RUDIMENTS, pt. 631
(music for a long time)
I could never do anything by
half measure - something like
music timing to me, but all gone
wrong. It was just me. At the
piano, time and meter were
considered so important, yet
to me they were nothing, and
usually the first thing I did
when I had a moment of
my own, with a piece of
music (someone else's,
anything) was mess around
with the timing, break it
up, sunder and staccato it.
I'd do anything to get around
the more mundane aspects of
'what it should sound like.' One
of the problems with the piano
is what people want to hear.
When they say, 'can you play
Sewanee River?' it's that that's
all they want to hear - that
melody line, the lead voice.
But you're not playing voice,
you're playing piano, which
is a different animal - not a
lead instrument, for sure, in
the context of the song itself.
Go to any sixth grade assembly
if you don't believe me - Mrs.
Jaggermeister up there at the
piano, up in the front of the
auditorium, is not playing the
literal note for note of what
the kids are singing - she's
instead 'boosting' it along
with some rollicking chord
progression, towards which
and over which, the kids
are singing. If you heard her
alone, you wouldn't be sure
exactly what she was playing,
since lots of songs could use
that same progression, as long
as the roomful of kids sang
their melody line (which is the
song you know to recognize).
Life's never simple, or apparent.
-
One time, there were these two
well-heeled females, and they
were discussing their upbringings.
Both had been wealthy, living
richly, in their family circles.
It was funny, as they'd both
turned out differently, as you'd
not think - artists, I mean. One
was from a Chicago upbringing,
and the other was from some
oddball Russian kind of place like
Crimea or Latvia or something.
They'd both ridden horses, as
girls, etc - wealth, fathers as
judges and magistrates, etc. The
Chicago girl (demure, quaint,
reserved) said she was taught to
ride - for proper posture and gait -
as if she had a rolled up magazine
under each arm, which she had to
keep there, thus tightly riding,
rigidly, with her arms kept in.
It seemed to fit her. The other
girl (crazy, outlandish, wild),
said just the opposite - that
she was taught to keep her
left hand on the reins so the
right would be free to hold
and swing a saber. The wild
daughter of the Russian steppes,
and the constrained child of
American high society were
the best of friends.
-
I had to think. What would I
make of that? How would it fit
what I was seeing? It was a kind
of neat, grass-guy moment, as if
I was out, on a large field (like
Christina's World, by Wyeth) just
looking back at all that was there,
seeing things for the first time,
again. For the first time, again?
I was just telling someone today
that I'd realized that everything
happens twice, in two different
times : first as thought, in some
vague and forming future; and
than as what we 'perceive' of as
Reality, submitted to us as the
'Present.' I saw that a million
times in my life - the thought
that hits, the moment you awake
with some 'gurgulating' solution
to something perceived, one
that then takes shape and words
and allows you in. Life is strange
like that - Jeepers, people, get
out of your lame skin every so
often, for your own crummy
sake. Bust the walls of your
Folsom Prison.
-
Once that entire Army thing got
out of my picture, I felt much better,
but it had taken a long time. I don't
think they realized (the Selective
Service people and - back then -
Gen. Lewis Hershey) - how badly
they were affecting people's lives.
In their view everyone was fit for
military service. (That's probably
the equivalent of riding the horse
with a straight back and magazines
under each arm, tucked in). That's
fine, and they can have it. I was
for sure the other version of that -
hanging loosely with one hand on
a rein and, yes, the other flailing
that saber. It's still like that for me.
When I used to sit in the NY Public
Library, endlessly poring over
things, I'd get to the library as I
was walking there, and I was
always struck by the 'Empire
State,' slogan on all the license
plates. It struck me as really odd.
Martin Van Buren? Someone must
have started that crap, but what
were they thinking and why had
it stuck? That slogan, in and of
itself, was a call to arms. What in
the heck had we become? Empire?
Who smokes what here? That was
the farthest idea from any of the
founder's minds, and even Gen.
Washington warned against what
he called 'foreign entanglements'
in his Farewell Address upon
leaving the Presidency. Eighty
percent of the sluggos I'd see
around anyway, on the streets
here, weren't fit for the E or the
M or the P of the word Empire,
let alone the ire that went with it.
What sort of presumptuous thought
ever gave birth-pangs to the idea that
this foul little country, once born,
was fated to be a self-identified
'Empire?' And, yeah, that really
used to gall me. Plus them
assuming I was willing to adapt at
then being their cannon fodder and
dead-meat-boy in a box for their
common lies and distortions. I
was up in arms, but not in the
manner they thought.
-
I'd been to the Empire Diner. I'd
seen Empire Clothiers; Empire
Contracting; Empire Delivery Co.;
and Empire Water and Coffee, Inc.
The place was filled with that stuff,
but to have to bear the challenge of
being force-fit crud like that in an
every-day situation? It made no
sense at all to me. I was always
stewing about something, in the
library, or anywhere. Before I close
this chapter, I again will confess
to something. One of my favorite
things was stealing pens. Wherever
I'd see one, I'd take it. Now there's
lots of giveaway pens - banks and
companies. There's even a local
funeral home I know of that has
great, metal, pens they leave out
in piles for the taking. And in
Philadelphia, Laurel Hill Cemetery
too has great giveaway pens. But,
back then when pens were still
metal, and nice, they weren't often
around or easy to get as a freebie.
It's always been the small things in
life that made me most happy, so
I took as many as I could ever find.
Like a little baton which the music
master wields to hold that orchestra
to the right time, measure, and tempo.
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