Piano Lab

It has been the first week of several in the piano lab.  The students have taken to it readily, and come during their tlt's (targeted learning times) to practice and move on to the next songs. They are all so excited (and competitive) about it, that they can hardly wait to play for me so they can go on to the following songs.  I wonder sometimes if it is about that, getting to be the first to play with two hands, the first to play chords, the first to go on to another hand position.  It is frustrating, because the idea of making music gets lost with this push to go forward and not stay in one place for too long.

 I get it, I see how culture now is all about finishing something yesterday, and no time taken for concentration, grace, quietude, meditation, and trying to perfect something.  I wish we could go back to the days before laptops and cellphones, when everything worthwhile took longer.  We listened to vinyl, and after those six songs on one side, you had to get up and turn the album over to listen to a few more tunes.  You were thinking about the first side as you set up the next side.  Now you can listen to a song from one artist and then fly through so many random artists one after another.  There can be no consistency or no sense that you are learning the styles of each person.  It lacks ritual, it lacks grounding.  Who are we if not a culture seeking connection?  If you go from song to song, artist to artist, music pattern to rhythm pattern, genre to genre, you miss out on really getting acquainted with the quirks and individuality of one artist or another.

Let's get back to slowing down the pace.  Play a song on the piano over and over again until it is perfect and you have made it yours.  Let's listen to the work of one musician, over and over until you can sing all the words, (as I used to do with Elton John's albums, Joni Mitchell's albums, and Judy Collins' albums).  Let's create memories, rituals, connections that you will have and rely on when times are complicated and overwhelming.  Let's come to the piano lab and make songs better than just played through once.  Let's put our stamp on them, and think about how these songs can define us, relate to us, become our best friends, and comfort us and support us no matter how fast the pace of life is.  Amen.