Rhino Ramblings

It has been a whirlwind time in the two week since my Mom’s passing.  There is such a swirl of thoughts that have been stirred up and not yet settled that I decided to take a respite and write the blog originally planned for two weeks ago.  I am sure I will re-visit the heavier topics of life but for this week, I want to play a different tune.

I have always enjoyed music but have never been musically talented.  A brief early attempt at guitar playing never got beyond a few chords.  My musical (well that adjective is questionable) highlight was playing the cymbals in my high school marching band (which included a TV appearance of our band on the Gimbel’s Thanksgiving Day Parade – a story unto itself). But when our “here to have fun” band leader was replaced by a “play it right or not at all” one, I was out of my depths even for something as simple as cymbals – turns out playing them right is not so simple after all.  Sometime in my high school tenure, my brother (8 years younger than me) talked our parents into buying a piano (which 50 years later is now in my Mom’s basement). I did not take lessons initially but I was able to gain a basic understanding of translating sheet music to finger placement and movement.  I would eventually take 6 months of lessons but I knew my playing was for me and not for others.  I am duly impressed with pianists who “play by ear”.  All of my playing is through sheet music.  I continue to be plagued by mediocre musical skills and a pretty poor sense of rhythm (thus why my cymbal career never took off).  I have played off and on over 50 years; taken a few lessons; and have owned three pianos.  There are actually quite a few piano stories to be told.  For today, I am thinking about why I enjoy playing.  This came particularly to mind in the past month as I had stopped playing all together during the pandemic high water mark.  Rather than spending that 2 years of isolation doing what I enjoy doing in isolation – piano playing – I lost the urge to do so.  And this year I had a physical limitation imposed as I recover from the torn ligament surgery, Perhaps it was too easy to play when I could do so by myself and conversely it became a challenge to do so now with a restricted right hand.  So of course I decided to start playing again and test and exercise my re-formed hand.  And the second I did so, I felt so good inside.  If I had to analyze why I enjoy piano playing, it has always been about the logic needed to read the notes; pass to the brain; move to the hands and have the fingers hit the right combo of keys and seemingly without thought continue on to the next notes.  Whether it is Jingle Bells from an easy-play piano book or a fairly advanced version of the Hungarian Rhapsody (one of my favorites to play and someday I might even play all the way through without errors) I play all songs equally well and equally poorly.  But I play them and when everything is clicking and flowing it is just a wondrous feeling.  In fact, I think I need to wrap up here on this blog so I can hit the ivories (fake of course).  Maybe I will try the Hungarian Rhapsody for the first time in a few years.