"By" or "at"?

[Rachel Adams]

Hello.

Could you tell me please which preposition I should use in my sentence?

"The pianist was sitting at/by the piano".

 

[Rover_KE]

If he's at the piano, he's in a position to play it.

If he's by the piano, he's sitting to the side of it — possibly to turn the pages over for the pianist.

 

[Rachel Adams]

If he's at the piano, he's in a position to play it.

If he's by the piano, he's sitting to the side of it — possibly to turn the pages over for the pianist.

Thank you. If the pianist is a woman, which of these would be correct to use to talk about her? "The female pianist", "the woman pianist", or "the pianist woman".

 

[Rover_KE]

It's not normally necessary to specify the gender of musicians.

 

[Rachel Adams]

It's not normally necessary to specify the gender of musicians.

Yes, but if I try to specify it would the options I wrote be correct?

 

[GoesStation]

You could say The female/male pianist.

 

[Rachel Adams]

You could say The female/male pianist.

The compound English noun "woman-writer" exists but "woman-pianist" doesn't. Right?

 

[Yankee]

The compound English noun "woman-writer" exists but "woman-pianist" doesn't. Right?

It does if you create it. :-D

 

[GoesStation]

The compound English noun "woman-writer" exists but "woman-pianist" doesn't. Right?

I wouldn't use either.

 

[Rachel Adams]

It does if you create it. :-D

I didn't. :-D I found it in my old book.

 

[emsr2d2]

In the unlikely event of there being two pianists in the same room, both sitting at a piano (and playing), one of them female and the other male, you might need to specify. It's hard to come up with a natural dialogue that would include "woman/man/female/male pianist" though.