“You’ve gotta dance like nobody’s watching; love like you’ve never been hurt. Sing like nobody’s listening; live like it’s heaven on earth.” *
I had been really wanting to dabble again at the piano for several days, but in the spirit of altruism decided to forego it, within this present forced encampment. Well, after lunch, Jacques announced to me he would have a short nap, so after he retired to the other end of the apartment, away I went.
This grand piano has a marvelous Silent Mode option, where you can play in complete privacy at any hour. I clicked it on for the first time in months, and adjusted the volume and resonance just to my liking for my personal concert. I even changed the batteries in my Bose noise-reducing headphones for the best concert-hall reproduction, with no disturbance from the cares of the world. I left the windows wide open, never fearing to bother anyone outdoors. The piano sounded particularly brilliant to me, as I was approaching the heights of musical Nirvana.
Throwing caution to the wind and without warming up my fingers with some scales, I opened up Beethoven’s Sonatina in G, and began from the last movement, with all the repeats, then the first. There were probably lots of wrong notes attributed to my rusty technique, but I actually thought I was particularly musical and almost felt sorry that the world could not share this unique moment of inspired genius. Just Beethoven and Me.
On a roll, I followed with Mozart’s C major Sonata, likewise from the last movement to the first. This is an old friend, but it took some special attention to fingering to get through it. Again lots of wrong notes everywhere, but I didn’t care. The personal joy was there, and I was so grateful no one heard me. There were also some good memories that streamed back to my consciousness of how on the phone Mom would always say “That’s wonderful, Dear,” just knowing I was keeping my hand in it, a precious kind of encouragement and the sign of unconditional love.
A while later, when Jacques came back out, I reheated and poured some coffee. Bursting with enthusiasm I reported that I’d had the most wonderful personal musical experience, wrong notes and all.
“Yeah, I heard you,” he replied dryly in French.
That famous moment of solitude. I had forgotten to pull out the lever that disengages the piano action from the keyboard. The piano had been playing resonantly and as loudly as usual, and I hadn’t heard it through the lousy noise-reduction headphones! Jacques, and probably everyone confined at home in the entire third arrondissement, had had a front row seat to my embarrassing little “concert!”
* this quote is apparently attributed to William W. Purkey. I always thought it was Martha Graham…