A Finger on the Key

I didn't get around to doing a couple daily chores yesterday, and I regret not doing one of them. The one I don't regret is blogging—I don't think my blogging holds the world in the sky, like Atlas.

What I do regret is that I did not once yesterday touch a finger to any of the keys on my piano. Meant to—I've been practicing regularly for some time now, and the jazz piano side is coming along and following after is the sight reading of classical music. I've been good about doing it for a short period every day, and it's improving. But yesterday I missed out on that widow's mite of improvement.

The day before, I was running out of the house, but I stopped in my headlong course and sat at the piano. I pulled out one of my baby books and played just the first phrase, the first eight bars, from a sonata by Domenico Scarlatti. I played it slowly, haltingly, making mistakes and starting over. But despite my clumsiness, the music conjured up that sense you get from Baroque music, the idea often attributed to Asian philosophy that life is beautiful despite, and because of, its transience. Even played by a virtual beginner on a piano badly out of tune, the melody was tender, sweet, and sad in a comforting way—if you've ever been to what people afterward called a "good funeral" you may know what I mean.

That was thirty seconds or so of my life, the day before yesterday. Yesterday, no piano. Nothing happy, nothing sad, nothing fresh and youthful, nothing stately and profound, nothing that swung, nothing that moved me in any way. No piano yesterday.

Today, even though I plan to do and accomplish more with my day, I'll play some piano. Life is busy these days, but on a deeper level it's always been too short not to somehow acknowledge the lovely, sad, profound transience of things. Music, real music, is one of the best ways to acknowledge that, and I'm going to play today.

I notice that I've blogged too! Well, good for me. Have a nice day, gang.