Piano Playing @ MindSay

Been an interesting couple of weeks around here. Last week Matt had a cold. He got over that and got hit with the flu this week. I've never seen the fellow so sick -- chills, fever, aches. What really got me upset is that since the meth-making people are evidently taking over the world, I can no longer get the med that works when Matt has congestion. The decongestant that drug manufacturers are now putting in cold medicine is not as effective.

I've gone back to playing from my very old piano music -- book 3. I've come to the conclusion that my teacher never got me to play anything at the correct speed, so not only did I not learn proper fingering, I never learned how to practice a piece fast enough to get proficient at it. I'm driving my family crazy playing the Mexican Hat Dance over and over and over again. I can do it at half speed ok, but I'm having trouble getting it faster. Lite1x and Matt can just put cotton in their ears. I am determined to play it at the proper speed then on to the Irish Washerwoman.

Today's the first I've seen Micre in quite some time.

By the way, to anyone who's been wondering, if it was spelled phonetically, it'd be something like, "McCray."

I was bringing Ariel her violin today. Hanging out with a few people, we're all sitting around on the couches and tables in the music lounge, mostly listening to two of the drama officers discuss plans for drama club. Ariel wandered through, picked up her baby girl, and offhandedly mentioned that Micre was here, up in the tv lounge.

Of course, I am quiet and sedate, so I did not go, "Eeee!", fly from my position on the couch, hip-check both Ethan and Sam on the way out, race down the hallway, leap up the stairs (taking a little time for Ariel who was lagging with the weight of the violin - I don't take this sort of thing seriously - I carried the tenor sax around yesterday, THAT'S heavy. The violin is tiny.), spin around the corner (I haven't worked out exactly when Tony's ceramics class is, but if he was in the Art Lab when we went racing by, he was definitely aware of our presence), zip into the tv lounge, leap over the table, and slide to a stop, hugging him from behind. Not a chance.

The lot of them were playing Gamecube again. I'd forgotten that it was originally Micre that started this - playing games all day in the tv lounge. Moved Micre off the couch onto the floor, I took over the couch and started braiding his hair. Apparently, he hasn't cut it at ALL over the summer - it's noticeably longer than the last time I did this. Took awhile to detangle, but it never interrupts his playing, so he doesn't care.

Spent a LONG time hanging out in one of the piano practice rooms, me playing a bit, us just talking and talking. Micre's one of the guys I can girl-talk with without it being odd. Probably the top of the list for it - Joe only accepts so much girl talk before he starts acting all flamey. But, catching up - he's drowned his cell phone, some stuff about my sisters, I explained "Hannah's Cry," to him...just hanging out together.

Switched over to the band room shortly after noon. I am frustrated with these pianos. The best one is in Chuck's office. Lovely, deep, smooth, flowy, dark dark dark tone. Love the tone. Unfortunately, it's painfully out of tune. I can't stand to play it, it hurts. Scott's fine with it, I've observed, but a few of us are less than impressed with Scott's ear for what's in tune and rhythm. The Steinway in the band room is also very nice and dark, but it's also a bit out. Not as badly as Chuck's, so I can pretend to ignore it for awhile.

Tony's right. I'm a movie snob, and I'm a piano snob.

Heather heard me playing. It's a signature - whenever anyone hears really good music coming out of the band room, they assume it's Tony. They're surprised when it isn't. I've got a rather short repertoire, but Heather knows just about everything I play, and uses it to find me.

The three of us sat for awhile, just talking and catching up. It's amazing how much catching up there is to do when it's the three of us close friends, and how little there is when two others join us. Two of the guys came by, and one of them - nice guy, really - dominated the conversation, and soon there wasn't any left. Fortunately, they wandered off after a little while.

Micre's brother came by. Micre is the oldest of five boys. Adam is next in line - this was the first time I'd met him. I have decided that I rather like him. He's arrogant and opinionated, but he's really funny, and manages to not be full of himself. You don't immediately see the two of them as being related - Adam's toned and keeps his hair short, Micre doesn't worry about being in shape and has his hair at least two feet longer than his brother's. But, watching them (I tend to study details of people when they're talking, but not talking to me), I begin to see things, like that they have the same eyes, and a shadow of the same smile. It's fairly cool.

For some reason, whenever I meet someone who's definitely a character, I always want to introduce them to another major character. I'm like a kid in a chem lab - I've got all these easy little chemicals to play with, but I want to put the single two most reactive ones together. And after meeting Adam, my thought was that I'd love to be there if he and my sister were in the same room.

Heather and I were having girl-talk as well. I can girl-talk with Micre more than any of the other guys, but there are rules in place about what is NOT acceptable to discuss with the guys - by their request. Heather has no such rules, we discuss everything. It's been happiness to see her again.

There's an ongoing joke of Heather and me flirting all the time, and her wanting me to break up with Tony. Adam caught a rough gist of this - he knows Heather from before, as being his brother's laid-back mock-abusive girlfriend. But when we talk, a lot of it is nonverbal. At some point, I declared, "No! I am not breaking up with him!" Adam offered a querulous expression, and one of us three explained, "She wants Manders to break up with Tony."

In Adam's defense, it's the first time he's been in a room with Heather and myself. But he assumed Heather wanted Tony for herself, and started to give her grief about that. As soon as the others got the gist of what he was saying; "No!" For some reason, no one ever thinks about Heather and Tony being an item. She swiftly corrected him - that she wanted to be with me.

The look on his face was priceless. 'Course, then I started to give him flak, wanting to know why he had a problem with that. I know perfectly well that he wouldn't - his brother (the next in line) and his mom are both openly gay - but getting a chance to tease a fairly cocky guy is always good.

Apparently, he was just surprised, because he 'never realized Heather was bi.' She explained that she isn't; she just makes an exception for me. Later, he was trying to figure out whether Micre was dating me, and Micre explained that I'm the one he 'thinks of as a sister'. Adam's voice did something rather cute when he said, "That's you!" I hadn't realized that Micre didn't have multiple 'think of as' sisters, or that he'd mentioned me. I'm rather flattered. :P

Don't worry, spending any time with this bunch is enough to kill off your ego issues. Your over-inflated pride is dead, and yet you're happy about it. These are my friends.

Okay, Micre is actually a tag. I'm impressed.

Piano players and water walkers

 

When I was eight years old I learned to read music, but struggle as I have all these years to play the piano, you’d never know it. Now dyslexia coupled with over-40 eyes defeat my every effort to sit down and tickle out a piece of music. I try not to be envious, but I do sincerely admire those whose eyes and hands act together to interpret the notes on a page of music.

 

I have no hope of ever playing anything at the proper speed, but occasionally I can play something almost well, although at a considerably reduced speed. Tonight I thought I had made it through a piece I’ve been working on for years. Most of it I can play pretty well, but there are a couple of places several measures in length that defeat me every time. Tonight, just when I thought I would make it through one of the traps, I lost it on the next to last note. Arrragh!

 

That’s when I thought of Peter walking on the water forward Jesus. That’s the way he must have felt when he began to sink. Arrragh! He too had every confidence until he lost concentration on the goal and thought of himself and where he was and what he was doing.

 

Well, at least I’m in good company. I wonder if Peter ever succeeded walking the water route.