"Stupid stuff!"

I apologize to my non-musician friends and family (and faculty) but spending three hours every day practicing does tend to produce a lot of impressions about music. And not a lot of pictures. So bear with me: I promise some outstanding entries after the Ballestra on Saturday.
In the meantime, let me muse...(and procrastinate...I've had enough of that WWII book for one afternoon).
Now that I’ve gotten back into practice and have had two lessons, I’m starting to discover the quirks of playing piano in Sansepolcro.
I find it amusing how universal the experience of a private piano lesson is; although I’m sure there are a few general cultural differences, the interaction is so individualized that it really depends on the personality of your maestro. Mine seems to enjoy turning things upside down, and sometimes quite literally…he told me to flip my Bach score over and play it backwards and upside-down, and I’m a little scared to try it. He was shocked that I didn’t know I could do that…it never occurred to me to try that with anything other than tabletop duets. His notes are even more "copious" than Dr. Lyman’s: he hasn’t written a word yet (sorry, it’s an inside joke). He said today that the opening of Beethoven’s Fifth was “stupid stuff.” While he was making a valid point that the best composers take simple ideas and expand them, I’d never heard anyone express it quite like that. We’ve had a few funny moments trying to work around the language barrier. While his conversational English is excellent, non-standard musical terms and descriptors are posing a bit of a translation challenge. When he gets excited or has trouble translating, he usually gives up and starts speaking Italian, waving his hands around, and humming, which oddly enough, I usually understand better than anything else.
Our lounge—and favorite study area—is directly outside my little practice chapel. My fellow studentesse are already acquainted with my practice habits. While it was unnerving to sneeze alone behind a closed door and hear three invisible people say "salute," it was even more disturbing to discovered that they listen when I talk to myself. I’m inclined to forgive any teasing, however, because the wind has a tendency to blow the door shut. I know that when compared to most natural catastrophes this seems rather innocuous, but that darn door has no inside handle and a highly effective bolt. While that room is often a sanctuary in a small palazzo inhabited by ten young women, it can assume an awfully prison-like guise. So when an eavesdropping ragazza becomes an angel of deliverance, I accept any digs about my either exasperated or rapturous monologues in rueful silence.
Fortunately--no one seems to mind the racket I make. In fact, I was even told that a lady who lives across the street mentioned that she likes the afternoon music...although my initial efforts at a few of these pieces hardly merit the word. I love how our neighbors here are not only aware enough of what is going on in their town to know that a pianist has moved in somewhere on the street, but they even know which house. It's perplexing that, so far, everyone has found the drills and repetition that drift out my open window beautiful. While the constant street noise gets on my nerves, I'm beginning to understand that it's possible to enjoy, even revel in it. Whether I'll ever get to that point, I don't know. But at least I understand that not everybody gets irritated when they can hear the Vespa motors, the shower running in the next palazzo, every word of every conversation three floors down...or the ragazza americana who plays the pianoforte for three hours every afternoon.