One More to Go

I started work on Scott Joplin's The Entertainer, a jaunty piece that's challenged me to master it so I can begin work on the very last piece in the Year One Alfred Book, which will be Amazing Grace. For some reason, I've also developed a renewed interest in difficult card flourishes, and picked up a couple of crazy items I set aside a year or so ago. One of these insane finger busters involves constructing a three-tiered pyramid between your hands in a series of one-handed cuts. You'd have to see it to believe it; it's insane.

The only problem is I've only seen this performed once, by a friend of mine, and that was over a year and a half ago. So I only know the end result. I don't know how to get into it. So for the past several days I have literally been reinventing the pyramid--the card pyramid. Last night, I accomplished it twice. For people who do not understand why magicians sit for hours, days and months mastering these ridiculous maneuvers, it's really the same thrill of accomplishment you get when you successfully finish a crossword puzzle--another thing many people don't understand.

I get the same sense of satisfaction when an elusive piece of piano music comes together. I wrote some months ago when my brain "discovered" my left hand and all of a sudden it could play independently. What a day that was! I noticed this morning I can easily move my awareness back and forth between hands without losing concentration. This is very cool.

I was speaking with a very old friend (we go back to my childhood) and he expressed joy that I was finally studying music. He said his parents forced him to study music and he hated to practice. Therefore, he told me, he never became a "music person." Perhaps it was fortunate I came to it late in life, but I don't know. I've always loved music and sometimes I wish I had started this ten years ago. I just feel I don't have enough time to do everything I want to do. will I have time to develop the skills to play Chopin or Rachmaninoff before it's time for me to bow from the stage forever?