#355 11/12: In September, I had received an email from a woman in Reedsport, a town about 25 miles south of us, telling me that the school district there had cut the school week to four days and that one of the churches wanted to create an enrichment program on Fridays that would include music lessons. They needed a piano teacher, so I accepted the job. We started in October with four piano students and a fifth ready to start in December. I continued to teach in Reedsport until March 2020.

#369 1/14: I finally had to evict my tenants in Hercules, CA and was getting the house ready to sell after renting it for six years. The housing market had collapsed when we moved in in 2007, and being a long-distance landlord was something of a nightmare. I made a quick trip south just before Christmas to see what kind of shape the house was in, and it made me sick. I made arrangements for repairs to be done before I could sell.

#371 3/14: The Hercules house sold very shortly after I put it on the market! It was beautiful again after the damages the tenants made were repaired.

#374 6/14: I announced my first student recital in seven years and was really excited about it! "This is a much smaller undertaking than it used to be, with nine or ten students performing instead of close to forty!" I didn’t have any recitals until then because most of my students were online.

#381 1/15: I was really excited about being able to attend the Whisperings All-Star Concert and Awards in Costa Mesa, CA later that month!

#382 2/15: The Whisperings Concert and Awards Show in Costa Mesa was an amazing experience! Thirty-eight Whisperings Artists were there, many of whom I had worked with or reviewed over the years, but had never actually met. Before awarding Album of the Year, David Nevue announced that he had a special award for MVP, which turned out to be me!!! I was so thrilled that I couldn’t talk and was afraid I was going to cry, so that was quite a moment!



#383 3/15: Apple was once again retiring my website software (iWeb), so I was scrambling to figure out what to do. Several months later, Tim Neumark came to my rescue and did a fantastic job of redesigning the site and creating new software. It was months of work on both of our parts, but I will always be hugely grateful to Tim for all he did (and still does) as my webmaster.

#399 7/16: was the first issue of Pianotes on the new version of MainlyPiano.com.

#416 12/17: For the first time, one of my students was going to perform in a recital via the internet! Jeremi Le in San Jose, CA had been taking lessons online for a few years, so it was great to have him participate in a recital! I also had a couple of students who were advanced enough to play duets of David Hicken's "Gemini" and David Nevue and Neil Patton's "Clockwork" with me.

#441 1/20: I started the year with three piano students and was seriously thinking about retiring from teaching - little did I know what was right around the corner! I had decided to stop choosing "Picks" from the albums I reviewed and making Favorite Albums lists for each year. I was reviewing so much music at that point that it was really hard to remember the music I'd reviewed earlier in the year, so I decided to stop making those lists. I also posted a list of house concerts that were planned for the year, again, having no idea what was coming in a couple of months.

#443 3/20: I had two house concerts planned for March, but we were only able to do the one with Kate Moody on March 1. Eric Tingstad was supposed to come on March 22nd, but by then, Covid had rocked much of the world and we had to cancel his concert and, eventually, all of the rest of them, too.

#444 4/20: After all of the years of writing Pianotes, a local pianist started challenging me on the trivia items - a first! That's when I started putting a disclaimer at the bottom of the newsletters stating that, to the best of my knowledge, the trivia items are true, but I can't guarantee it.

#449 9/20: Dan Chadburn and Tom Nichols had been doing fund-raising concerts for our local Oregon Coast Humane Society for several years, and offered to do the one for 2020 online. It was a huge success and we raised over $3000!


#453 1/21: January 10, 2021 was the 40th anniversary of when I quit my banking job and became a self-employed piano teacher and artist. I had hoped my art career would take off, but it never did. Teaching piano, however, did. This issue was more autobiographical and included quite a few of my favorite drawings I had done over the years.

#455 3/21: I continued my story with lots of photos taken along the way.

#461 9/21: Dan Chadburn and Tom Nichols offered to do another (their eighth!) fund-raising concert for Oregon Coast Humane, this time broadcasting the concert on YouTube. This time, we raised at least $6000!

#463 11/21: In honor of Thanksgiving, I compiled a list of two things quite a few artists and friends told me they were grateful for.

#466 2/22: I wrote a tribute to Michael Jones, who had passed away on January 19th at the age of 79. We had done several interviews and spoke on the phone from time to time, so he was a real inspiration for me. I also introduced Steve Yip as a new writer for MainlyPiano.com. Steve was one of my closest friends in high school and beyond, so it was great to welcome him aboard!

#469 5/22: The end of April, we posted the 3000th music review on MainlyPiano.com!

#480 3/23: A house-call nurse on her annual visit from my health insurance noticed my limp and suggested that it could be from all of my years of pedaling the piano - especially with all of the years I taught piano lessons. That had never dawned on me and her observations literally changed my life!

#483 6/23: I finally saw an orthopedic doctor and was scheduled for a full hip replacement in July.

#485 8/23: I was recovering well from the surgery and was finally able to play the piano for about an hour without pain! I wrote about the lead-up and process of my hip getting that bad, and had quite a response from other pianists!

I think most of you have been reading Pianotes this past year or so, so I will leave the recap at that. The newsletter went online in May 2016 and all of those issues are available here. Thanks for taking the journey with me!