I had an episode night before last worth writing about -
I woke up at 3:00 with a terrible coffee withdrawal headache. It was bad. I can't go on drinking coffee - it actually gives me headaches now. So I got up an played my electronic keyboard, using headphones. It was very nice. My headache disappeared while I played (music therapy!) and I improvised better than ever before (I just discovered improv last week). But by 4:00 it was time to get back to bed - I had to be at work at 7:30. So my headache returned. I didn't know how I was going to get to sleep like this, so I started observing my breathing and used the pain to drive my consciousness deeper, and I found a very spiritual place deep inside myself that I hadn't been in touch with in decades. It was beautiful, and a full justification for spending a life seeking the spiritual in everything. I couldn't keep my concentration though - my mind kept wanting to think about books, movies, and other things - the equivalent of eating candy when I should be eating good food - and I kept drifting back to the surface, where my headache was lying in wait. So, the lack of discipline overcame the revealed state. Too bad. Still, it gives me something to work towards, and showed me the value of a headache. I got up at 4:30, ate an apple, and had a couple of advils, which let me grab a nap before I had to get up at 6:15.
So - spirituality and music in the small hours - not bad for an old man saddled with a full-time job.
Friday, June 29, 2012
Saturday, June 23, 2012
Musical ancestors, continued
It's Saturday, I'm at a coffeehouse, just having imbibed a capuccino. Having left you, dear reader, with a cliffhanger during my last blog entry, it seems the least I could do would be to relieve the anticipation, and tell you why my parents hid the musical history of my family from me.
But first, a little more about that family. As I mentioned, Joe Verges was a songwriter. He couldn't read music, but by all accounts he could play the piano well, and, at first, wrote lyrics too. Later he collaborated with lyricists, and had to use the services of musical arrangers and transcriptionists, who, according to Al Rose (the man who started me on this topic), would often write themselves in as co-composers, and grab some of the royalties.
Perhaps the most famous of Joe's songs is Don't Leave me Daddy. It was published in New Orleans as early as 1916, and was a local hit. In 1943, the forces behind the movie For Me and My Gal chose this song to include in a vaudeville number at the beginning of the movie. Load that link below to see Judy Garland singing the chorus to the song, sandwiched between choruses of "Oh You Beautiful Doll":
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iabVthq4JcA
Joe wrote many songs, and according to my mother, he was "riding high" when this song was made famous all over again. But by this time he would have been 63 or so, and his music would have been really out of style. None of my relatives ever had a good thing to say about him, and here's why: Joe scandalized the family by abandoning his wife and infant son.
Joe didn't leave his wife and son for another woman, but so that he could continue his career unhindered by them.
The repercussions were immediate. His wife became destitute, and apparently remained so for the rest of her life. His son, Joe Jr., hated his father, and didn't outlive him by many years.
Music got a really bad name in my family.
My father, Daniel Leon, when he expressed interest in the saxophone, was not only forbidden to do so, but his mother, Mozella Gardemal Verges, responded by throwing out her husband's violin (without consulting Mr. Verges Sr. about it).
And then came the Great Depression. All of the Verges brothers were hit hard, but Leon, my grandfather, who had given up a musical career to pursue the shipping business, and later real estate, made enough money to help his brothers out. So, the story of my musical great-uncles with their hands out for help from Leon continued, no doubt spread by my grandmother.
Music became a disreputable pursuit now, as far as my family was concerned.
Here's an anecdote from my mother: around the time Joe died, one of my relatives saw me toddling around at a get-together and said "There goes another Joe Verges!" Apparently I had the same coloriing as Joe - blond hair and blue eyes. Mozella was offended by that remark. Joe was dead, and should stay buried. There were now no more living musicians in the family, and Mozella liked it that way. She had successfully repressed my father's musical development, and probably hoped that the curse of music was extinguished from the Verges line forever.
And the way I and my siblings were raised, this was looking quite likely. Although my sisters played the piano, and my brother sang in musical productions in high school, not a one was truly in love with music. My dad sang with the Esso chorus for a few years, and later played piano duets with his girls, but when Mozella died in '68 he stopped playing. I played the snare and bass drums for a couple of years in my elementary school, Our Lady of Mercy (more on that psychic abbatoir in another blog post). It seemed to me from these experiences that music was something you studied so you could abandon it to pursue other, more practical things.
I was born in 1960, and between 1963 and 1970, some of the most remarkable popular music ever was flooding the airwaves: The Beatles, the Doors, the Who, Cream, the Hollies, the Grass Roots, the Turtles, the Jefferson Airplane, Jimi Hendrix, Janice Joplin, . This did something to me. Then, when my brother got a job about 1970 at McDonald's to pay for a stereo, there was the Allman Brothers, Bob Dylan, Jethro Tull, Crosby Stills, Nash & Young, and, most importantly for me, Yes. Listening to Yes' Fragile album over headphones rewired my brain. I've never recovered from the experience. And what really rocked my world was the soundtrack to the movie Love Story, which my brother and my oldest sister got from the Columbia Record Club. This cassette tape had a piece of music by someone named J.S. Bach, and it was called Harpsichord Concerto in E major. It was actually the last movement of a three-movement piece, transcribed from a violin concerto by Bach himself, although I didn't know any of that. What I did know was that I couldn't get enough of this. I couldn't play it, I couldn't sing it, but it absolutely bewitched my 11-year-old brain. I was in love, and I've never cared about any topic since, and never really wanted to do anything but learn more about music, since that time. (Except, chase girls - that topic definitely got my attention...)
Why then, didn't I start studying music right away? Well, piano seemed like a girly pursuit, so that was out. No guys were playing piano at all in my neighborhood. My brother played drums for a little while at OLOM, so I figured that was masculine enough for me. Unfortunately, learning drums meant there was no pitch information being taught to me - just rhythm. Not good for a career in music. And drums weren't doing it for me - I've never had the soul of a percussionist. I had wanted for a long time to be a singer, and indeed there was a boy's choir, starting in fourth grade. I had ambitions for that. When I got into fourth grade, they made a rule saying that it started in fifth grade, and when I got into fifth grade, they cancelled the choir altogether. I then could look forward to choir in high school, but when I got to ninth grade, scheduling incompatibilities between my boy's high school and its sister institution for girls made that impossible as well. So, when I got into middle school, I sang in a very mediocre mixed choir at my church, where I again failed to learn to read music.
And then, there was a discussion between my parents and one of their party buddies, Dallas Draper. Dallas conducted the A Capella choir at LSU, and for some reason came to my parents' parties (perhaps there was a connection with the Esso choir). While drinking together one night, my parents mentioned the possibility of their boy Roy studying music to him, and according to my mother, who related the story many years later, Dallas' reply was "There's a lot of folks with music degrees looking for work" or some such response, so, behind my back, with no communication or consultation, a musical career was ruled out for Roy boy. After all, music was dishonorable. Music was disreputable. Just look at the old Vergeses. End of story.
This was why, dear reader, my parents kept my musical ancestry from me. They were afraid that my fascination for music would lead to my destitution.They wanted me to pursue something lucrative that would keep me going, so I could do - what? Marry and raise a family of unhappy children? I don't know. They didn't talk about it - they didn't say - "Roy I know you love music but please for God's sake study something in college that will get you a good job" - no: there was no communication. Just a cutting off of musical possibilities whenever possible. No communication.
Stay with me, reader, and next time I will communicate with you about my father's attempts to suppress my musical inclinations, just as was done to him by his mother...
But first, a little more about that family. As I mentioned, Joe Verges was a songwriter. He couldn't read music, but by all accounts he could play the piano well, and, at first, wrote lyrics too. Later he collaborated with lyricists, and had to use the services of musical arrangers and transcriptionists, who, according to Al Rose (the man who started me on this topic), would often write themselves in as co-composers, and grab some of the royalties.
Perhaps the most famous of Joe's songs is Don't Leave me Daddy. It was published in New Orleans as early as 1916, and was a local hit. In 1943, the forces behind the movie For Me and My Gal chose this song to include in a vaudeville number at the beginning of the movie. Load that link below to see Judy Garland singing the chorus to the song, sandwiched between choruses of "Oh You Beautiful Doll":
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iabVthq4JcA
Joe wrote many songs, and according to my mother, he was "riding high" when this song was made famous all over again. But by this time he would have been 63 or so, and his music would have been really out of style. None of my relatives ever had a good thing to say about him, and here's why: Joe scandalized the family by abandoning his wife and infant son.
Joe didn't leave his wife and son for another woman, but so that he could continue his career unhindered by them.
The repercussions were immediate. His wife became destitute, and apparently remained so for the rest of her life. His son, Joe Jr., hated his father, and didn't outlive him by many years.
Music got a really bad name in my family.
My father, Daniel Leon, when he expressed interest in the saxophone, was not only forbidden to do so, but his mother, Mozella Gardemal Verges, responded by throwing out her husband's violin (without consulting Mr. Verges Sr. about it).
And then came the Great Depression. All of the Verges brothers were hit hard, but Leon, my grandfather, who had given up a musical career to pursue the shipping business, and later real estate, made enough money to help his brothers out. So, the story of my musical great-uncles with their hands out for help from Leon continued, no doubt spread by my grandmother.
Music became a disreputable pursuit now, as far as my family was concerned.
Here's an anecdote from my mother: around the time Joe died, one of my relatives saw me toddling around at a get-together and said "There goes another Joe Verges!" Apparently I had the same coloriing as Joe - blond hair and blue eyes. Mozella was offended by that remark. Joe was dead, and should stay buried. There were now no more living musicians in the family, and Mozella liked it that way. She had successfully repressed my father's musical development, and probably hoped that the curse of music was extinguished from the Verges line forever.
And the way I and my siblings were raised, this was looking quite likely. Although my sisters played the piano, and my brother sang in musical productions in high school, not a one was truly in love with music. My dad sang with the Esso chorus for a few years, and later played piano duets with his girls, but when Mozella died in '68 he stopped playing. I played the snare and bass drums for a couple of years in my elementary school, Our Lady of Mercy (more on that psychic abbatoir in another blog post). It seemed to me from these experiences that music was something you studied so you could abandon it to pursue other, more practical things.
I was born in 1960, and between 1963 and 1970, some of the most remarkable popular music ever was flooding the airwaves: The Beatles, the Doors, the Who, Cream, the Hollies, the Grass Roots, the Turtles, the Jefferson Airplane, Jimi Hendrix, Janice Joplin, . This did something to me. Then, when my brother got a job about 1970 at McDonald's to pay for a stereo, there was the Allman Brothers, Bob Dylan, Jethro Tull, Crosby Stills, Nash & Young, and, most importantly for me, Yes. Listening to Yes' Fragile album over headphones rewired my brain. I've never recovered from the experience. And what really rocked my world was the soundtrack to the movie Love Story, which my brother and my oldest sister got from the Columbia Record Club. This cassette tape had a piece of music by someone named J.S. Bach, and it was called Harpsichord Concerto in E major. It was actually the last movement of a three-movement piece, transcribed from a violin concerto by Bach himself, although I didn't know any of that. What I did know was that I couldn't get enough of this. I couldn't play it, I couldn't sing it, but it absolutely bewitched my 11-year-old brain. I was in love, and I've never cared about any topic since, and never really wanted to do anything but learn more about music, since that time. (Except, chase girls - that topic definitely got my attention...)
Why then, didn't I start studying music right away? Well, piano seemed like a girly pursuit, so that was out. No guys were playing piano at all in my neighborhood. My brother played drums for a little while at OLOM, so I figured that was masculine enough for me. Unfortunately, learning drums meant there was no pitch information being taught to me - just rhythm. Not good for a career in music. And drums weren't doing it for me - I've never had the soul of a percussionist. I had wanted for a long time to be a singer, and indeed there was a boy's choir, starting in fourth grade. I had ambitions for that. When I got into fourth grade, they made a rule saying that it started in fifth grade, and when I got into fifth grade, they cancelled the choir altogether. I then could look forward to choir in high school, but when I got to ninth grade, scheduling incompatibilities between my boy's high school and its sister institution for girls made that impossible as well. So, when I got into middle school, I sang in a very mediocre mixed choir at my church, where I again failed to learn to read music.
And then, there was a discussion between my parents and one of their party buddies, Dallas Draper. Dallas conducted the A Capella choir at LSU, and for some reason came to my parents' parties (perhaps there was a connection with the Esso choir). While drinking together one night, my parents mentioned the possibility of their boy Roy studying music to him, and according to my mother, who related the story many years later, Dallas' reply was "There's a lot of folks with music degrees looking for work" or some such response, so, behind my back, with no communication or consultation, a musical career was ruled out for Roy boy. After all, music was dishonorable. Music was disreputable. Just look at the old Vergeses. End of story.
This was why, dear reader, my parents kept my musical ancestry from me. They were afraid that my fascination for music would lead to my destitution.They wanted me to pursue something lucrative that would keep me going, so I could do - what? Marry and raise a family of unhappy children? I don't know. They didn't talk about it - they didn't say - "Roy I know you love music but please for God's sake study something in college that will get you a good job" - no: there was no communication. Just a cutting off of musical possibilities whenever possible. No communication.
Stay with me, reader, and next time I will communicate with you about my father's attempts to suppress my musical inclinations, just as was done to him by his mother...
Monday, June 18, 2012
Musical ancestors
I'd like to write about a special week in my life - if I remember correctly, it was in late March or early April in 1979, which would become a turning point.
I had played in rock bands in high school, and music was the only thing I cared about, besides girls. My parents tried to make it as difficult as possible for me to play or learn about music, and this continued after my dad died, shortly after I graduated. My mother pressured me to sign up for Zoology studies at LSU, so I caved in and registered for school in the fall. In the emotional void I was experiencing, I did as my siblings had done before me - I moved into a dorm and joined a fraternity. I studied Algebra, Biology, Chemistry, and English, and finished my first semester with a 2.64.
One day the following semester, when I was 18 and living in a fraternity house, I returned from classes and one of the neanderthals there said "Hey Roy! Some old guy turned up here asking for you!" . I was having a really bad week in my second semester, my chemistry classes were killing me, and I just wasn't motivated. In fact I was beginning to fail. I took the phone number the man left and called him. His name was Al Rose and he said he was writing a book about early jazz musicians from New Orleans. How could I help this guy?
He wanted help researching my great-uncles and my grandfather, who were all musicians. What? I knew that my grandfather, Leon, played the violin, because my friend Brien Lundin's grandmother had visited Leon and Mozella Verges decades before (small world) and told me about it in her thick Cajun accent ("Voiges? You any kin to Lay-aw Voiges?"). I didn't know anything about my great-uncles.
Well, the story unfolded. There were four of them: Joe, Alphonse, Leon, and Michael. Joe was the oldest, played piano, and wrote over 600 songs. Alphonse was a ragtime pianist. Leon was a violinist. Michael was a well-known drummer. They would all make money in vaudeville and silent-movie theatres during their careers. Joe got a song in a Judy Garland movie. Paul Whiteman, the so-called King of Jazz, tried to recruit Michael. A song by Alphonse got preserved in the Library of Congress.
Wow! This news was electrifying to me. Right when I was not wanting to go on, and feeling like I'd lost my way, suddenly I was the heir to a disposessed throne - part of an honorable lineage of men who'd devoted their lives to music.
I immediately dropped all my classes but one, just to stay in school, and marched over to the LSU Music School.
More on this story later, where I reveal just why my parents kept all this from me.
I had played in rock bands in high school, and music was the only thing I cared about, besides girls. My parents tried to make it as difficult as possible for me to play or learn about music, and this continued after my dad died, shortly after I graduated. My mother pressured me to sign up for Zoology studies at LSU, so I caved in and registered for school in the fall. In the emotional void I was experiencing, I did as my siblings had done before me - I moved into a dorm and joined a fraternity. I studied Algebra, Biology, Chemistry, and English, and finished my first semester with a 2.64.
One day the following semester, when I was 18 and living in a fraternity house, I returned from classes and one of the neanderthals there said "Hey Roy! Some old guy turned up here asking for you!" . I was having a really bad week in my second semester, my chemistry classes were killing me, and I just wasn't motivated. In fact I was beginning to fail. I took the phone number the man left and called him. His name was Al Rose and he said he was writing a book about early jazz musicians from New Orleans. How could I help this guy?
He wanted help researching my great-uncles and my grandfather, who were all musicians. What? I knew that my grandfather, Leon, played the violin, because my friend Brien Lundin's grandmother had visited Leon and Mozella Verges decades before (small world) and told me about it in her thick Cajun accent ("Voiges? You any kin to Lay-aw Voiges?"). I didn't know anything about my great-uncles.
Well, the story unfolded. There were four of them: Joe, Alphonse, Leon, and Michael. Joe was the oldest, played piano, and wrote over 600 songs. Alphonse was a ragtime pianist. Leon was a violinist. Michael was a well-known drummer. They would all make money in vaudeville and silent-movie theatres during their careers. Joe got a song in a Judy Garland movie. Paul Whiteman, the so-called King of Jazz, tried to recruit Michael. A song by Alphonse got preserved in the Library of Congress.
Wow! This news was electrifying to me. Right when I was not wanting to go on, and feeling like I'd lost my way, suddenly I was the heir to a disposessed throne - part of an honorable lineage of men who'd devoted their lives to music.
I immediately dropped all my classes but one, just to stay in school, and marched over to the LSU Music School.
More on this story later, where I reveal just why my parents kept all this from me.
Friday, June 15, 2012
Some creative advice from Pythea: post every day, and keep 'em short. OK - I can try that.
Today was a day off work. I spent it doing errands, and kept coming home between trips to be with my dogs. I did a Jazzercise class, which made me feel really good after, although I felt like I was crashing a party, as I was the only man there. In the evening, I met my family at a yogurt place, and the kid played video games while B & I plotted out a family vacation, to North Carolina, which we decided we couldn't afford. We may revisit the thing again, with KOA's & packed lunches instead of hotel rooms and restaurants, and see how that adds up. Later I worked on the pool, which is rather Sisyphian, since it keeps turning green and needs brushing and other treatments.
Tomorrow, my family is celebrating Father's Day by loading us into a hotel for the evening, with swimming pool, restaurant, and videos on demand! That should be fun.
Tonight my daughter wrote a hip-hop song, which she sang for B & me while dancing, complete with cool costuming and lights. There was a three-level stage, made with her trundle bed and the floor, and she used it all in her choreography. Jumping down, and down, and up, and up, and running her fingers around the brim of her hat while striking a pose.Wow! What a creative soul there! Who needs music school when you've got inspiraton?
She got into choir for next year. She's hungry for glory. She wants to be one of the top five singers in her group. I answered by telling her that she needed to start taking care of her voice, and stop screaming and doing all the other abusive things she does with her vocal cords. She answered that bit of fatherly advice with an ear-splitting shriek.
Musical stuff: I sight-read selections from a Bach partita in A, and played all twelve harmonic major scales. First time for me - I'd been thinking about the scale but had never played them all. Lots of interesting chords to follow.
How's that for short? If I had more time, as the man said, I could write a shorter blog...
Today was a day off work. I spent it doing errands, and kept coming home between trips to be with my dogs. I did a Jazzercise class, which made me feel really good after, although I felt like I was crashing a party, as I was the only man there. In the evening, I met my family at a yogurt place, and the kid played video games while B & I plotted out a family vacation, to North Carolina, which we decided we couldn't afford. We may revisit the thing again, with KOA's & packed lunches instead of hotel rooms and restaurants, and see how that adds up. Later I worked on the pool, which is rather Sisyphian, since it keeps turning green and needs brushing and other treatments.
Tomorrow, my family is celebrating Father's Day by loading us into a hotel for the evening, with swimming pool, restaurant, and videos on demand! That should be fun.
Tonight my daughter wrote a hip-hop song, which she sang for B & me while dancing, complete with cool costuming and lights. There was a three-level stage, made with her trundle bed and the floor, and she used it all in her choreography. Jumping down, and down, and up, and up, and running her fingers around the brim of her hat while striking a pose.Wow! What a creative soul there! Who needs music school when you've got inspiraton?
She got into choir for next year. She's hungry for glory. She wants to be one of the top five singers in her group. I answered by telling her that she needed to start taking care of her voice, and stop screaming and doing all the other abusive things she does with her vocal cords. She answered that bit of fatherly advice with an ear-splitting shriek.
Musical stuff: I sight-read selections from a Bach partita in A, and played all twelve harmonic major scales. First time for me - I'd been thinking about the scale but had never played them all. Lots of interesting chords to follow.
How's that for short? If I had more time, as the man said, I could write a shorter blog...
Thursday, June 14, 2012
first post
Now that blogging is going out of existence (at least as a cutting-edge form of self-expression), I thought I'd join up. It's the height of egoism to think that I'd have anything to share that would be written in any kind of worthwhile, erudite way - I know: I've kept diaries, and, re-reading them, cringed at the immaturity, self-importance, and egoism there on every page. I'm sure I've got more of the same coming.
But as a journal of day-to-day life, it may be useful for me to write, if not for anyone to read. And, as a husband and father, I'm seasoned, conditioned, tamed. I know the value of an hour now. And little moments of freedom are exquisite in the moment of experiencing them.
Just today, I visited a coffeehouse for half an hour, where I got steamed milk with amaretto (my stomach gets irritated by caffeine - either a mark of old age, or a sign of being in touch with my body - I'll leave it up to the reader to decide) and took a seat. I pulled up a document on Matlab's implementation of neural networks. Joy! To have to freedom to direct my mind here, simply because I decided to. Not for any commercial consideration, or acting in concert with my family, or my job. The dog was off the leash. My mind breathed freely for awhile.
While I was there I noticed young people, having their conversations about music, just as I used to.(It was all so important! Back then I might end a friendship based on someone's musical tastes.) One girl was talking to a young man across their table, and her hand was poised on her lap in piano position, as if she constantly had to be in musical character. The young man said "You were thinking about Fleetwood Mac" and she laughed. She's very beautiful, and he's kind of shlubby, not too much so - if he took care of himself instead of devoting all his time to sedentary musical activities and a sit-down job, he'd look good enough to compel her romantic sensibilities. He probably wishes he could, but doesn't have a clue that that sandwich he's eating is giving him a gluten sensitivity that's interfering with his fat metabolism. And he should know that being in love with music is going to make it harder for him to get a partner. Screamingly obvious to me, and he's blind to it all. He probably thinks he's inventing all of this as he goes along - moving to Denton to study music, and compelled to spend time with women. Compelled to work to pay the bills. Compelled to sleep to keep himself together.
It can get hard to smile after enough years of this kind of frustration.
And he doesn't realize, that, if he marries, things get harder and more frustrating, but in a different and unimagined way. Musical barriers yield themselves to years of technical acquisition, but there's no time to play or compose, or rehearse or perform, because the wife asserts her needs, and those needs cost the musical husband everything he ever sought to accomplish.
***********************************************************************
I had a very beautiful start to the day. The house was dark, it was 5:05, and I decided to play my electronic keyboard that used to belong to my nephew. It's got two stuck keys, from when my daughter got frustrated and smashed the keyboard with her little fists. And the action is incredibly light, which I don't prefer, but with good technique it doesn't matter. I was thinking of something I'd read by Sidney Lanier, the 19th-c American poet, that if poetry is like a painting to be viewed by sunlight, then music is like a painting to viewed by moonlight. That's a good thought to begin the day with, as I moved through my darkened house with a copy of A Dozen A Day, a volume of very simple piano music. I couldn't read it in the dark, but, I thought, I could let the notes that I couldn't read suggest music to me that I could play, and it all turned out very beautifully. I played an Alberti bass on the chords C major, Aflat augmented, and F minor, and in the right hand I played the C harmonic major scale (look it up on Wikipedia if you aren't familiar with it: it's rich in harmonic implications). I found that as I directed my mind to hold the left-hand accompanying pattern together, I freed up my right hand to come with musical ideas that my conscious mind could never have dreamed up. More than thirty years after my first piano lessons, I found a way to improvise! I could never have thought my way into this - I had to feel my way in. And for all the simplicity of the left hand, it was a very instructive time for me. I kept the sound light and consistent by imagining that there was a string suspending my left arm, and kept my left hand in view - if I began looking at what my right hand was doing, the left would mess up the pattern, and the right hand would stop being creative. It was as if God was giving me a lesson in improvisation, and piano playing, at the same time. I felt like Vladimir Horowitz and Bill Evans, rolled up into one human being playing.
When I stopped, it was 5:55, and time to wake up my wife. Time to feed to dogs and let them out into the yard. Time to check the weather, and shave, and take a shower, dress, and greet my incredible daughter as she wakes up.
I can feel my musical ancestors, my great-uncles, smiling.
But as a journal of day-to-day life, it may be useful for me to write, if not for anyone to read. And, as a husband and father, I'm seasoned, conditioned, tamed. I know the value of an hour now. And little moments of freedom are exquisite in the moment of experiencing them.
Just today, I visited a coffeehouse for half an hour, where I got steamed milk with amaretto (my stomach gets irritated by caffeine - either a mark of old age, or a sign of being in touch with my body - I'll leave it up to the reader to decide) and took a seat. I pulled up a document on Matlab's implementation of neural networks. Joy! To have to freedom to direct my mind here, simply because I decided to. Not for any commercial consideration, or acting in concert with my family, or my job. The dog was off the leash. My mind breathed freely for awhile.
While I was there I noticed young people, having their conversations about music, just as I used to.(It was all so important! Back then I might end a friendship based on someone's musical tastes.) One girl was talking to a young man across their table, and her hand was poised on her lap in piano position, as if she constantly had to be in musical character. The young man said "You were thinking about Fleetwood Mac" and she laughed. She's very beautiful, and he's kind of shlubby, not too much so - if he took care of himself instead of devoting all his time to sedentary musical activities and a sit-down job, he'd look good enough to compel her romantic sensibilities. He probably wishes he could, but doesn't have a clue that that sandwich he's eating is giving him a gluten sensitivity that's interfering with his fat metabolism. And he should know that being in love with music is going to make it harder for him to get a partner. Screamingly obvious to me, and he's blind to it all. He probably thinks he's inventing all of this as he goes along - moving to Denton to study music, and compelled to spend time with women. Compelled to work to pay the bills. Compelled to sleep to keep himself together.
It can get hard to smile after enough years of this kind of frustration.
And he doesn't realize, that, if he marries, things get harder and more frustrating, but in a different and unimagined way. Musical barriers yield themselves to years of technical acquisition, but there's no time to play or compose, or rehearse or perform, because the wife asserts her needs, and those needs cost the musical husband everything he ever sought to accomplish.
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I had a very beautiful start to the day. The house was dark, it was 5:05, and I decided to play my electronic keyboard that used to belong to my nephew. It's got two stuck keys, from when my daughter got frustrated and smashed the keyboard with her little fists. And the action is incredibly light, which I don't prefer, but with good technique it doesn't matter. I was thinking of something I'd read by Sidney Lanier, the 19th-c American poet, that if poetry is like a painting to be viewed by sunlight, then music is like a painting to viewed by moonlight. That's a good thought to begin the day with, as I moved through my darkened house with a copy of A Dozen A Day, a volume of very simple piano music. I couldn't read it in the dark, but, I thought, I could let the notes that I couldn't read suggest music to me that I could play, and it all turned out very beautifully. I played an Alberti bass on the chords C major, Aflat augmented, and F minor, and in the right hand I played the C harmonic major scale (look it up on Wikipedia if you aren't familiar with it: it's rich in harmonic implications). I found that as I directed my mind to hold the left-hand accompanying pattern together, I freed up my right hand to come with musical ideas that my conscious mind could never have dreamed up. More than thirty years after my first piano lessons, I found a way to improvise! I could never have thought my way into this - I had to feel my way in. And for all the simplicity of the left hand, it was a very instructive time for me. I kept the sound light and consistent by imagining that there was a string suspending my left arm, and kept my left hand in view - if I began looking at what my right hand was doing, the left would mess up the pattern, and the right hand would stop being creative. It was as if God was giving me a lesson in improvisation, and piano playing, at the same time. I felt like Vladimir Horowitz and Bill Evans, rolled up into one human being playing.
When I stopped, it was 5:55, and time to wake up my wife. Time to feed to dogs and let them out into the yard. Time to check the weather, and shave, and take a shower, dress, and greet my incredible daughter as she wakes up.
I can feel my musical ancestors, my great-uncles, smiling.
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