Actually, Joe, I was under the impression that giving up smoking would improve your performance. I'm not sure it helps you find someone with whom to perform.

I have a friend who claimed he gave up smoking when he got married. His wife didn't smoke and he got tired of kissing a woman with no taste.

The restaurants here are divided into Smoking and Non Smoking zones at the moment (soon, I fear, they will all be non-smoking.) If you look in the window, the people at the smoking tables appear to be talking and laughing while at the non-smoking tables they seem to be somberly attending to their meals. I don't draw any conclusions--I just state an observation.

My friends father gave up smoking in his late 60s. He vowed that if he reached the age of 80 he would start again. He did reach the age of 80 and he did start again. Sure enough fourteen years later he was dead.

You have a point, Bert, about synchronizing. After all a piano can be heard over the whole bunch, but it is not an orchestral instrument.

Murray