Playing stride piano and one degree of serendipity

(None of the photos in this blog entry were PhotoShopped. Believe it. Not because I say, "believe it", but because, it is true!)

Last week, I started in earnest to learn how to play stride piano. Since I’m so weak with my left hand, I figured, if I learned to play stride, I could eventually do anything. Stride piano, however, is extremely difficult. Nothing I have ever attempted on the piano before has been as challenging as making my left hand play something that is completely different, both in notes and rhythm, than my right hand. I have many times started to learn stride, only to stop as my progress was too slow, or so small as to be completely discouraging. But then, I had a thought: Once upon a time, I couldn't play a ii-V-I progression. I couldn't play a Miles Davis tune, or a jazz waltz, or, anything. Eventually, I learned. So (I pointed out to myself) stride should be the same. Today I can’t play it. Someday, I will be able to. And sure enough, I started with a simple four bar phrase that changes chords twice per bar, and, tried to play it, and hacked it, and hacked it, and hacked it. I did this for three days, for twenty or thirty minutes each day. (Just ask Mrs. S how she’s liked my playing the last week if you don’t believe me.) Then, about two days ago, I sat down, no music, no metronome, no nothing, and played it straight through four times with no mistakes. Four bars down, 124 (or something) to go.

The first moment of serendipity - not distracted

Really, stride is about distracting yourself. If you can reach the point where your fingers, hand, wrist, and arm move on their own, you can turn off the conscious part of the brain that controls that activity, and focus more intently on the melody in the right hand, or the music overall. It’s sort of the opposite of consciously pursuing something that you experience unconsciously every day.

Like the temperature.

55 degrees is not unusual in February in Alabama. It’s not typical either. I’d sort of had in the back of my mind the last week or so, that with any kind of luck, I could find myself in 55 degrees of heat or cool when my car odometer flipped to the 55555 mile mark. Yesterday, after driving home from work and then around the block a few times, my car odometer was at 55555, but alas, the outside temperature, after peaking around 57 in the afternoon, had dropped to chilly 54 during my ride home. 

One degree short of serendipity - like stride piano on the second day of trying it: just not coming together

I parked the car, closed the garage door, and turned on a bunch of portable floodlights. I checked the car every half hour or so. It never budged above 54. I was one measly, but stubborn, degree Fahrenheit from serendipity. But I can do nothing about the weather, so, I gave up and went to bed.

With the temperature dipping into the forties overnight, I’m not sure how my garage got up to 59 degrees – a question for my HVAC guy I guess – but that was the temperature of the car when I got in it this morning. I pulled out of the garage and into the driveway and waited for serendipity, Like a semi-miraculous play-through of a four bar stride pattern, it all came together: nothing but 5’s on my dashboard. (First picture, top.) Eleven miles and eleven degrees later, as I pulled into a gas station to gas up, it came apart in tandem. Together again. Weird.

Day four of playing stride piano: stuff comes together without thinking about it (Notice the gas gauge ever so slightly - eleven miles' worth - lower. I repeat: NOT PhotoShopped!)

Stride piano, my odometer, the temperature in February, and my consciousness, all in a state of serendipity. Just keep going, and stuff comes together.