177.Naturlaut

An exploration of the first few bars of Mahler's 1st symphony, Titan.  On the score this first movement has the instruction:

 'Langsam schleppend, wie ein Naturlaut'.

Pictures by Yours Truly.

 Hence the title.  


Dad used to play this when I was a little kid to wake me up whenever I was at his place, if you play it: Chicago Symphony Orchestra you'll understand that was a great way to wake up.

I did not linger to much on the rest of that symphony here, just let go to explore where that short progression and mood would take me. Nowhere, eventually, but that's after a lot of very nice everywhere.  Still hard to anticipate the moment where I run out of notes, and I guess today I was slightly late; so I just let be there and closed to an open end. 


I'm quite sure this mornings play would not be a bad alarmclock either.

176.Saly's verjaardag Pt1. Being Green

Happy birthday Saly!

These are the two songs I had planned to play on your birthday-party last Sunday, but in all the turmoil of the huge party there was no time and/or chance to squeeze it in, so I did it now, today, the actual day of your 75th birthday.
'God's song', by Randy Newman, and 'Being Green', by Kermit the Frog.
Somehow I found these two songs to be appropriate.  Those who know Saly as I do would probably agree.

For you listeners who do not have a clue what I'm on about, Saly is my 'evil stepdad', ever since age 13.  And I love the Man, he rocks and is way cool, has taught me way more than I dare ever admit. 


 How lucky I am, to have two evil stepdads ánd my beautiful biodad,  all still around...

PS. The recording of God's Song I found subpar on second listen; the advantage of the trouble with posting this a few days ago when it was made.  So I'm still planning a  new recording of that.  To be continued!

175.Intricate Stillness

By Robyn van Horn

Soft and sweet.  Very intricate braided voices that mostly just took my fingers wherever they needed to be; not much control really.  That was a good thing, because I could never control such mazes consciously...

Totally lost control -or maybe I should say tried to take control- and lost my way after about 7 minutes.  So I just shut up, let stillness return and did the equivalent of sewing a closing seam to an unfinished blanket to make it whole.

174.Baby Upright My Baby

Retuning Mom' s piano yesterday, the piano I played most of my life until I moved out on my own.  Very different to my own piano, the one you usually hear here.  Tiniest baby-upright, ever such a light touch.  Very responsive to subtle and fast movements, and biiig sound.

Just like meeting an old friend again, or an old lover.  Forgot myself for some time there, over 20 minutes instead of the usual 5-10.  And really, the only reason to stop playing was Mom came home again from her shopping spree... 

Thought I'd leave that bit in, some couleur locale...

Just like this.  But with my DNA and all my fave pianists' on it of course.

Will have to do something about the creaking pedals though, soon; plus the worn hammers at the highest register, deep grooves therein; but... those grooves smehow stick a bit to the strings when played really softly, making a delightfull ringing overtone-rich clavichord- / bell-like sound.  Top is a bit detuned too, but I left it as such, as my tuning hammer has such bad fit I' d damage the tuningpins if I' d get to work on that, so I left that for later when I bring the right hammer, and used it as an excuse to let rip for the time I had.

Enjoy!   I'm sure I did.

173.Chaos Butterfly

Standing on the shoulder of giants, From chaos to harmony and ordered body of knowledge.

Forest Fire Model

Plus a butterfly in Tokyo that causes a storm in Amsterdam; a definition or illustration of chaos-theory.  Two opposing sides of the same coin.

Dare I toot my own horn besides the piano to say this is one of the rare episodes that has my 100% seal of approval? I have not played it back yet, but whilst playing this it was one uninterrupted stream of unconscious consciousness, and satisfaction with almost everything my fingers did.