Perceptual

...it's nearly half midnight....i bought a bottle of red earlier this evening in an attempt to save some money on drinking, but it seems to have largely vanished and the resulting dehydration is stinging my eyes, but I'm gonna press on regardless....I've waited in the past for some sort of event to write but as I told Mr N, I'm on the net more these days than ever before but somehow blogging less....but not from now on! Be warned that in some ridiculous catch-up mission, some of these entries may drop back in time on occassion somewhat to certain musical touring and familial continental holidays.....

First, let me tell ya bout yesterday....

It started like any other day, coffee in the morning....I've gotten past the two cup threshold by the way. Since I became a social drinker, it's one which kept me up late and two which would keep me up all night, but now being the proud owner of one of those silver kettle things I've busted through to three, and as a result I don't seem to be sleeping as much anymore, increasing one's abilities to fit in those extra couple of hours a day of life in this burned out burb....
Student at 10, rehersal with singer at 12, some other silly errands and other stuff rumbilng on into the afternoon and all of a sudden I can't open my gmail account, meaning I don't know what time the new solo residency gig is on tonight. I ring my mate Lucky, who's done the gig before, and get a check on start time being an hour earlier than I expected....
So it ended up being the dash for cash, in the pinstripe suit, along Holland Park Road and round the corner on yet another London gig adventure to the Belvedere Restaurant.
Small place in the middle of a park, but classic West End old money - I thought I'd gotten used to this by now, dashing in to some venue absolutely dripping with history and pounds sterling, but the immaculate art deco trimmings and windows looking out onto some sort of fresco were too much to ignore. Brief introductions and polite laughter with the waiting staff ensued, and my four hour stint began.
It's a loud upright and the diners aren't far away, so I got told to play softer about three times in the first half hour. I ended up barely wiping the keys with my fingers....
And then, about three quarters through the night, it happened. And it didn't happen for two bars, or half a form. It happened for a good sizeable chunk of time, say half an hour, maybe even more, before the sadly inevitable fading....
It was all there - swing, legato attack, arched fingers, weight transfer through wrists, some new 'closure' of the inner wrists, no awkward random articulation, no fighting with the keys....I was watching it happening before me! Recognising that thing I heard on that album....new stuff was coming out that fit so well....I couldn't believe it....eight years of private tuition, four years of a music 'degree', six years of wilderness...and here it was, finally....
I left with the cash and literally RAN home to practise, and there was that inner glow, that smile on my face that transcended any momentary satisfaction. That same glow I've felt in those incredibly rare times throughout my life when an advancement is made, when the playing really happens.....driving back with my folks from saxophone lessons in Yass in high school when they'd never seen me happier, or that gig with Col and Eric and Lachlan at the Kurrajong where everything just CLICKED, when my friend of great intrigue pulled up at the lights on Northbourne and London Circuit, absolutely glowing....
"I'm so happy," said Phil Woods once, "I could take on a lion in a phonebooth with a toothpick!" On nights like this I know what he means....
It all connected up - musical content, self-confidence, detatchment, bodily awareness, accurate awareness of levels of focus....My idols, my friends who are much better piano players than I am, I'm still in awe as to what they do and how they do it but after I came home from that gig I KNEW what it is that I had to do, how I could play the piano and have it feel like I've always wanted it to, effortless, beautiful....
And of course, on my gig this very night with some other incredible muso friends, out from Oz for a while, it wasn't there....of course it wasn't! Why should it be? How could I deserve it to be? The intricate conection between all those things that you have to take care of when you perform wasn't entirely there for all of it...but it was for some of it. And that I suppose is what we hang on to, that's what keeps us going.
That's what keeps an average player like me at this whole thing. And lately, it's been wildly swinging between one day YYYYEEESSSS I will suffer poverty for the rest of my days in search of artistic freedom and creativity and satisfaction and the next day NNNNOOOOO what the hell am I doing what if I actualy ever wanted a family or to own a house why aren't I an orthodontist like my folks wanted me to be when I was still doing all right in junior high school!?....
It's the sweet torture of the muse....a female presence, undoubtedly, who only reveals to you the next stage, the next step of development, when you least expect it. You could be battling away on something for months, years even, and then something else random happens and you wonder why you're still at it and then the penny drops and you work out what's going on and you wonder well, maybe I will stick with this....for a while....