It is the end of the financial year and once again my family has to go through the tedious process of sorting out our income tax returns for the last year. It is also an opportunity for me to reflect on the past twelve months and assess where I am at musically and where I might go from here.
The major hiccup of course has been the last five weeks where I’ve basically been sedentary at home due to my eye operation. The good news is that I saw my surgeon last Friday and he was very pleased with the recovery. The gas bubble in my eye is going down and my left eye-sight is getting better all the time. So it pretty much looks as though I will have close to a text-book recovery, for which of course I am very grateful as can well be imagined.
Apart from this, over the past six months I’ve had more time to spend musically and I think the work that I’ve put in has been reflected in the results and the overall improvement in my playing. I’m now, of course, fully acclimatised to the Stuart piano and it, in turn, is fully acclimatised to its environment. Whilst my technique is nowhere near what it should be I’m very pleased with the overall musicality than I can get out of the piano and whilst initially very nervous about giving a fully-fledged recital, even to friends and relatives, my recital at the end of May felt good to the fingers and was certainly received very well, even by people just as experienced as I am if not more so in the art of piano playing.
At this current time the piano feels quite superb to the touch and my brain, fingers and feet appear to be combining better and better. As I’ve intimated several times in this blog, once you get used to this kind of piano it’s very difficult to go back.
I’m not quite at the stage yet where I feel comfortable recording, even though I’m playing the pieces I intend to record reasonably well. I suspect this is just a confidence factor in me, and once my eye totally clears up in about three weeks that shouldn’t be a problem.
My church organ activities will take a hiatus until December whilst the church is being totally refurbished but I’m back playing with my son most weekends whichever church his group is playing at at the time, and after an initial hiccup or two where my eyesight (or lack of it) played tricks on me it has worked out quite well. David is a fully mature musician these days, at home on a number of different instruments, and he has everything organised down to the last detail. I don’t think he gets that from me.
So what do I want to achieve over the coming months?
1) Finish off two CDs – each of which has a different focus and aim
2) Continue an exploration of different kinds of music by mostly modern composers from different countries and styles. There is a huge amount of good stuff out there (and I’m picking more of it up each day)
3) Continue to try to develop my skills overall but especially in terms of understanding the Stuart piano and when best to apply its unique characteristics
I plan to spend less time working (hopefully!) and more time being musically productive in as many ways as I can. I must admit I’m enjoying my music now much more than I’ve ever done, and for that I have to thank family, friends (and neighbours) for their support.
Life goes on, as it should and must.