Blog | KATHLEEN RYAN

My 3 Hands

Wed, 11 Apr 2012 17:04:56 -0600

Just to forestall any confusion:

I’m playing piano with two hands now; in fact I’ve returned to my daily practice of the pieces I keep in my “ready repertory.” Yay!
I don’t actually have three hands with which to play piano. I don’t have three hands at all. My surgeon was fab-u-lous, but not a miracle worker. Or: he is a miracle worker (that’s pretty much how I feel about where I am compared to where I might have been after the break), but he didn’t lose his mind and attach a whole extra arm. (Can you imagine the copay on that?)

Anyway, three-handed piano music has been in my repertory for years. This is the story of how that happened.

I remembered this incident because I’m currently attempting to notate What the Stars Saw on the Prairie (thanks for the nudge, Jason!).

What the Stars Saw on the Prairie is the linchpin of the CD A Handfull of Quietness. (That story is here.) It has a section in the middle where there is a lot going on. (This is the challenging part to notate.) Really, a lot. Not too much, but a lot.

Some number of eons ago, back in the last millenium (I just love saying that) when I felt ready to record the CD, I had a friend who was wanting to be in the record business. He had been talking with a record producer in Austin, Texas, about starting their own label. Charlie liked my music a lot, and he flew me down to Texas to “put down tracks” for the producer.

The day we went into the studio, Charlie, the producer and his wife, and I think maybe another recording engineer were all assembled to hear my music. The studio layout had a window through which, if the piano lid was down, I’d be able to see them all, and they’d be able to see me. But of course, the piano lid was up.

More like music

Mon, 26 Mar 2012 14:18:49 -0600

That’s how my piano playing finally is: more like music.

I didn’t want to mention before that when I wrote, “My left hand played piano today,” what that most likely meant was that I sat at my Steinway and played maybe 10 notes. I could make the keys sound, but the discomfort in the joints at the base of my fingers was too much to do more than play each finger twice. That is what counted for playing piano 3 or 4 weeks ago.

Playing 2 notes at a time was barely possible, but I would try that out daily anyway. I could get a fifth to sound, and a sixth, almost immediately. The day I touched an octave (felt too weak and vulnerable to try to press the keys) I was so pleased, because I had been very worried about getting my reach back.

Then several days later I could actually play that octave. It still hurt, about the way playing a single note hurt.

Then I decided that many visits to the piano each day, to play my 10 therapy notes each time, would be better than trying to play 20 notes in one sitting.

Adventures I never sought

Tue, 06 Mar 2012 16:37:53 -0700

In January I broke my left wrist, blah blah blah. Here’s how it’s going. If this is going to bore you, I recommend you not read it!

It is an adventure. That is, healing, and visiting the whole medical-surgical-rehabilitation corner of the universe, are adventures. Maybe it’s just the only consolation I’ve had; but my curiosity has come to my aid and kept me interested and fairly cheery, even while I very much wish I did not need to visit this corner of the universe.

I am so grateful for the love and support shown to me and my “little broken wrist” (as one friend put it), especially early on, when I was in pain and also not particularly handy. The day of the fall and the next day, when I learned just how serious the break was, I was dangerously close to panic. I could feel fear wanting to take over, move into my mind and never leave. The knowledge that so many people cared about me & my music, were praying for me and cheering me on — that alone propped me up, more than once.

Daily life was quite a chore from when I broke my wrist in mid-January until mid-February, 3 weeks after surgery. Certain daily tasks like dressing have only gotten fairly doable in about the last week. I hope I am not breaking any more bones ever; that said, the ankle break last year was easier to cope with (except for showering, which was quite a challenge with a broken ankle).

Unsolicited Advice!

Fri, 17 Feb 2012 16:46:22 -0700

My friend Brian has been practicing consciously and blogging about it. And a particular trill in Bach’s e minor Invention has been giving him fits. I couldn’t help myself (well, I didn’t try very hard!) and left him a very piano-teacher-y comment at his blog. I wrote so much there, I’ve decided to post it here too. Thus:

Left hand alone is not a trick, it’s basic. “Your piano playing is as good as your worst hand.” My students get tired of hearing that, I’m sure.

Do you trill in triplets? That helps with the “rolling motion.” Also, do you change fingers in the trill, so that it becomes something your hand does instead of a couple of fingers?

Do you learn the entire piece hands separately, so that each hand can play its part quite musically? With what you wrote in an earlier post about your LH, and seeing that you are learning Bach Inventions, you might consider learning each new invention with the left hand alone, until it sounds like beautiful music; and only then learning and adding the RH part. You’ll be astonished how beautiful LH alone can sound once you give it the chance.

Enlisting others to play for me

Tue, 14 Feb 2012 14:24:36 -0700

Because I can! Besides, I wrote a lot of the music; what, I have to play it too?

More about Keith here.

Better now

Thu, 26 Jan 2012 15:16:11 -0700

It’s a funny thing: this was a “bad break for a pianist” and required surgery to get the radius bone aligned properly. But, having had the surgery, which went very well according to my doctor, the fact that I’m a pianist makes my prognosis great. Rehab is expected to be quite successful, partly because I already have well-trained fingers, hand, & wrist.

Still am typing one-handed hunt & peck, so: yay!

Oops

Tue, 17 Jan 2012 17:18:12 -0700

Broke left wrist today. X-rays look like it’s a pretty simple break. Will learn more tomorrow.

Any good thoughts or prayers you would be willing to send to a pretty dejected pianist will be very gratefully received -- thank you!

Archiving Keith’s performance UPDATED

Thu, 22 Dec 2011 14:57:42 -0700

UPDATE 1/12/12:
Well, it’s a measure of how disoriented I was during December that when I wrote this blog post, I had forgotten that I had already done a blog post with the video! But the video has gone missing, so I’ll just leave the text up & you can imagine a performance! Or something.

I compose music for other people, too; but you already know that, right?

Anyway, Keith Snell performed bunches of the Verbs from Book 2 at Church of Beethoven in Albuquerque, New Mexico, on 9 October 2011.

(Yes, that was the same day I performed with Lee Bartley at Piano Source in Albuquerque. That was pretty much a blow-out day, in a very good way.)

I am rather pleased with how the 24 preludes — Verbs Book 1 & Book 2 — turned out. Of course, I’ve always assumed that, as a composer, I ought to be pleased with my music. If I didn’t like it, it would be my responsibility to change it. Why would I ever inflict music on you that I myself didn’t like?

Still, I was writing for left hand alone and since I had never done that before, it seemed to me that the result was definitely in doubt. I didn’t ever say that to Keith, at least not in words, but there were many times I wondered why I had said I’d compose twenty-four preludes for piano left hand alone. For someone whose piano technique is bigger than mine, even with one hand resting in his lap. Had I lost my mind?

In which I learn things about my music

Sat, 05 Nov 2011 12:07:34 -0600

Things I didn’t know; or thought I knew, & there I was being wrong!

The first thing I’ve learned this week, as we have been mastering Drivin!, is that I like my piano playing much better if I take a month between recording and mastering.

The wait was unintentional. Or forced by circumstances, more accurately. Lee was tuning for me daily when I recorded, as a trade for my doing the layout for his CD A View from Above. (I cannot recommend that CD too highly; in fact, David Nevue selected it as the Whisperings CD of the Year for 2010. Actually, I can say this: I listen to Lee’s CDs when I want to hear lovely piano music. I can hear my music in my head! So when I want to hear with my ears, I put on Lee.)

Back to the real story: Lee was tuning for me daily, and the only time this fall that we could coordinate our schedules was the beginning of October. I already had the rest of October scheduled with other events, which meant that we would not be mastering right away. I decided to go ahead and record, since passing up the first week of October meant waiting until 2012. And the time is now!

In which I get others to perform my music UPDATED

Fri, 28 Oct 2011 11:40:25 -0600

Keith has been performing a number of the Verbs from Book 2 recently (and is programming the entire book for his concerts next year). Now there exists the second YouTube video of my music, and I haven’t had to play either piece! We could call it laziness, or we could call it efficiency. You can choose. But I am thrilled that Keith’s amazing performance of (selected) Verbs is now available to the cosmos, as well as on this page here & now:

The Verbs performed here are Bloom, Beckon, Tangle, Snap, Shatter, Reflect, Release, and Bless.

This was just a part of Keith’s beautiful concert at Church of Beethoven on October 9. He also played the Bach Chaconne, as arranged by Brahms for piano left hand.

And poet Hakim Bellamy performed the poetry he created in response to my Verbs!

Some days I marvel at how very spoiled the universe is allowing me to become.

Hah! Managed to work Schubert into Drivin!

Wed, 28 Sep 2011 12:31:15 -0600

In my newest piece, a (lovely, if I do say so myself, but consider the source I’m stealing ideas from) ländler-like melody, very reminiscent of the Schubert ländlers I used to accompany ballet classes with, lo those many aeons ago; floating above a distant rumbling bass.

I love this melody. I just hope I can play it beautifully with no frantic energy by one week from today. (And I just made it up today!)

And that makes Drivin! a CD that will include both Robert Johnson and Franz Schubert. Really, how many piano CDs can make that claim?

[I’m fairly confident that this newest piece is named The Golden Passage, by the way. And you know I never believe I have the entire piece unless I’m confident I have the correct title as well. Because the title tells me something about the music that I cannot discover any other way, and sometimes what the title says is, “Throw out all that stuff and write me some new music!”]

Stalking the wild piano piece

Thu, 22 Sep 2011 17:24:13 -0600

I’ve noticed that I have a similar pattern both in learning new music by another composer and in creating new music myself.

First there is the “I have a dream” stage: maybe I’ve heard and loved this Beethoven sonata, or maybe I have caught a sound of a new piece in my imagination. I know I want to learn/create the new music. I am full of anticipation!

I start to work on the new repertory or the new composition. Sometimes that can be rather frustrating because what I hear in my imagination (whether it is repertory or new work) is somewhat out of reach. But I know it’s there. At this stage my memory of the dream keeps me in the game.

(I believe that I ought to be able to skip this first stage & get right to the next stage, but for some reason I usually do this first. I think the truly great practicers know how to minimize this stage — advanced practicing: how to make one’s work play. And of course, there are the compositions that come to me essentially fully formed. A Handfull of Quietness was one of those; so was The Never-Ending Starlit Road. It is a thrilling experience to sit and cognize new music and know as I play it that it is just perfect.)

Less lamentaciously

Mon, 19 Sep 2011 16:24:14 -0600

Okay, The Donkey Drag (aka Mr Darcy’s Lament) is coming along nicely now. It is in D major, just like The Phoebe Returns; I find it interesting that both pieces I have created about the creatures who hang out here are in D. I don’t think it really means anything, though.

So The Donkey Drag obviously must include the donkey & me going along cooperatively; and going along not cooperatively; the donkey braying; the donkey kicking (I think you’ll recognize that section quite easily!); the donkey chuckling (yes, Mr Darcy definitely chuckles). So the “sections” of the piece are clear; I was just having trouble before coming up with the music to go in those sections. I think I’m past that difficulty now.

Drivin! CD therefore has one piece written by my car and one piece written by/about my donkey. Wonder what else I can work in? Only have 2 more weeks to be creating & learning it, too!

Kathleen’s Lament

Tue, 06 Sep 2011 11:40:19 -0600

How hard can it really be to write a piano piece about a donkey?!! I mean really: he brays, he chuckles, he oozes personality, and if you doubt that, he’ll kick you. So it should be quite easy right?

Aargh!!!

Been Busy

Wed, 29 Jun 2011 17:59:36 -0600

I broke my left leg in April — you may have seen that on Facebook. It is fairly irrelevant here, except:

While I was laid up, I edited and published Verbs, Book 2. I have such an allergic reaction to notation that even though it was all notated already (since after all I composed it for Keith to perform and in fulfillment of a commission, which required a score to be submitted), it still took me ages to commit to it in print.

Anyway, Verbs, Book 2 includes preludes for the following verbs: Beckon, Insist, Murmur, Tease, Tangle, Snap, Shatter, Bloom, Bounce, Reflect, Release, and Bless.

(I don’t have to remember the list or the order anymore, either; I can just open the book and type away! How much lazier can I get?!)

These are all for left hand alone. It is a different set of challenges for the pianist (and for the composer too), creating music that is multi-layered from the playing of just one hand.

[So far, to the best of my knowledge, when Keith has performed them, the clapping has still been with two hands, so we do not yet know the sound of one hand clapping, even though we hear many many sounds of one hand playing. Just thought you would like to know that.]

I don’t know what it is

Sun, 13 Mar 2011 15:14:29 -0600

Dundee Studio

A rental home that had a concert “stage” all waiting for me.

Click to view full size.

Something about working on Drivin!, which has many very up-tempo and even driving pieces (surprise!), has me in a more reflective mood than creating Under the Greenwood Tree did. It seems very odd to me that playing the “noisy” music (not that it is all noisy by any means; and I hope that none of it would ever be called noise!) gets me feeling all reflective and quiet. Maybe I’m just trying to maintain balance!

Anyway, among those photos I found last week are several of previous studios where I created some of this music. Yes, some of these pieces have been waiting for the right album for (cough cough) years. Years that span seven studio set-ups for me. I think I counted that correctly; seems like a huge number. But, as I admitted just now, some of these pieces are ... ancient. By my standards, at least.

So here is the photo of my studio in Nebraska. We only lived there a year, but the house we rented belonged to a musician, and he had concert lighting all waiting for my piano. My husband insists this was what clinched our renting the house; I remember feeling relieved to find anyplace that would rent to us with 2 cats. But the living room “stage” was definitely a plus!

More strolls through memory lane

Sun, 06 Mar 2011 07:45:47 -0700

I went looking for a framed photograph yesterday, which by the way I did not succeed in finding. But I did find a treasure trove of other photographs, many from my earlier days of touring and teaching. And I found this:

“Back in the day” one of the zillion things I did as a musician was serve as music director for a local theater company. Not to knock anyone, but it did always seem to me that except when we were putting on a musical (and sometimes even then), the music pretty much took back seat to everything else. Especially the sets! So when this Jerry Van Amerongen comic first ran, I kept it as a talisman of working in the theater. It still brings back those times. Good times, really, just a touch frantic and hurried and harassed. (But when it all came together — so wonderful!)

Also, the actors were so scared of me during the first musical we put on. I wanted them to count! I wanted them to warm up! I wanted them to make a good faith effort to actually sing the music as written! They’re actors, they wanted to act. And here was this crazy woman they had to deal with who wanted them to master a second performance art. I was always very sweet with them, unless they talked while I was rehearsing a singer or trio. How can anyone hear what they need to change if there is this constant background of talking? To sing well, we need to hear well. (To play piano well, we need to hear well, too, of course. Our musician’s art is about listening and hearing.)

Forgotten customs: we sang

Mon, 07 Feb 2011 20:11:45 -0700

I remembered something this evening that I’m not sure I ever noticed consciously before.

Here’s the pathway to the memory, which is the only way it will make any sense at all:

Keith and I have been discussing Verbs Book 2, gearing up for its publication and some performances of it that he will be doing later on this year. As we did with Book 1, we might be revising several of the pieces so they more perfectly realize the music. I suppose you could call it editing! I might end up re-writing some individual Verbs, to make them fit the left hand better, or to flesh out parts that maybe I slighted on the first pass, or just to correct errors I made. Lowering as it is to admit it, I make errors writing my own music. Alas.

Anyway, to get going, today I was playing through several of the Verbs from Book 2. The very first one is Beckon. I don’t think I ever even told Keith this, but the first motive in the melody is based on a fairly universal pattern of notes. Many children’s songs use it too. In 1=do, 2=re notation, and using the dash to fill out the rhythm, it is: 5 - 3 6 5 - 3 -.

Music I love

Thu, 03 Feb 2011 10:56:32 -0700

It’s possible that no one else will ever love Meanwhile on Foot the way I do. It has no melody. It starts and ends on the “wrong” chord, an inversion of the tonic instead of root position. It doesn’t really do much at all. It’s in the simplest A-B-A form imaginable. It has a weird number of measures — sounds very “square” but isn’t. But it does have cool chords! Extremely cool chords! And I love it, in all of its minimalistic unprepossessing glory.

I’m fairly convinced, though, that it is going to be my wallflower child. If, after Drivin! comes out, even one person ever tells me they just love Meanwhile on Foot, I will be out of my mind with joy.

And no, that’s not a hint! It’s not even a request.

Lots on my mind today

Sun, 07 Nov 2010 18:12:34 -0700

Release

From Verbs, Book 2.

This browser cannot play the embedded audio file.

The premiere, performed by Keith Snell at the PMTNM conference, Los Alamos, New Mexico, November 2008.

I suddenly realized that I have never posted any of Verbs here. That’s an omission!

No, I’m not playing. My friend the concert pianist Keith Snell is. But I composed the music! And I’m rather pleased at how it turned out, and how he performs it. Here’s a sample.