Piano Guidance
Piano Guidance
Photo: Charles Parker
This symbolizes that Boy Charles would have done anything to get back the “family's legacy” and was even willing to face death for it. Moreover, it clarifies the importance of the piano for the family members.
Since 90 per cent of the population is right-handed, left-handed people do experience some practical problems, including: Western writing runs from...
Read More »
Piano owners are usually told to keep their instruments a good ten feet away from their log or gas fires so that they don't burn the wood. Jul 29,...
Read More »
Pianoforall is one of the most popular online piano courses online and has helped over 450,000 students around the world achieve their dream of playing beautiful piano for over a decade.
Learn More »
How Many People Does it Take to Move a Piano? It can take up to four people to move a piano. It could take two to three if it is a small piano like...
Read More »
That doesn't sound very exciting, but trust us... it's one of the most important features of music from the last 100 years! Let's do the basic...
Read More »Regarding it is not only a white European instrument let assume that it also functions as a new approach to African American music besides jazz. The piano also “serves as a site of direct mystical connections with the ancestors, functioning similarly to sacred ancestral shrines or altars in many traditional African cultures” (Morales 108). It serves as a connection between the world of the living to that of the dead since the carvings on the piano preserve “a narrative-generating, visual memory that connects the family to their own ancestors” (109). It “provides the key links to the past” and “functions as a mnemonic device for the transmission of oral history” (106) since the carvings on the piano can be used to read and tell the family’s history. Given the fact that Boy Charles, Doaker and Wining Boy went to Sutter’s house on the Fourth of July 1911 to take that piano out of there evokes that Wilson chose the Independence Day to show that the ancestors of former slaves wanted revenge and take what belonged to them. “Say it was the story of our whole family and as long as Sutter had it...he had us. Say we was still in slavery” (Wilson 45). Doaker reveals that the piano was stolen from the Sutter house and it shows the struggle of the Charles family over the ownership of the piano and defines Sutter’s possession of the piano as a form of captivity. When Sutter finds out about the stolen piano, Boy Charles and four other hobos are killed and set on fire in the boxcar by The Yellow Dog station. This symbolizes that Boy Charles would have done anything to get back the “family’s legacy” and was even willing to face death for it. Moreover, it clarifies the importance of the piano for the family members. August Wilson uses Sutter’s ghost as an image of the past. He haunts the house of Doaker as he is obsessed with the idea of retrieving the piano, which was actually in the possession of his family since he is a descendant of Robert Sutter, who formerly bought it in exchange for Boy Willie’s and Bemiece’s ancestors. It is not the first time that Wilson uses ghosts and other mystic elements in his plays. In an interview with Kim Powers about his earlier play Joe Turner’s Come and Gone, he points out the importance of using those elements: I set the play in 1911 to take advantage of some of the African retentions of the characters. The mysticism is a very large part of their world. My idea is that somewhere, sometime in the course of the play, the audience will discover these are African people. They’re black Americans, they speak English, but their world view is African. The mystical elements- the Binder, the ghosts- are a very real part, particularly in the early twentieth century, of the black American experience. There was an attempt to capture the “African-ness” of the characters. (Powers 6-7) With using those elements, he links the story and experience of African American people to the original heritage of their ancestors and therefore to his own roots: “Wilson uses his ‘ancestral legacy’ to differentiate his own historical tradition as well as to emphasize the cultural retentions ofhis characters” (Morales 112). Boy Willie and Bemiece seem to have different ideas about the use of the piano; while Boy Willie wants to sell it, Bemiece refuses to sell or to play the piano: Bemiece, we could say, wants to hide from history and Boy Willie wants to get rid of it. Wilson, however, wants to rewrite it, even if he has to use traditionally white instruments, even if he has to resurrect some ugly ghosts. (Nadel 3) Bemiece rejects selling the piano. For her it symbolizes the family's legacy. When Avery tries to convince her to play the piano, she reacts annoyed: I done told you I don’t play on that piano [...] When my mama died I shut the top on that piano and I ain’t never opened it since. I was only playing it for her. She used to have me playing on it [...] say when I played it she could hear my daddy talking to her. I used to think them pictures came alive and walked through the house [...] I don’t play that piano cause I don’t want to wake them spirits. They never be walking around in this house. (Wilson 70) She does not want to wake the spirits of her ancestors which shows that she trusts in the mystical power of the piano and recognizes it as the site of connection to her ancestral spirits. At the same time, she does not want those spirits to have access to her life (cf. Morales 108). Besides refusing to sell neither to play the piano, she does not want to tell her daughter Maretha about the meaning of the piano. Her attitude towards life is also pointed out when she talks with Boy Willie about their position in society. Due to her heritage and the social standing of African Americans, she thinks that she reached the lowest level in life:
The short answer is, yes! It's ok to start learning on a keyboard or a digital piano. There a just a few factors to take into consideration when...
Read More »
Guitar comes out on top in terms of how quick it is to learn to play with both hands in harmony. To make any sound on the guitar you immediately...
Read More »Boy Willie: If you teach that girl that she living at the bottom of life, she’s gonna grow up and hate you. Bemiece: I’m gonna teach her the truth. That’sjust where she living. Only she ain’t got to stay here. (Wilson 92) The last sentence of the quotation above shows that Bemiece is willing to enable Maretha to a better life, however, she hides the family's history from Maretha and wants to protect her from it. Although Bemiece refuses to play the piano and she does not want to sell it due to its symbolic meaning, her brother Boy Willie wants to sell the piano and buy land from the money, he argues: If my daddy had seen where he could have traded that piano in for some land ofhis own, it wouldn’t be sitting up her now. He spent his whole life farming on somebody else’s land. I ain’t gonna do that. (46) Obviously, Boy Willie still sees value in the piano, he wants to do better and buy land and freedom. He does not want to be haunted by the past and instead build himself a new life. “I ain’t gonna let it sit up here and rot without trying to do something with it” (ibid.). His plan is to go back to the South and live his life the way he wants to live it (cf. ibid.). He wants to get rid of history and start over: “This time I get to keep all the cotton. Hire me some men to work it for me. Gin my cotton. Get my seed.” (11). He wants to turn the fate of his ancestors and gain selfesteem by buying land of the family who once enslaved his forebears. Mary L. Bogumil clarifies this action as following: On a grander scale, through his sale of the piano Boy Willie may redefine, or in part negate, the terrain and history of enslavement and racial oppression that still blocks him from realizing his version of the American Dream. (78) Even though Boy Willie is branded by the past ofhis family ancestors, he wants to acquire independence and live as a free black man in the South. In August Wilson and the African-American Odyssey, Kim Pereira identifies his wish to go back to the South as unusual as “it marks a potential turning point in the fortunes of black people” (86). Until then authors focused more on the migration to the North where African Americans hoped for better living conditions. Based on the fact that Boy Willie wants to return, reveals that he understands that it does not matter where he lives, it is only important how he lives his life. This becomes evident in his conversation with Lymon who thinks that he is treated better in the North. “Boy Willie says that Lymon’s faith in the North is misdirected, for whites ‘treat you like you let them treat you’, no matter where it occurs” (Bogumil 80-81). Boy Willie is aware ofhis situation as an African American, but he wants to make the best of it. Even though Wilson describes the life circumstances of the black American in such a way that even after slavery they were treated badly, he shows Boy Willie as a person who wants to turn the fate of the past into a good future despite all circumstances. No matter where Lymon goes, the oppression or inequality between black and white Americans will not change and is the same everywhere, his happiness only depends on he deals with it. Boy Willie shows a form of optimism for the future. “Ain’t no difference in me and the white man” (Wilson 38). He wants to get away from the old viewpoints and build a new life. Later in the play, Boy Willie points out his attitude towards life:
Crystals Grow and Grow A crystal is an inorganic (not alive, not from something alive) homogeneous solid (meaning a solid with the same properties...
Read More »
For someone who practices around 30 minutes a day, 3-5 days a week, with medium intensity, it'll take roughly 1-2 months to play beginner guitar...
Read More »
The typical price range for a quality acoustic upright (also called “vertical”) piano is $4,000 to $8,000. If you want a grand or baby grand piano,...
Read More »
Key Identification Transponder keys also have a chip in the head of the key. Typically they have a plastic head and are larger than the mechanical...
Read More »
Promotion
Promotion
Promotion