Learning the Piano

As part of my effort to expand my number of skills (already including bow hunting skills and computer hacking skills), I'm taking up the piano. I actually started a couple years ago in college, when I took 21M.051 and Devjit was teaching me some, but I never had the time to devote to it. But now that I'm a lame, single, working man, I have all the time in the world! To get started, I ordered a keyboard, the Casio PX-100 with CS-55 stand (shown left). It's got 88 weighted keys and a pretty simple set of features, which is all that I need. Should arrive soon. :)

My ultimate goal, many years or decades down the road, is to be able to play (or at least sight read) all of Chopin's nocturnes, Schubert's Impromptu in G Flat Major (which Kevin plays these days), and Beethoven's Sonata No. 8 in C Minor "Pathetique". It will probably take a long time to get to that point, but it will be fun. Oh, and if anyone knows of any good piano teachers in the Boston/Cambridge area, please let me know.

On the theme of music, Raudel pointed me to a really cool website, called The Sheet Music Archive, where they have a large collection of public domain sheet music available for download. Unfortunately you can only download 2 pieces per day, but they are selling their entire collection on CD-ROM for $20. I might have to order that, even though it's all probably out of my league at this point.