Wow I wouldn't dream of touching Chopin's sonatas anytime soon! Good luck with that one!
I'm slowly butchering his first ballade, but it is teaching me quite a bit so I guess the sonata will do the same!
Also, very impressed with the tuning and cleaning your piano by yourself. Was that a skill you just picked up?
The Sonata will come along slowly for me, it has some easy passages and it has some work that will take me building my hands back up ( like the left handed trills thus the Bach Invention No 2). I like your term butchering, that's basically what I'm doing but it really is coming along none the less.
My wife and family are absolutely delighted that I'm back at the piano. I didn't realize how much at least my wifes heart and oldest daughter too, sank when I stopped playing all those years ago, for a silly reason at that. Or so it turns out but didn't seem it at the time. Even one of my daughters stated how disappointed they were back then. Heck even my X wife will be happy that I'm playing again. We had a mutual friend who attended our monthly work shops way back when. So she was remotely in touch. Since then ( the friend has passed away and the X attends family functions now) has asked many times if I will ever play again. Her , my wife and my oldest daughters were the encouraging factors to get me to sit back down at my piano.
Tuning I picked up from two different tuners over the years, the latest one explained a lot to me and also couldn't just drop everything and show up at my house when my old piano dropped a string a little bit or something sounded a tad off. Thus, I can maintain my piano, I'd never claim to be able to get into massive voicing or fine tuning the movement of the keys. But I can keep things in check very well. I've even pulled the bass up from slumber land which the tuners always had a hard time with on my piano ( it could use new bass strings or so they tell me) ! My piano dates back to the late 1800's so it needs TLC, I can't be calling in a tuner every time something clicks or boings. As long as I keep it alive it sounds wonderful. And Chris can come and give it a once over every couple of years. Or if the action should break I'll have him fix it. My piano right now sounds as good or better than it did 25 years ago, it's right up to A440 and my rather dead D down in the lower bass is sounding rather clear. So I'm happy. I'd be happier with a rebuilt action and a new pin block but I don't have that right now.
Enough of my life story !
Topic: I'm new here! :)