Coming home, and the piano

I came home today from university.

Coming home used to be very depressing. There used to be anxiety about leaving the city, because, well, all things that were organisational on occaision, gave me anxiety. I felt the overwhelming weight of the world and the pressure to have a future, and the many inadequacies I had come down on me.

I thought a more successful man would have a girlfriend, would have nice looks, good grades, money, he wouldn't be going on the bus like a loser, but would drive in his car! Well, I kind of like the bus now. Especially as it means I can think while sitting on it, and just stare; it also costs like £1 sometimes.

When I used to go home from university I used to listen to some song; it represented a 'leaving the city' song, or 'coming home' song. The song always represented the moment I was in, and I wwas very attentive when I listened to it. The song represented a moment for when I returned to listening to it as well.

So; anyhoo, that was how things used to be, and now, I never thought I could say this, but those dark days of the undergraduate past, although not to say I don't have dark days, are over.

Walking home, it used to be familiar thing. Now I just dont care. I feel detached now, I'm a stranger in my own home city.

When I got home, I was just lying down a bit, following that, I randomly got an idea. What if I got the manuscript for a song and then played it on the piano? The song was While your lips are still red, by Tuomas Holopainen.

I haven't played the piano properly in 4 years. I printed the sheets out from the internet, and then, I sightread. I noticed there were imperfections:

1. My fingers were insenitive to the touch, partly due to RSI and lack of practice. I could feel those two factors seperately and distinctly.

2. The manuscript had inappropriate time signatures and poorly written: I then realised that my sight reading school is still inside me

3. The harmonic structure of the song itself was lacking, it was just using primary and secondary chords! No chromaticism, or even dissonance, I decided to spice it up by making french 6th chords, and inputting 7-6 suspensions -- that means my music theory knowledge is still inside me.

I realised as I played, that there is this part of me, a part inside me that yearns to still play the piano. Yearns for that kind of expression that I used to have, feeling warm and captured by the music that I play....

I returned briefly to that part inside me today; then I lost concentration and motivation and suddenly got tired. I guess things are different now...but those were wonderful days.

Maybe it was the piano that gave me balance emotionally...

I'm still not ready to return to it...

I used to feel empty when I returned home to find I have left an old life behind. I have a new life now, and a new body and self--image. The piano was deeply loving to me, it was like a girl that I loved, but not a person, an ideal of expression, of my own self discovery and introspection.

I need to search deep inside myself; academic work doesn't express who I am fully in the way piano used to...