot of enjoyment from being able to play it. And I’m still thankful to her for that.