Musicians spend yearstrying to soundlike themselves. Actors spend yearslearningto disappear. Some crywithout grief. Some laughwhile mourning. Some kisspeoplethey would neverinvite to dinner. The audiencecalls this talent. Lifecalls it Tuesday.
Lyrics rarely arrivewearing a tuxedo. They shuffle inmissing a shoe,carrying somebody else’s umbrella,insisting they belongin the second verse. Usually the first lineis wrong. The second pretends to understandthe first. The […]
The dream began without announcement. There they were, his old band-mates, standing around as though no time had passed. Someone made a joke he had forgotten. Someone complained about a […]
The piano did not become easier. It became stranger. For yearsI thought itcontained eighty-eight keys. LaterI discoveredit also containedhesitation,childhood,arthritis,three broken romances,an argument with Chick Corea,and whatever it isthat keeps arrivingat […]
It happened near the end of the term, when the students had become comfortable enough to stop asking technical questions. No longer how to rhyme “orange” or whether a bridge […]
Neil, the pianist, had been in bands long enough to know that hatred in music rarely announces itself openly. It lives in small things. In how someone counts off a […]
She had a system. Every critique that ever brushed against her life got processed, fermented, and poured back out as a stage monologue. A booker asking her to shorten the […]
I have playedfor six people,thirteen people,twenty-seven hundred people,confused bartenders,and springer spanielswhose commitment to artistic inquirywas superior to many festival programmers. The posters promisedAN EVENING OF EXTRAORDINARY MUSIC. My manager,which is […]
When I was hired to teach at Toronto Metropolitan University, I was still teaching at Seneca. I mentioned the new job to one of my classes. Dave asked, “Isn’t that […]
Harv arrived at these thoughts reluctantly. For most of his life he believed music existed to elevate experience beyond biology. The instrument encouraged such fantasies. A cello could resemble a […]