Finding Momentum

Last night I dreamt again I was play­ing the piano. It was a melan­choly piece, set to rain­drops echo­ing off roof shin­gles. I was play­ing by sight, with no direc­tion or clo­sure in mind. It was sim­ple, just: play what comes to mind and to ear.

I played in D# minor, no par­tic­u­lar rea­son except that I’ve always liked the sound of the black keys and the way they stick out of the key­board, like land­marks, ask­ing to be touched and played. In my head they’re asso­ci­ated with the blues, with the minor scales, with Tex­ture and Dif­fer­ence. So I played them, drag­ging out their tones with total abuse of the sus­tain pedal (that would give my piano teacher a fit).

I find a left hand chord pro­gres­sion that I like (it’s a minor pro­gres­sion that resolves on a major key) and dab­ble around with melodies with the right. I’m play­ing now by my own rules, turn­ing acci­den­tal notes into chords that I can’t name. I’m not even think­ing but imag­in­ing this to be a sound­track and it’s fill­ing my head and over­pow­er­ing the rain, it’s echo­ing through my house and I’m glad nobody’s home to hear it.

I wake up, 10AM, grasp­ing at echoes, and it’s rain­ing outside.