I can be so mean sometime. At least I get accused of it often enough. I don't feel like I'm being mean. It's just that I have an odd sense of humor. I take what other people say about each other and write the same words they use to accuse other people of being themselves. I get my taunts straight from the other person' s arguments, but they never recognize what I write as their own. Candidly, I'm not so sure I would recognize my own words as my own words if someone took the trouble to do unto me what I do unto them.
It's a lovely Sunday. I didn't get a single number in last night's PowerBall drawing. Sometime i think I buy lottery tickets just to get my hopes and dreams dashed twice a week. Hope springs eternal for me in this regard. Every week I avidly check the numbers expecting to win. I know I'm not, of course, but that's the whole game to me. Not winning makes me happier than winning ever could. I dream of buying my so-called friends what they can't afford to buy for themselves, but all the time realizing that doing that would only make them my outright enemies.
I've never been able to find my own path through the deep woods that led to much understanding about the art of gift-giving. Maybe it's just too close to home for me to play like I understand. I have gained some perspective about gift-giving from what I've read about it in the Asian traditions.
Giving expensive gifts to people who can't afford to return a gift of similar or more value can cause great shame in those cultures I've read about. I've read that there are ample examples of how entire families have committed hari-kari due to the shame they felt not being able to pay some rich families back in kind. Human life doesn't appear to be held in such high regard in Asia. It's just kismet.
I didn't play the scales again yesterday. I think it might have helped the pain in my hands and wrists. I really do pound the keys when I play the scales. It's like I'm trying to force the issue. It's not working. I'm learning a little every day about playing the piano, but more and more I seem convinced it isn't gonna happen overnight.
Yesterday I happened to be watching PBS and a program called scottthepianoguy came on, and this guy started talking about how to play the piano by heart. He put on a very helpful demonstration about how a beginner could use a descending bass line as part of a minor chord. I was already using this descending bass line, but one note at a time. The way he did it using a minor chord was very instructive. I could do it right away.
Playing the major scales and their associated relative minor has really helped me to not get so intimidated when a trained musician explains their craft. I still don't understand all that much about what they're saying, but I do know a lot more about the how the various notes, including those of the black keys, fit together to make the notes of a particular major or minor key.
I let things aggravate me that probably shouldn't. I was thoroughly intimidated in high school by algebra and English grammar. I barely made passing grades in both subjects. I couldn't stand the idea of being considered weak in math or having let algebra get my goat, so I enrolled in the Community College in my mid-forties and retook the algebra courses up to pre-calculus and made A's and B's.
I'll probably never take the time to learn to parse sentences, and I'm not so embarrassed by that anymore. I'm able to say what I wanna express and get understood, so what's the point?
Learning to play and practice the major and minor scales on the piano is just another area I feel weak in just like algebra. I feel a little ashamed I didn't do it when I had the opportunity as a kid. I didn't get the encouragement I needed back then, but I was provided with the opportunity, and if I had what it took, it would have happened, and my world would have been different. It didn't, and it's not.
Real success for me on the piano would be very uncomplicated. If I could accompany my singing more or less like I did using the guitar and other instruments I've played, I'll be happy enough. By learning and practicing the scales though, I'll be able to transpose to any other key I wanna play in, and that's never been possible before. There are some songs I can't sing in the key of C Major. Eventually, I'll be able to accompany myself in the key I can sing those lost songs in.
I do not attempt to tell the God's own truth here because I don't know what the truth is or hardly ever. I try to capture the drifting thoughts that randomly appear in my imagination for reasons I may not understand. I don't know if the content I capture with these words is true or false. The Comments settings are turned off to prevent me from having to defend what amounts to little more than fanciful, sometime crude speculation. Great moments in our lives never return.
