Steve, as I perceive it, has a great need to talk. Ironically, he was speaking about various people in his life of late: „They have this huge need to tell their stories, to be heard, but have no interest in hearing what I have to say.“ Certainly today Steve was not in a listening mood with me prior to piano time.
The wounded part of him feels so desperate to me, that it holds me in an interesting thrall. I allow myself to be enthralled. Not that I don’t want to chat before piano time. Steve is inntelligent and has a great curiosity, but he tends to get gummed up in wanting to rescue others (today it was Donald, from the Familie H.) or in his own hurts. The two are thickly interwovern. I wind up being ultra-careful to not hurt his feleings by cutting such conversations short. I, ironically, wind up protecting him, rescuing him from what might, I think, hurt his feelings.
At the piano, it never feels problematic with Steve. He is always focused and juiced. With music, he moves out of his wounds and is very supportive and strong. No sense of that Fragility.
We took a first look at Beethoven’s Tempest sonata, its first movement. S: „Before even opening the book, what do you know?“ V: „That it will not be chaos. The piece will have patterns and structure that I may ascertain. That Beethoven’s purpose with this piece is not to trick me, to trip me up. He really wants to communicate with me, the pianist, and through me, with an audience.“ I need to practice Faith in relying on the above-stated tenets.
We then looked at the graphic appearance of the first movement. Many patterns of 8th notes, with a few short sections of chords. High and low registers. Extreme tempo markings. S: „The markers of a passionate, Romantic Piece!“
S: „What is a simple harmonic pattern here? Think Dominant / Tonic.“ Seeing the Dominant / Tonic pattern as a basic thematic element.