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I would never date an organist. Too much competition, thank-you.

I get into enough bitch-fights with church musicians as it is. I tend to be too passionate about that stuff. Throw in a few drinks and it's epic warfare.

I think the result would be pure dynamite.
It's very hard to keep aloof or professional, sometimes, when you find another person who shares the same musical passions you do and you make music together. I meant no pun there, but the pun can certainly apply. I find playing music with someone else extremely meaningful, unless that other person is so jaded and bored of the music it becomes a chore. I try to stay away from those types of people, and if I find myself becoming one I try to rectify the situation.

Maybe it's just me, but I think playing music with other people can have an extreme romantic and sexual charge involved. I don't mean to be crude, but I've seen many posts focusing on the difficulties in such a relationship and very few on the good parts of such a relationship, and probably even less dealing with the sparks that can fly. I mean, they say opposites attract - but I have never liked that. My girlfriend is a musical ignoramus, and there is no joy in playing music around such a person - not even to try and awake some latent spark of appreciation: it just won't ever happen, I'm afraid. So it's difficult knowing your 'soul-mate' is not interested in your main passion: at least she understands not to try to come between me and my playing, if a choice ever needed to be made heh.

To make a long story short - playing the piano is bliss, playing the piano with someone else is even more blissful! I can't imagine a more romantic, more fullfilling relationship than 2 people who love their piano/music as much as they love each other - one would bolster the other, help to build it up, raise it even higher. Ah..

Some time ago I knew two organists who were the perfect example of perfect love... So inspiring...

One thing to consider (it has probably already been mentioned) is where you live... It can be very difficult in an apartment with two musicians, but in a big house it should be OK...

My wife and I met in a concert where I was performing one of my pieces around 10 years ago. She approached me and told me "I want to be friends". And we hit it off. She plays the piano (have done a few concerts with her, although none of us is a 'pro' soloist), and she has had advanced theory lessons.

BUT... she's an architect by profession.

What sort of future is there in a relationship where one not only does not share the other's passion but is an "ignoramus" about it? Is she really your "soul-mate"?

Regards,

Ha - not much future, I'm afraid. But we try, anyways!
Ah well..I put 'soul-mate' in quotes for a reason - she isn't the one, yet. If there even is such a thing, with men being naturally polygamous and all that jazz...but that's a whole 'nother topic!

I'll find her some day, probably. I hope.

Well, there is also the "opposites attract" theory... Not for me though.
Once someone who, as I was later told (to my horror ), was in love with me was here with an "excuse" that he had lost his keys and kept watching TV and all the ads, and laughing, and I really couldn't stand all that. I had such a headache when he left...

Well, OK- we get it- but why wait? Why not 'turn her loose' now, so that you can both begin the process of finding the "right one'? Why delay? Life is too short.
You're not necessarily doing her any favor by remaining in a dead-end relationship.

Well I would hope so too. Thanks for your contributions here.

My significant 'other' appreciates my organ playing, and we both have an interest in the C of E. As mentioned earlier, my significant other is more literature oriented, but that's no problem: it's a bit of another passion in my life. Also it certainly helps that we are politically aligned.

Do I have it right that a major component in a successful relationship is (a) agreeing on politics, religion and Wagner, or (b) not ever discussing it, particularly when alcohol is involved?

I know some perfectly happily married couples who fall under choice (b). So it is possible.

I do too, in fact a married couple I know (they're almost surrogate parents to me) fall into the 'b' category.

Of course there's the quintessential 'b'...Mary Matalin and James Carville. But we won't go any further than that...

Admit I had to Google that. Interesting...

The couple I know have very divergent religious beliefs: one of them is a Christian Scientist, the other is Jewish. They simply never talk religion.

Though interestingly my grandmother is a Christian Scientist (through her I have landed gigs in their churches- they pay fairly well), and I make no criticism of that faith. There's some interesting stuff going on there -and I have studied their textbook- but that's TOTALLY outside the scope of this board, and let's not go there.

It reminds me of the Fawlty Towers episode where Sybil tells her husband to 'turn off that racket' and he says "Racket? Racket?! IT's Brahms! Brahms' 3rd Racket!" Or something similar.

They always say never discuss politics or religion over the dinner table, too. I think autopsies of wheat-thresher accidents is the 3rd one you're not supposed to discuss over dinner..

I took your advice and booted her out. But now she keeps banging on the front door, yammering on about "Hey, I live here!" and "Give me my cat!" and "You could have at least let me put some pants on first!"
Dangit.

I'll add a 4th one to M's previous post, and that is never discuss Wozzeck over the dinner table. Plates will fly!

One of the first discussions I ever had with my wife was on Wozzeck.

I am a student of classical piano, and for a year I dated a guitarist/keyboardist/vocalist/songwriter who played some classical music but was more in the pop music scene. It wasn't a good idea. I always felt he was trying to pull me towards kinds of music that were interesting to me but which I didn't wanna make the time for then. I was at a point where I desperately needed all the time I could find for music (I was going to school for another major), and our relationship was in some ways a setback. He would ask me to do things like write lyrics or songs, always feeling like he was doing the great thing of putting me "out there" and pushing me to make use of my potential composing skills, and it was always, understandably, personally offending when I didn't make enough time for it, when I resisted doing gigs and recordings and playing in bands, all the things he was really into. I wanted to be a classical musician. And it was never enough to him. Performance could never be an end in itself- he thought of it as only a tool to improve his technique and his musical understanding so he can play his own music. And to him, attending a concert was always more about the person sitting next to you whom you're watching the music with than the music itself.

Now, if I dated a musician, I would want him to be someone who breathed Brahms and Bach and Beethoven.

That really must be blissful. Having someone who not only forgives but also himself shares and lives that undivided love.

I wish I could find a violinist to play with (in all meanings) =) hehe