It's been fun being around while my wife resumes her piano playing.
I think we had been married for 8 years before I had a chance to hear her play at all. We were never around a piano until we rented a house that had one. Then one day, she dug out her piano music and played the sonata in C no.1 opus 36 by Clementi. She doesn't play like the cute little squirt shown in the link but she plays well, stately, and strong, and good to listen to.
Fast, professional, polished - those are good traits for a performance but they aren't the only traits. As I hear her repeat the melody and the bass clef for Dona Nobis Pacem slowly and with concentration as she trains her mind and her fingers, I get to hear musical expression that is not available anywhere else.
When I buy the Oklahoma! download, I don't get to hear the simple basic versions of the tunes she plays. The full orchestration, professional voices and timing are excellent and I can see that is what people want to pay for. Still, the very elementary versions have a way of penetrating my brain. An hour or a day after she practices, I find myself thinking or humming or whistling a tune. Suddenly, I become aware of it. What the heck is that tune? I know I don't have a recording of it. I know it is not a random set of notes. I have learned that to answer that question, it pays to think back to what she is currently practicing. As I review in my head what I have been hearing, I come across the very tune I have been thinking of.
I tend to have the last heard tunes in my head. The Hawaiian songs of Iz, the Caribbean songs of Harry Belafonte, and both the elementary tunes and the basic versions of advanced music she plays all have a place in my head while I wash pots and pans or walk through the neighborhood.
Genuinely advanced is not the only flavor that is tasty. Modern communications have made all of us aware of the top in expertise and skill, so much so that much of what we learn about is not within the possible for most of us. What is actually possible, what comes from us and is at our level and our pace also enriches our lives.
