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My favorites are already on the list, but I did want to say that "The Piano Shop on the Left Bank" was the book that brought me back to piano after 35 years of sort of fussing about, but not really committing. Even though the author had been more advanced (far more advanced) than I was before quitting as a teenager, his description of why and how he came back to music pretty much said it all for me. "If he can do it, maybe I can too."

Virginia Lloyd spent much of her childhood and adolescence learning and playing the piano and thought she would make a career as a pianist. When that didn't happen, she spent a long time wondering about those years of study: had they been wasted? What was their purpose? This intriguing memoir explores those questions and investigates the mystery of the author's very musical and deeply unhappy grandmother Alice, and how their lives—both at and away from the piano—intersected and diverged. Girls at the Piano also explores the changing relationship between women and the piano over the course of the instrument's history, taking us from the salons of 18th-century Europe to an amateur jazz workshop in Manhattan in the early 21st century. Funny, tender, and fascinating, Girls at the Piano is an elegant and multi-layered meditation on identity, ambition and doubt, and on how learning the piano had a profound effect on two women worlds and generations apart. It is essential reading for music lovers everywhere, and for anyone who has undertaken their own voyage around a piano.

"Play piano as if you perform brain surgery" is dedicated to ambitious students, teachers and masters seeking to further advance their artistic skills towards perfection either in regards to piano playing or brain surgery. The author is a Duke Professor of neurosurgery and advanced pianist, who is presenting a new analysis of piano playing from a neuro-anatomical and physiological perspective. The many parallels between playing piano and neurosurgery are what inspired the creation of this book. The ideas presented aim to help eager students of neurosurgery and the piano, piano teachers and concert pianists alike to become aware of their own physical "play apparatus". The author Erik Hauck is taking the reader on a journey through his/her own body. Through heightened awareness, pianists as well as surgeons will be able to identify and overcome physical and mental blocks, possibly so far limiting their full potential, even if they are already far advanced in their careers. So what is the secret to the ideal or virtuous piano technique? Is it in the wrist, or is it that you need to have practiced more than 10.000 hours early in life? Is it the elbow? Is it imagination of sound and music, or just finger play? Is it speed? Is it in your well-trained ear? Naturally, the secret to a perfect piano technique lies in the mindful orchestration, rhythmical coordination and skilled balance of all the moving parts in us, to create an effortless and pearling play, the kind of play that everybody recognizes as ideal. This ideal piano playing feels like meditating deeply to where nothing can shake your inner calm and focus. Ideal playing just happens as you imagine it. You are one with it in the very moment. All obstacles between you and the music down to it is physical creation through the keys have been eliminated. No tight or rigid spots hinder, tether or slow you down. Identifying and removing those obstacles to literally set you free, is what this book is about – to make you a much better pianist, or neurosurgeon if you happen to be in that profession, or person in general.Instead of struggling, you will enjoy challenges, which become simply play. That is why it is called “piano playing” after all. Naturally, this experience is truly “transcendental”, to borrow the term from List’s infamous etudes – the musical inspiration to write this book. Together with the author, you develop a detailed checklist that holds all key elements to the ideal piano play. Mastering the "self-check" in a fraction of a second, even while performing, you will be able to ensure that your play or surgical technique flows freely, unrestrained by any physical or mental blocks. So what are you waiting for? Let’s get to it, enjoy, experiment and find out for yourself!

I recently finished The Piano Shop on The Left Bank, and enjoyed it quite a lot. It was a nice story, intertwined with details of life in Paris and a spattering of information on piano construction, formulated in an interesting way. The quote in my sig if the last line of that novel! Highly recommend.

Chopin In Paris, so far, is slower.

WiseBuff, I have not, in the 19 years since it was first published, found another book quite like The Piano Shop on the Left Bank, so I find myself rereading it, thankful that I forget so much of it in between readings. It is like stepping into that world every time! cmb13, there may be clues in the text as to the identity of the Arrondissement where the action takes place, though I have not been able to deduce it. You might write to Carhart through the publisher; some authors enjoy hearing from readers, and some do not.