A Social Instrument

Peggy Rogers (krogers@xmission.com)
Thu, 22 Aug 1996 09:35:53 -0600 (MDT)

I had an interesting insight yesterday. A friend came by for
lunch, and, as I often do on such occasions, I played her a
couple of the pieces I've learned most recently on my harp.
This woman is an accomplished pianist/organist, but I wasn't
shy at all about playing for her, and that got me thinking:
when I played the piano for years and years, it never occurred
to me to say to anyone, "Sit down and I'll play you the latest
tune I learned on the piano."

One big difference, I think, is that when you play a harp, you
get to look at the people you're playing for, whereas on a
keyboard instrument you often have your back to them. I realized
that this makes a real difference in the way I feel about playing
the two instruments. (On the other hand, I never offered to play
new tunes that I learned on the guitar for people, either.)

| Good people and evil people
Peggy Rogers | suffer about equally,
krogers@xmission.com | but good people enjoy it more.
| --Robert Grudin