Young Frankenstein
Frisco Kid
Finding Nemo (Dory just cracks me up!)
On Golden Pond
School of Rock
Napoleon Dynamite
Forrest Gump
Goodbye Girl
Close Encounters of the Third Kind
When Harry Met Sally
A Charlie Brown Christmas
Rainman
A Little Romance
City Slickers
Pay it Forward
Secondhand Lions
My Big Fat Greek Wedding
Monty Python; The Holy Grail

Since many of us mentioned On Golden Pond under favorite movies, I thought I'd record the theme for you and add it here! This is my arrangement of "On Golden Pond". I hope you'll like it!

I love arranging Spanish guitar pieces for piano. Here's a video of me playing my arrangement of "Recuerdos de la Alhambra", a very special piece to me! (Hi Dad!) My father used to play this piece on the guitar when I was growing up. That's a picture of him on my piano in front of me, a photo of him playing his guitar.

After he died when I was 14, I couldn't listen to this piece for many years. I recently arranged it for piano, in his memory. When I play it while watching his picture, I really feel that I'm reaching out to him through our shared passion for music.

I hope you'll enjoy it!




I've recently begun to compose my own music! I've uploaded some of my recordings, including my arrangement of "Recuerdos de la Alhambra", onto a site called Reverb Nation. If you'd like, you can download some of my music free! I hope you'll enjoy listening!

I love the "Twilight" series, and attended the movie recently. I bought the soundtrack, and really like the piece "Bella's Lullaby". So I listened to the orchestral arrangement, and created my own arrangement for solo piano. I hope you like it!

Create your own visitor map!

I don't use Twitter much, but I'm really active on Facebook! Come see me there and say hello!
http://www.facebook.com/debbie.center?ref=profile

I just love foreign languages and cultures, and have learned hello, thank you, and goodbye in many of the world's languages. Please forgive my spelling, I know all these languages by ear only, so I'm sounding all this out. Since I'm meeting so many folks from all over the world, I want to try to greet all of you in your native languages, so here goes:

To my English speaking friends, hello!
To my Spanlsh speaking friends, hola, buenos dias!
To my Hebrew speaking friends, mah shlomech, mah shlomcha!
To my French speaking friends, bonjour, comment allez vous?
To my Arabic speaking friends, salaam!
To my Italian speaking friends, buon giorno!
To my Russian speaking friends, dobre dyan!
To my Swedish speaking friends, hej!
To my Mandarin Chinese speaking friends, nee-hau-mah!
To my Japanese speaking friends, konichiwah!
To my Swahili speaking friends, jambo!
To my Korean speaking friends, anyo asayo!
To my Hindi speaking friends, namaste!
To my Navajo friends, ya-at-eeh!
To my Australian friends, g'day and hooroo, mates!
To my Polish speaking friends, dzen dobre!
To my Ahmereek (Ethiopian) speaking friends, andemenesh!
To my south Indian friends, endo onday!
To my Turkish speaking friends, merhaba!
To my Tagalog (Phillipines) speaking friends, mabuhay!
To my German speaking friends, guten tag!
To my Cherokee friends, osda sunalei, osiyo!
To my New Zealand friends, kia ora!
To my Czech friends, ahoy!
To my Greek friends, yassou!
To my Hawaiian friends, aloha!
To my friends in Laos, sabaai-dii
To my friends who speak Slovenian, szdravo!
To my friends in Thailand, sa-wa-dika
To my Vietnamese friends, chao!

That's all I can remember for now. Help me add to my list! If you know how to say hello in a language that I don't have here, please share it with me, and I'll add it!

(Updated the same evening I added the language section to my page!)
Hey, that didn't take long to get some additional languages from friends here on the Hill! Here's what I'm learning on The Hill:

Thanks to Neelymo for teaching me another Indian (country, not Native American) language called Marathi! Hello = namaskar!

Thanks to blumountainsage for teaching me hello = tanisi in Cree Indian, and tawnshi = hello in Michif! Michif is the language of the Metis Nation people. Prounced (May Tee) It is a creole of Cree and French. Hence, the similarity with the Cree greeting.

Thank you to my niscunnie apisi for adding Oki, hello to my blackfeet friends!

Thank you to Terina for adding the following:
In South Africa in Afrikaans, we say "goeiedag" for good day; "goeiemore" for good morning, "goeiemiddag" is good afternoon, and 'goeienaand" is for good evening. But 'hello' is also used in Afrikaans.

Thank you to LittleFireRuru for adding this:
To say hi in Mohawk it is said in several ways and depending if you are either Eastern or Western dialect. Here is the way it is said. I will give you all of the versions of it. Hello-kew, sekkon, sekoh, or Khwe. She:ken and she:kon. The one that my tribe uses is Sekkon. bye in Mohawk is On:en or O:nen. Good bye is O:nen ki' wa'hi. We usually O:nen. Have a nice day in Mohawk is Senhniseriio'hsten. Good Morning is orhen'ke'ne awiyo. I hope that this helps you out. LittleFireRuru

Thank you to Pjcrickett for adding the following:
In portuguese it is Ola' for Hi or Hello....and Bom dia is good day.

I'm a professional pianist, piano teacher, and general music teacher. I have created a young children's music program called World of Harmony Music. You can learn more about that at www.worldofharmonymusic.com and even hear adorable recordings from my tiny students there! Here is the logo that I created a year ago. It combines the musical bass clef, the yin and yang, a smiley face for Dad, and a globe.



I feel so lucky that I've combined my 2 passions, piano and children, into a very successful career!

Here's a video of a very gifted student of mine. He just turned 6, and just amazes me. This was recorded at our Starbucks Holiday Event a couple weeks ago. He keeps me hopping!



Here's a video of my daughter playing piano with the Mercury Ensemble in Denver, Colorado. Hope you'll enjoy!





This next video is me playing Chopin's Nocturne in D flat, Op. 27, No. 2. Enjoy!





And this video I made the same day, Listz's "Consolation No. 3, D Flat Major". This was my mom's favorite piece. She passed away on Thanksgiving Day, 2001. I play this in loving memory of Mom.






OK, one more video, same day, November 5, 2008. This is George Winston's arrangement of "Carol of the Bells". I learned this one years ago by listening to his CD and playing what I was hearing. I have 3 students working on this one, so I purposely filmed this as a hands close-up, hoping it will help them to learn it too!


I even created a tutorial for those who want to learn George Winston's "Carol of the Bells". Go to www.youtube.com/pianomam to see all my videos, including the tutorial.

My son, age 16, is the lead singer and bass player of a rock band called "Today's Paramount". He also writes a lot of music for them. They've been playing gigs for 2 years already.

You can learn more about them at www.myspace.com/todaysparamount. They're busy recording their first demo CD, to be released to local radio stations soon! It's their dream to do this for a living, so please wish them luck! Here's a video of them performing recently. My son is the lead singer, shown on the right.

I will never get tired of seeing the excitement in the faces of my music students when they play a polished piece of music for me! There's nothing like teaching them that all that hard work truly pays off! You can see videos of them performing recently, as well as many videos of my own playing, at www.youtube.com/pianomam.

I love smiley faces, which seem to be signs from my late father!


I always see the number / time 11:11 and 1:11, which seem to be signs from my late mom. About an hour after I wrote that, I suddenly noticed my points were at 111! Hi Mom! Can anyone tell me what those points are??

Endless thanks to my dear friend, blumountainsage, for giving me my earth name, Three Eagles Spirit! I feel so incredibly honored to be blessed with an earth name now! Please see my blog in the left column of this page to see why it was chosen for me!




I have created a gift for my friend nitisin, known here as BluMountainSage. I arranged the music for the Native American Circle Dance for piano, and added a winter twist to the piece! This is the piece that you can hear playing first on my popout player, if you click on it. Thank you SO much for all you've done for me, nitisin! I hope that you and my other Native American friends on The Hill will enjoy my attempt at this beautiful piece of Native American music!



I took an online test to find out my power bird. Here's what it came up with. Way to go, nitisin, you're right again!



Your Power Bird is an Eagle




You are spiritual and able to soar to great heights.

You are a true inspiration, and many people look to you for guidance.

And you are quite demanding in relationships... but you're worth it.

People know that you will become even greater than you imagine.





I love hearing the call of the loons on our lake in northern Minnesota, pictured in my background picture, where I spend my summers. It sends chills down my spine, and tears into my eyes! As a musician, I love that the loon in my picture looks like he's conducting a symphony that he's hearing from our cabin! Either that or he's just waving at us!





I'm the daughter of a twin, and have always been very drawn to identical multiples. I often feel that I was supposed to be an identical twin, and I know that it's very possible that my mother miscarried my twin, as it was a difficult pregnancy. That might explain why I'm so drawn to twins?

Speaking of twins, here's a video of my twin students playing a duet arrangement we put together of "Linus & Lucy", the Charlie Brown theme.




This is the same twins, cutting loose for their impression of a Victor Borge skit! I love that they're getting it ... that music is supposed to be FUN!!! That is the main thing I want my students learning from me! When I see this, I think it's working!




I love bringing people to tears if I've managed to put enough of my heart into my piano playing. It's such a compliment!

Here's a video of me playing Rachmaninoff's Prelude in G Sharp minor. I hope you'll like it!



Here's another slow, pretty one. Beethoven's "Moonlight" Sonata.



As a thyroid cancer survivor, I also like hearing cancer survivors' stories. If you or someone you know is a cancer survivor, email me! I'm compiling the best stories into a book to be published for the benefit of those still battling cancer! For more information about how to submit your story for consideration in our book, Finding the JOY in Cancer, please go to http://www.thecaregiversvoice.com/books/submissions/joy_cancer.asp

Negativity. Why bother? Life's too short, too precious. Tomorrow is a gift, not a promise. You better make sure you enjoy today!

I hate road rage and tail gaiting, especially when I'm already going 5 or 10 miles over the speed limit.

I hate seeing cigarette butts thrown from cars. Why do people do that? It looks horrible, and is a fire danger. Keep your butts to yourself, will ya?

I hate going to concerts where there are people so drunk they're puking. Can anyone explain to me the fun in that? Yuck!

I'm unreasonably terrified of tornados, and have nightmares about them often. Not good when you spend your summers in Minnesota in a home without a basement!

My biggest passion as you've probably figured out by now is playing the piano, especially classical music. You can hear me accompanying my daughter, Deanna, on this site, as well as other pieces I've recorded.

I have some audio recordings posted on this page, but better ones at www.myspace.com/debbiecenterpiano. Those are larger files, better quality playing, but are too big to be uploaded here on the Hill.

As you know by now, I'm having fun video recording my piano playing with my new recorder. Here's my attempt at Chopin's Nocturne in C# minor, Posthumous:



I also enjoy reading a good book and chatting with friends at my local Starbucks.

I spend my summers at our lake home in northern Minnesota, fishing, kayaking, boating, reading, photography, and volunteering a lot at the local animal shelter. I just LOVE it there!