Question

if you have READ THE poem "PIANO LESSONS" pls help!

Answer 1

Whatcha need.

Answer 2

have you reas the poem

Answer 3

I have read a lot about it. x,D

Answer 4

umm ok so can you help me like analyze it cuz im havin a hrd time understndn

Answer 5

I can.

Answer 6

http://us.reddit.com/r/piano/related/14uwq1/piano_lessons_by_billy_collins_poem/

Answer 7

ok if you have like word or whatever can you just show me or annotate whatever so i can see what you did

Answer 8

I can not open the link lightspeed has blocked it.

Answer 9

tell me what it says?

Answer 10

1
My teacher lies on the floor with a bad back
off to the side of the piano.
I sit up straight on the stool.
He begins by telling me that every key
is like a different room
and I am a blind man who must learn
to walk through all twelve of them
without hitting the furniture.
I feel myself reach for the first doorknob.
2
He tells me that every scale has a shape
and I have to learn how to hold
each one in my hands.
At home I practice with my eyes closed.
C is an open book.
D is a vase with two handles.
G flat is a black boot.
E has the legs of a bird.
3
He says the scale is the mother of the chords.
I can see her pacing the bedroom floor
waiting for her children to come home.
They are out at nightclubs shading and lighting
all the songs while couples dance slowly
or stare at one another across tables.
This is the way it must be. After all,
just the right chord can bring you to tears
but no one listens to the scales,
no one listens to their mother.
4
I am doing my scales,
the familiar anthems of childhood.
My fingers climb the ladder of notes
and come back down without turning around.
Anyone walking under this open window
would picture a girl of about ten
sitting at the keyboard with perfect posture,
not me slumped over in my bathrobe, disheveled,
like a white Horace Silver.
5
I am learning to play
“It Might As Well Be Spring”
but my left hand would rather be jingling
the change in the darkness of my pocket
or taking a nap on an armrest.
I have to drag him in to the music
like a difficult and neglected child.
This is the revenge of the one who never gets
to hold the pen or wave good-bye,
and now, who never gets to play the melody.
6
Even when I am not playing, I think about the piano.
It is the largest, heaviest,
and most beautiful object in this house.
I pause in the doorway just to take it all in.
And late at night I picture it downstairs,
this hallucination standing on three legs,
this curious beast with its enormous moonlit smile.

Answer 11

Okay so this person is learning to play the piano. They see every key as if it where something different. He describes that all the keys have a different melody. He describes the beauty of the piano and how it can be seen as a curious beast lit by moonlight.

Answer 12

can you pls explain it stanza by stanza

Answer 13

1) he has a teacher that is a much older person who explains to him a piano is like being blind you h

Answer 14

have you to know it as if you where a blind man walking through a house

Answer 15

2) every key is different and you have to recognize those differences

Answer 16

okay..thats it for 2?

Answer 17

yes.

Answer 18

so like each thing he says is the key.. is that not significant? like the black boot or legs of a bird??

Answer 19

~giggles~ you told me to explain it stanza by stanza I haven't gotten that far yet.

Answer 20

oh i thought you said that was it for stanza 2 thts why

Answer 21

3) he says it is like your mother no one listens to her until she is right, and then the melody will bring you to tears

Answer 22

sorry keep going

Answer 23

I did say stanza 2 however every last one of those discribes the sound for instance the black boot that is flat the sound is flat and deep Get what I am saying?

Answer 24

oh ok so wht abouut the legs of a bird

Answer 25

well a leg of a bird is thin and a bird is high pitched. it would be a high sound?

Answer 26

oh i see okay.. go on

Answer 27

4) when he/she plays the note/songs of thier past they remember the past and how it was and they think of a little girl.

Answer 28

They discribe themselfs as they are now. When they play these songs suggesting that they are now alone.

Answer 29

what does "like a White Horace Silver" imply?

Answer 30

n how do you know they're all alone?

Answer 31

a Bathrobe suggests that them sitting playing in a bathrobe

Answer 32

what

Answer 33

They are giving a metaphor of the melody to the White Horace Silver so they are saying it is like that.

Answer 34

Anyone walking under this open window
would picture a girl of about ten
sitting at the keyboard with perfect posture, <---- this. They would look in a window and imagine that they would look like that

Answer 35

not me slumped over in my bathrobe, disheveled, <----- this is what they really look like

Answer 36

ok

Answer 37

5) they are having a hard time playing the melody that they wish to play like thier left hand isn't playing the song right he/she is having trouble playing this song and he/she describes it as it being like a neglected child. Maybe he/she hadn't played the piano in a while or he/she has not worked hard enough to play the song

Answer 38

ok then?

Answer 39

6) he/she is always thinking about the piano and how beautiful it is how it is the heaviest thing in the house, even when he/she is trying to slumber they think about it.

Answer 40

They think of it as alive and like a beast in the moonlight waiting.

Answer 41

:D

Answer 42

sorry but youre kinda just restating the same things here

Answer 43

I know that's what it is.

Answer 44

A monster waiting for them.

Answer 45

whAT would you say the overall theme is? and whats the tone? do you think the tone shifts

Answer 46

Consuming thier every thought

Answer 47

So, the tone of The Piano Lesson, as well as his other plays, often manages to be incredibly approachable yet somehow lofty. Wilson's characters are bigger than who they are. They seem to represent not just all African Americans, but all of humanity.

Answer 48

but whats the theme then

Answer 49

The theme is obsession. I believe anyway.

Answer 50

sorry, be a little more specific?

Answer 51

Consumed thoughts in the thought of learning the piano.

Answer 52

^ does that clarify it?

Answer 53

consumed thoughts?

Answer 54

it takes over all of their thoughts.

Answer 55

so theme is.... the piano consumes all their thoughts?

Answer 56

I would say so

Answer 57

hmm okay. thanks forr helpn me. do you think you could help me with one other poem?

Answer 58

i mostly understand i just need to clear some things up?

Answer 59

is the analysis gonna be super long? x,D

Answer 60

.... whoops sorry. not this time(:

Answer 61

Okay I can help I guess.

Answer 62

ok ill tag you in a sec

Answer 63

oki doki loki