March 2026

So I've been getting more into mindfulness and how music can be involved. Norman Doidge wrote a book that became a best seller called 'The Brain That Changes Itself'. The Aurora library had a copy of his subsequent book, 'The Brain's Way of Healing'.

Part of my weekly schedule is a structured Tuesday. I have my chess club at 7pm and it is currently being held at a Retirement Home where the founder of the club just turned 100. He still wins regularly. I have a good friend who lives in Scarborough not far from where the club plays. He is stuck in bed with a condition that he doesn't accept the prognosis of. I used to phone him during chess night to talk about the latest books I have been reading and we have pretty good discussions of them. So now I bring books to his place and we get into the weeds about the concepts.

As part of mindfulness, I have gotten into the practice of meditation. I am up to 20 minutes a day on this. So I have been reading about the benefits and techniques of meditation. That got me into the philosophy of awareness and body awareness. With Norman Doidge's book, I am into the neuroscience of how neurons fire and how basically an amplifier and oscilloscope has allowed researchers to map the brain to the body. And how visualization can be used to reuse or reclaim real estate in the brain. And how the body and brain responds to exercise.

My friend Dan has managed to convince his PSW support people to use a Hoyer lift to bring him into his wheelchair twice a week. He has a piano, which I am getting him to claim on this GPN app. I want him to move the piano bench out of the way so he can sidle up to the piano and start playing with one hand and the then other.

So I have a user for the Health Care aspects of the Global Piano Network. Part of the new requirements may be to have at least two way communication between community members on exercises for Dan and others. Learning how to play by ear or music is an important consideration, different parts of the brain are involved. Dan has subsequently had a dream about being in the chair on Wednesday and how to put the chair sideways to the piano so he could play with one hand and then the other.

My niece decided to add a 'piano sighting' when she found that there is a grand piano in the Winnipeg airport. She provided this lovely photo of it. I appreciate the effort.

Here's a song that I composed about 10 years ago. It has a lot of space. It was originally called 'Mark of Sorrow' because I liked the play on words.