The Power of Music

I don't know who Katie Kamara is, but a friend of mine recently tagged me in a comment to this post by her. I think there is a lot of truth in these words.

I feel like the answer, instead of music, should be prayer or Jesus ... but honestly? Right now, today, this week, this whole past month, it's been music that has kept me sane. Not that I've been sane. I've been a trainwreck. A hot mess. A ticking time bomb. But music has given me a focus. Or at least it has temporarily taken my focus off of thoughts such as "I hate my life," "I want to die," "I hate I hate I hate I hate I hate," etc.

Yes, I've been praying. And I know people are praying for me. And maybe their prayers are drawing me to the music. I don't know.

Here's what I do know: I can't do words. I try to write in my journal, and the words don't come. Or, when the words do come, they're about music. I don't want to write about my depression or my despair because doing so will draw me into more depression and despair. Music lifts me out of it, for a while.

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Rethinking Bare Necessities

Today's breakthrough moment (there are actually two of them) focuses on "Bare Necessities." As you'll remember, I discovered Jonny May's arrangement back in early March and immediately decided to learn it. I printed out the music, started the course, and proceeded to learn the stride section, posting a few videos of my progress. Ha. I bet those videos make it look like I was making progress. I guess I was ... but not really. And I realized something this weekend that I hadn't before: Because I was thinking of "Bare Necessities" as a "fun" piece, I wasn't practicing it seriously or diligently. I wasn't treating it as something I wanted to master. This mindset might work with an easier piece, but this arrangement isn't easy. The result: despite a little progress at the outset, I wasn't moving forward. I was stalled. Breakthrough #1 The first breakthrough was realizing that if I truly want to learn this piece and play it well,

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Maple Leaf Rag Breakthrough

Oh, Maple Leaf. Where to begin? At the Beginning I think I’ve mentioned this before, but I learned the A and B sections of Maple Leaf Rag back in the 1990s. I can’t tell you if it was early, mid- or late 90s, but it was during those 10 years after I’d graduated college, when I was playing a good bit of piano but not taking regular lessons from anyone. I don’t remember teaching it to myself at all. I just know that, at some point, the first half of Maple Leaf Rag was part of my two- or three-song repertoire of pieces I’d be able to play by memory over the next 25 years. It was always sloppy and I knew it, but people loved it, and so I played it if there was ever a piano around. Back in January, I decided to properly re-learn those two sections, and to finally learn the C and D sections of this wonderful piece. I worked on these over the next month or two, learning (and-relearning) the notes pretty quickly ... but it took time to memorize, and also to get everything to tempo surpassing a

Picking Up the Pieces

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