My most recent wish-I-had thing is a five-string cello. It would be so, so very nice to be able to play low B (and lower!) without going to the trouble of downtuning and changing fingering.
Also, making part of your instrument from 250 year old reclaimed Pennsylvanian barn wood is just awesome. (Most of the instrument, actually, as this is an e-cello and thus consists mainly of fingerboard.)
I need to get some Philip Sheppard CDs, now. The samples on this page are beautiful. You can hear more at BMGZomba, a media-industry library of music clips for trailers and so forth, by searching “Philip Sheppard”. ‘Crystallised Beauty’ is being used for the ITV Jane Austen season, which is what led me to Sheppard’s other music.
Distractions are often healthy, and—in the case of this particular distraction—wonderful!
Re. the cello wish. . . we know, we know, that we are happy with our family and friends and lives, we are lucky, yadda yadda yadda. . . BUT—wishing for things is also healthy and fun, I think. I have a short wish list, but a great one.
Who was it who said “If a man’s grasp exceeds his reach, then what’s a heaven for?”?