A first in four months...

Yesterday I walked into St. Peter's Anglican Church. It is a lovely small chapel with stained glass windows and a wonderful very old pipe organ. Years ago, I played two concerts to help raise money to restore the old organ. In the early 90's an elderly, very wealthy member of the church donated money for a brand new Yamaha baby grand piano to be a gift for the church. Some members were distressed as they felt the money for the piano should have been used for missionary purposes and to care for the needy.
Well, that piano has been a blessing for that church.

I have not played on a acoustic piano in a little more than 4 months! I have a fine electric keyboard here in my studio, but yesterday was a splendid autumn day. The light that filtered through the stain glass drew me to the place it settled upon, the black lacquered finish of the piano! I dropped my back pack, and seated myself before the alter of black and white keys... My hands went straight for the position of the Prelude in C Major by J.S. Bach!

I had forgotten how delicate this piano was! How light and yet silvery it's sweet voice. It never had a rich bass and at times I dreaded performing certain compositions on it. My heart took me to familiar pieces such as Clair de lune, Fur Elise... I simply opened to the music and allowed IT to play through me.

I know that the piano is not really a solid mass but made up of many atoms with space between each cell and I often wonder if, just IF that piano remembers me? Does it remember my hands, my weight and emotions when I performed on it years ago? The thrill of vibration and the sense of touch was a pure moment of ecstasy. I suddenly became sentimental for so many other pianos I have played and loved to make music with!

I have always envied acoustic guitar players. The gorgeous feeling of cradling the sensuous shape of the guitar upon your thighs and then the feeling of harmonic vibrations echoing through your mind, body and space! made possible by your own two hands. To feel the wood pulsating against your chest, against your heart!

I must go back to that church and play the baby grand one more time before I leave NZ. I'll play I'll Be Seeing YOU!