Picking Up the Pieces

I got a new piano bench this weekend. It's an adjustable bench, and I'm hoping to have it for a long, long time. It replaces the kitchen chair, which replaced my old piano bench, which I'd used for 30+ years. So I'm a faithful piano bench owner, I am. I didn't get to practice this weekend, so I was looking forward to tonight's practice session using the new bench (which I've named Gilbert). Sure, I planned to practice my Shostakovich ... but I also planned to experiment with the new bench. My old bench was too high. The kitchen chair, obviously, was too low --plus, it wasn't flat, like a piano bench should be. I would get a backache before I ever made it through my warm-up scales. I started with the bench low and practice for a few minutes. Backache. I moved it up a bit. Backache. Moved it up a little more. Backache, but not quite so bad. Finally I found a good height and practiced for a half-hour before the sleepies started to take over. Then I compared...