A Good Question

It's a good question...for me. I've been playing piano since 1982 when I first had the notion that something musical was happening inside my brain. I wanted to know what it was. I was distraught, divorced, alone and wondering.

A friend had a piano and I was close enough to her to gain permission to play it once in awhile. Tinker might be a better word for those early days. But something was happening inside me. I could hear simple musical melodies inside that were pleasant and soothing for the most part and sometimes lamenting or angry. I found that expressing myself on her piano with no one around was good for me. It gave me a kind of footing to stand on. But I kept it from everyone else.

When I tried to play for someone with whom I wanted to share, I could not. Self-consciousness inhibited me beyond any capability to override it. My music just wouldn't come out the same when effort was in the way. A few months passed by in this manner. I moved from a rural setting into Coeur d'Alene, Idaho and bought an old upright piano for my apartment.

By then I had decided I didn't want to imitate other piano players. Either I would express what I had or I would not. Playing music that belonged to others just wasn't in my spectrum. I admired Stevie Wonder and Ray Charles both at that time because they could really bust loose and neither one, I reasoned, could see sheet music. I wanted to play with the same kind of lively freedom they showed.

One night I put it into practice. I closed my drapes, shut off all lights and went to the piano where I stayed for a long time, feeling the keys and hearing the sounds without being able to see my fingers. I was encouraged by what I discovered that night, so I set up another rule: to play an hour at a session in complete darkness without correcting anything. I did that for several weeks wherein I realized something else. New music began to pop out...sometimes in the simple misapplication of a finger placement. Because I refused to correct myself and start over, I had to feel around and wade through more risk in order to find my way back to where I had been.

The new phrases, born in that manner, were sometimes exceedingly pleasant, brief as they might be in my stumblings. So I placed a tape recorder beneath my feet "to catch the musical butterflies" as they flew in and out of my mistakes.

During the day, I'd listen to the tapes until at night I could repeat some of those "special little guys" at will. I learned new songs that way, new expressions and I learned how to make spontaneous adaptations on the piano.

This was my beginning. I never set out on piano road wanting to be or trying to be a piano player. But I am today. In some circles, especially the more academically trained, I am somewhat of a nemisis or at least an apparent irritant. But in other circles I am a pleasing source of inner music. I am able to tap into some people in ways that more traditional musicians cannot.

What can I say? I never set out to be a piano player. It just happened. But it happened because I started and stayed with it, refusing to adapt to ways others insisted was the only way.