Piano

In my idle days, I've been playing a lot of piano. I like to warm up with some easy but affective pieces, mostly Chopin Nocturnes or more recently Mazurkas. I'm not a Romanticist in literature, but I do love Romantic music. I'm starting to play a Brahms Intermezzo (A Major, Op. 118), but I have to be careful not to sight read the whole thing and then try to fine tune it. I'm impatient. I need to prevent myself from moving past the first section until it's solid, and start off hands separate. It's just so much more immediately satisfying to sight read through, but that's how one develops bad habits and awkward fingering. I have definitely done that with the Beethoven Pathetique Sonata--I started out just sight reading it because I love it, but I think it'll be hard to make it really good now because of that.

I love looking at sheet music. As the nerd that I am, I like listening to recorded music and following along with my score, making notes. I've been thinking a lot about structure and phrasing, and making sure that it's clear where phrases begin and end. Playing Chopin, I've been using a lot of rubato; I'm trying to resist messing about with time in Beethoven's slow movements. At least I have some liberty with all the ornaments.

What I love most about being able to play is that it's really a fundamental shift in my state of being: my normal everyday (prosaic) state and the instinctive conduit. It's not really an intellectual exercise, though I do have to make certain decisions before and re-evaluate after. My technique may not be perfect, but I am committed to respecting the spirit. It's important to have this sort of meditation, some arational experience--that's why many people pray. I suppose, then, that it's art that I worship. Too cheesy?