noticing
There were moments when he was playing, where everything aligned. Decisions made sense, listening guided action and nothing felt forced. Then there were other moments, he seemed to operate on […]
ugh
Academia friends said these types questions the PhD committee probably. Q: Isn’t improvisation as ontology just a metaphor? Q: If everything is improvisation, doesn’t the term lose meaning? Q: Your […]
eldon
Eldon didn’t look at the keys; he knew their geography better than his own palms. He wasn’t here to play a nocturne, he was here to disappear. For months he […]
trumpet baby
He was a very good trumpet player. He spent years learning how to put air into metal and get admiration for it. This worked….until someone wrote a sentence. Not even […]
btv
The horror movie gig rolls in and in one part I’m supposed to play “Three Blind Mice.” No problem. Later, I glance at the contract and my lawyer’s masterpiece says […]
non alignment pact
She still listened to Bach, Schubert, the clean geometry of sound she had lived inside for years. But something else started pushing in. Music with fewer rules and more nerve. […]
My friend’s older brother
He wasn’t always sad. That would have been something we could point at and name. Instead he was a low drag, like walking through syrup nobody else could see. Everything […]
phillip glass
He decided early that Philip Glass was too simple. Just insufficient. The kind of music that seemed to repeat itself because it ran out of ideas and hoped no one […]
the nurse
He met her in a hallway that smelled like old coffee. He wasn’t sick. Not in the way that required urgency. But something had gone wrong, a fainting spell, the […]
divided mind
She began to notice the voice it in the middle of a scale. “Too tense.”“Again.”“Why are you rushing?” It was not loud, but precise. Familiar in the way some criticisms […]