theWheel

theOwl

I couldn’t think of anything worthwhile to write about at theWheel tonight, so I sat back down at the piano to dink around with my current top musical project.

I was working on – playing with – a setting of one of Arnold Lobel’s FABLES, The Baboon’s Umbrella, when Karen got out of bed and walked out to the piano in the living room to tell me how nice it sounded.  This does not happen every day.  She told me how she hears me playing so much that I become musical wallpaper, but she noticed this one tonight.

This compliment made my day – and it was a very good day – not so easy to put a topper on it.  This afternoon was my daughter’s birthday party with lots of family.  Then, earlier this evening, down to campus and Top of the Park to hear George Bedard and the Kingpins, a trio I used to play bass with back in the day, absolutely at the top of their game.  Great blues based roots rock and roll music.  Beautiful night – mid seventies – all of Ann Arbor out to celebrate summer.

Townies.

Of course, I did not record whatever it was that I played that Karen thought was so nice, and somehow the effortless flow has not returned to me since.  There is some kind of magic that happens sometimes, when I forget I’m playing music and just play – essentially idly goofing around in the space of some worthy musical attractor.

Is it more natural to play music brilliantly when said brilliance is not seen by the player to be that big of a deal?

Yes.