TED METZLER's ART ACTIVITIES

(Click on picture to see detail.)

Over the years I've collected some lithographs and photographic items at art fairs (in Ann Arbor, MI and Mystic, CT), and occasionally tried my own hand at creating a bit of visual art. The abstract piece shown above normally decorates a wall in my living room; I designed and constructed it about ten years ago, using seasoned oak (which I stained) and some electronic circuit boards that had been discarded at work.

I also own a Kawai piano, which I play often enough to maintain at least a modest repertoire of "classical" works. Beethoven is my favorite composer, with Chopin a close second. I regard the first movement of Beethoven's "Moonlight Sonata" as the most nearly perfect bit of music ever composed--he wrote it down for this world to hear, but I sense he went somewhere else to get it.

Although I enjoy recorded music, I prefer to watch live performance. No electronic medium could reproduce the personal memories I treasure from attending live performances by Vladimir Horowitz, Artur Rubenstein, Rudolph Serkin, Oscar Peterson, Duke Ellington, Dave Brubeck, Ray Charles, Liberace, Ella Fitzgerald, Johnny Cash, Randy Newman and, yes ... even the Beatles! (OK ... the performers I've listed all tell you something about my age--but if the Nine Inch Nails come to town I'll go see them TOO! My appreciation of music "does not discriminate on the basis of age, race, gender, ..." among the artists.)

I've also made some stumbling efforts of my own at piano composition. Thus far, the various little pieces I've written have tended to be romantic and somewhat jazzlike in tone. Although I'm temporarily posting a SAMPLE , it's obviously unvarnished and unedited; when I'm done with one I'm working on, I'll "clean it up" for actual distribution on the net.