Liking the smoked bluefish salad I had at an organically-sourced Brooklyn eatery, I made something like it at home. In preparation for shooting a video last week, I practiced again a piece that I practiced last year for summer concerts, and two years before that to play in Michigan, and thirteen years earlier still... Passing by a store on Broadway that had four identical (mass-produced) lamps hanging in a row, I was prompted to tweet this … [Read more...]
Costly Imitation
As I listen to others play the piano, as I eat, or walk down the sidewalk -- all I think of is the passage of music I struggled with yesterday, a passage I have been playing at least for 25 years. I consider it from many angles, rolling it over in my mind. To be completely cognizant and conscious of every detail in a complicated scripted piece that's played by memory is to be safe. Is it after all a misguided act? To reprise these … [Read more...]