Dreamways

Two major and completely unexpected surprises at Donald and Steve’s festive gathering last night. First, the response to my singing of “Dziedat, meitas, vakarā“ was unexpectedly strong and positive, I’ve never received such warm applause, nor gotten such enthusiastic comments about my singing. Not even close. It completely caught me off guard. As I sang, I felt quite centered, with a sense of where I was going musically. When I forgot the penultimate verse, it was a one second blankness and a quick recovery, moving on to the final verse.  read more »

Much piano playing today. I feel like I am crossing some sort of line (line of resistance?) with the Schumann, with being able to play by memory. I have ongoingly struggled with not needing the printed page for that piece, my beloved Langsam getragen, the final section of the Fantasy in C.

I know it and understand it better than any big piece ever. Yet it is proving to be difficult to wean myself from paper. Partly this is due to the complexity of the music.  read more »

I did sitting meditation this morning, the first time since moving into the loft. I felt perfectly comfortable, familiar and safe. Like visiting a dear old friend.

It is a very distinct way of being and doing. Surprisingly distinct from my middle of the night ruminations. Sitting is relaxing and emptying, while the ruminations are definitely not relaxing, even when I try to focus on something centering, like, say Dievs. The Midnight Musings inevitably involve dancing with Demons.  read more »

Sleep Dream. I am in a large, Victorian-style house. (It is Carl’s house, but not it at all.) A very large parlor room, like a salon. It is a gathering organized by Steve, about piano playing. There are two grand pianos at the front of the space. The seating space is stadium style. There are a couple dozen people present. It is a very informal event, like a group lesson. Steve is talking about technique, the overview of topics / concerns that we talked about at my last [real life] lesson. Steve asks two of the students present to demonstrate at the pianos these technical concepts.  read more »

Eldora. Mid-day Saturday. We arrived up here last night around eleven, having dined at Billie and Jed’s in Boulder. F and I slept in until 10:00 this morning, a couple of sleepyheads. The past weeks feel like I am finding a new / old sense of center in terms of piano playing. It’s like I have space where I can remain, where I can be balanced, rather than off-kilter. It is like I don’t have to throw myself into whatever the piece is, and just be dragged along by some mysterious, inchoate process.  read more »

Sleep Dream.  We have arrived at Mrs. Grāvele’ apartment for some sort of a group piano lesson, Antra, Jaye de G, Lizzie P. and I. The apartment is in the high rise on Sherman and Ninth, the building where Ethel Merman was ensconced back in the 1950’s by Robert Six. We get into the apartment, but Mrs. G is not there. It’s a simple, if perhaps even elegant, modern space, in brown and gray tones. We sit and wait. The atmosphere between us is formal, quiet. I don’t trust any of the three ladies. None of them is particularly talkative.  read more »

Piano lesson. I didn’t play at all since last sesson. I could explain it with various logistical circumstances, but on a deeper level, I know that part of me was simply avoiding practice. The part that wants to not feel pressured, not feel caught in a treadmill, to feel unfettered. The part that want to say „Fuck you!“ to blind authority.  Another part of me is terrified of what really opening up to music might mean. That part wants to soar, but is petrified of doing it.  read more »

At piano lesson, Steve & I worked on a brand new piece, Debussy’s Prelude in A minor from Pour le Piano. My pianistic history has included no French composers to speak of. Steve loves them, so it will be wonderful to have an intro into a new-for-me room of the pianistic library.  read more »

I spent 4 hours at the Steinway yesterday. It was time well spent. Not many minutes of mindless drudgery, as in the old days, but, rather, quite focused and productive time. I was able to sit back, think and observe. In a new way for me, as concerns being WITH playing. Multiple strategies of staying mindful. I was successfrul at catching drift-off moments and bringing myself present. I worked on Mozart to let go of the printed note. I feel like I made a good deal of progress. I sat with each variation and pondered it, its structure.  read more »

Wednesday evening. Dinner made and eaten. The sounds of Celso Pina fill the loft, the CD a birthday gift for F, we knowing about him from Tequila Rosa’s where we have much enjoyed his Cumbia sobre el rio The sky is painted in various shades of gray. UPS brought F a box from Amazon. It contained a digital camera that F ordered, a Panasonic with a Leica lense. He’s already taken his first photos, downloaded them into his Powerbook to send them to Inta. Pretty slick, how it all works!  read more »