Picking Up the Pieces

Today I took my lunch break with Henry. We worked on those runs in the Chopin that I was writing about earlier. I decided to record myself playing them so I could get a different perspective on how those runs were actually sounding. It's been a long time since I've recorded myself playing this piece. As I listened to my first few measures, I realized something, and it had nothing to do with the runs: The first note of each measure in the LH is unnecessarily heavy. Too heavy. In fact, it has a funereal sound to it, or maybe just the sense of heavy, tired breathing: a slow BOOM da da da da da, BOOM da da da da da ..." My beautiful, thoughtful nocturne sounded tired. It's a nighttime-evoking piece , but "tired" is not the effect I'm looking for! I may have even heard a hint of labored snoring. At first I wasn't sure why it sounded to sluggish, so I listened to my beloved Rubinstein, and then to me, and compared. Ahhhh ... something I never

It has been a lovely morning. I woke up, did some writing, listened to some Horowitz, listened to Rubinstein playing my Nocturne , and then played for a few minutes myself, all before waking up the kid and getting her off to school. Considering how little I've played in the past few weeks, and particularly how little I've played in the past 10 years, Op. 9 No. 1 is not sounding too bad. My new teacher may have  different opinion, but for now, I'm going with my own judgment. I feel like I don't have too far to go to get this into "recital" shape. What's left? Memorize. I have a lot of it by muscle memory, but I haven't actively worked on memorizing it. Analyze. As a composer wanna-be, I want to look at every single unit of this piece and understand what makes each one what it is. This probably isn't a necessary step, but it's something I want to do. Learn the notes. Ha ha. OK, so I already know the notes, but there are just a

I did it. I signed up for piano lessons. One evening a week, for an hour. I've found a good, serious teacher, and my first lesson is next week. It feels kind of like I'm strapping myself into a roller coaster. I'm really excited, even though I'm sure the whole experience will have its scary and stressful moments. And there just may be a time or two when I want to yell, "Stop this thing! Let me off!" The last time I took regular lessons was 2005. I studied with Deborah for about a year and a half, and then I got the teaching job, and then we moved, and then ... well. We tried to start up lessons again a few times, but it never worked. Our schedules didn't match up, and I was busy with a full-time job and a small child. I'm no less busy today, but I've been doing a lot of thinking about priorities. I've also been thinking about where I am in life: My child is more independent, we're financially stable, and my health is good. My parent

Last spring, I got Henry the Grand. It was a sudden kind of thing: I started taking voice lessons from Richard Cook, who is the music director for Reid Memorial Presbyterian in Augusta. He mentioned that the church had a grand piano that he needed to give away. Would I like to look at it? Sure! I suspected it might be a piece of junk, but he assured me that, while it wasn't in the greatest shape, it was a good piano. So I went to the church, met centenarian "Henry," and said, "Yes, I'll take him." We had him moved to my house. A few months later, we had him tuned. Between moving and tuning, I probably paid a good $1,000, but ... for a beautiful grand piano? Not a bad deal. He's since been moved to another room, not right in front of a window. That move--from one room to another--was $260. I am in love with Henry. I know he's no Steinway, and no Bösendorfer (which, if I had my druthers ...), but he's mine. He has ivory keys, and I

This is the kind of thing I've been doing lately , now that I have Henry. I'll practice other things, but I fall back into "noodling"--just playing with a chord progression and pretending, I guess, that I'm at a piano bar, or maybe stuck in some elevator that has New Age piano music playing in the background.