Opus 7, for Kiya, Garbo and Garbo’s daughter

 The “Grand Sonata”, Op 7, has been a struggle. It looks easy on the page. But I’ve had difficulty connecting to it. Usually this has nothing to do with the piece of music and everything to do with my own distraction. There has been plenty of that. I often find myself practicing a passage while thinking about something else entirely. I remember one of my piano teachers as a child telling me no matter how well you know a piece it’s best not to be thinking about what you are having for dinner when playing it. I remember my music school idol, Meg, telling me when she teaches piano that when practicing, like cleaning a window, if there is dirt there and you just keep rubbing it around, you get nowhere. I remember spending hours upon hours in the basement practice rooms in music school until I couldn’t not do it. I remember studying for anatomy class with such intensity and focus that I quite literally knew where absolutely everything in our bodies was located. Studying anatomy and music is not all that different. You take the parts and dissect them then see how it all fits together.

I was thinking recently about whether, if it was measurable, I have now held my phone in my hand for more hours than I have held the hands of my children, husband, parents, dying patients. It’s hard to pay attention when the next thing is just a scroll away. 

Still, I have had some great moments with Opus 7, the greatest of all being with the dogs and people who came to listen to it. For the last 10 years I have celebrated Beethoven’s birthday with “my patients”, with a performance of one of his sonatas. In the last 4 years this has included the violin-piano sonatas with my uber-talented violin pal, Jenny, graciously offering her time. This year we did sonata no 8 at one center on Tuesday, another big and somewhat uncharacteristically joyful piece by LVB. On Thursday I brought the grand opus 7 to another center (we have 3 centers, and I’m still scheming on getting a piano to the 3rd). 

Which brings me to the dogs. Therapy dogs who like to hang out with people and offer their healing presence. I’m not sure about how the other people present felt, but this doctor was over the moon with the chance to share music with an amazing group of people and dogs on a sunny day near the winter solstice in celebration of one of the greatest composers of all time. Right before I started, someone asked if I could play boogie-wooogie on the 100 year old piano, donated to us by Fred and Joan Tempas. Right after I played, Kiya’s person asked if I wanted a hug, and as I reached to hug him he said “actually I meant the dog”, and so I kneeled and Kiya laid her head on my shoulder and really what else matters?

For the record, I am a midwestern, Lutheran, Buddhist, classically-trained perfectionist who worries non-stop. No one wants to hear me playing boogie-woogie.

I am putting grand opus 7 to rest for awhile. I need to come back to it with fresh eyes and fingers, and better attention. And anyway the opus 10s are calling. It takes practice to practice piano properly. Just because the world seems to be unraveling around us is no reason to allow the mind to wander when playing Beethoven, or when reading, or talking with a beloved. Attention is needed when laying stethoscope on chest, first right then left sternal borders, then apex, then axilla, asking oneself if the sound is soft, medium, loud, systolic, diastolic, whooshing or clicking, galloping or straightforward, boogie-woogie or Bach? 

On Beethoven’s actual birthday (though debated, December 17 was his baptism day so probably he was born on December 16 based on traditions), my husband makes killer Mac and cheese. It was LVB’s favorite food. We revel in the rich, artery-threatening delight, imagining some Vienna eatery of the early 1800’s, and hoping at least sometimes Ludwig had a friend to share a meal with him.

Things are profoundly imperfect. Some days I can hardly breathe. I was chatting with a patient in a nursing home recently, someone who is an ambassador to other residents there, hearing their concerns and advocating for them. As I stood at the end of their bed,  with my awkward privilege of being able to walk out of there on healthy legs, they expressed their bewilderment at what has become of this country which is becoming unrecognizable. After several beats of silence, except for someone’s TV blaring in the background, I said I just keep trying to show up each day for the person in front of me, with kindness and in service. Which is what the person, stuck in that bed does every day. As does the canine masters of healing, the true experts of quiet comfort, given with a doggy smiles and cold, boopable noses, the Kiya’s of the world.

In the imperfection of beginners mind we practice. As the Zen master would say, fall down 8 times, get up 9. Then go to your piano bench and practice opus 10.

Opus 2, Number 3~For Monk & Flora

 Mr Rogers reminds us when we witness catastrophe to “look for the helpers”. When the house shakes, the ice cream cone drops, the glacier melts, the hate speech spews, the ash of the volcano covers towns, the team loses, the long and complicated chart note you are almost done with randomly disappears, look for the helpers. When you find a spot on the X-ray, when the Supreme Court looks the other way, when you realize the days are getting shorter, when your heart cracks open wondering if your child will survive heroin, look for the helpers. 

Fred Rogers both soothed and irritated me as a child. I thought his sneakers were lame. He was really nice and calm. The make believe royals freaked me out. 

What I did not realize at the time was that he was a trained composer, who liked the story arcs to resemble the structure of sonata form (exposition, development, recapitulation, coda). His co-composer, jazz pianist Johnny Costa, based the opening theme on the Beethoven Sonata I played for Flora and Monk today. Specifically the start of the 4th movement. Mr Costa was practicing Op2, No 3 and thought it would be cool to do the LVB flourish in “Won’t you be my neighbor”. Of course he never played it exactly the same way twice, being a jazz cat. Actually I doubt Beethoven ever played anything the same way twice either, being a master improviser himself. 

Listen here:

https://youtu.be/Xx-ncTtaOJY

Listen here! What I am trying to say is the helpers are the ones who make beautiful things, and the ones who speak to a neighbor, the ones that bring food to someone who is shut in, the ones who put out the fires and walk into the room where someone is a hot, sick mess with COVID or tuberculosis or a festering wound that reeks of decay. The ones that change our bed pans and place our IVs, the ones who teach our children and the ones who make us laugh when times are hard.

When I learned this particular sonata as a teenager in music school, my tempo was a teenpo which is to say the athletics come easily at that age. I probably zoned out during the slow movement and really sforzandoed those sforzandos. I mean I still do that, because…Beethoven. As the athleticism fades and some bit of wisdom creeps in, I delight in the hilarious moments, the yearning, shirt-tearing despair, the precocious pushing the edges of decorum right on the heels of an age of powdered wigs and pianos that were barely able to live up to the name of pianoforte. What I am trying to say is there would be no metal without Beethoven and if you don’t believe me you can Kiss my AC/DC..

I doubt Beethoven went for runs, but he did like being in nature, and did a lot of composing when out on hikes. The very first notes of this sonata are a bird call. The slow movement moves between a gentle late summer day along a brook with a nice breeze, and a sudden covering of the sun by dark clouds with peals of thunder. The third movement is a dance but under the stars at a gathering after a day working in the fields. It has a trio section that sounds to me like the town preacher walking by and shaking his fists at all the cavorting. Ultimately he gets ignored and the dancing resumes until folk fall over tired and lay back to gaze up at the moon and listen to the last movement. Enter Mr Rogers about 180 years in the future, heartening back to this rondo of a scale in triads. Rondos rendezvous with the theme over and over, playing hide and seek with it, then calling Olly Olly in come free!

When i ran in from Ghost in the Graveyard, i rejoiced at my friends all gathered in a pile, the autumn leaves crackling under us, a bed of summer’s farewell. When I run in from the redwoods cloaked in mist, the trees leave me with their blessing. When I run out of hope for this broken world, and sink to my knees in some kind of prayerful stance, i remember my parents, the ones who gave me piano lessons for my 6th birthday, the ones who held my hands in theirs, the ones who welcomed the stranger as if they too were beloved. I remember their help for others as stitched into the very core of who they were. Probably whispering in an ear right now, words of love and kindness. And Dad might also include a limerick or two.

Listen to this, if you click on the link you can watch Monk sleep through Beethoven, and Flora Mae the Fierce take it all in through her spectacular bat-dog ears. In Monks defense, he’s heard this one. A lot.

Opus 2, Number 2, for Clarence

 Early Beethoven is surprisingly tricky and should be memorized. It should be perfect. And though I started out gifted, now I am just about average, words stolen from a song by my husband, the truly gifted yet under-appreciated by the world member of the household. Go read one (or all)of his books: https://www.amazon.com/stores/Atthys-J.-Gage/author/B00RYJWHGK?ref=dbs_a_mng_rwt_scns_share&isDramIntegrated=true&shoppingPortalEnabled=true

Opus 2, No 2 is counterpointy, athletic, whimsical, with some moments of head-banging thrown in. Full on metal interrupts the graceful theme in the 4th movement. The first movement tries some counterpoint that is like jumping from rock to rock at full speed on the edge of a steep cliff. The third movement a lark, a dance, like a palate cleanser after the heady second movement which could be a string quartet with the cello doing this amazing pizzicato bass, and before the fourth which reintroduces the fact that Beethoven was one of the great improvisers of all time. He could just sit down and spin out a theme in a million different ways, each time more intricate or more funny or more serious or more outrageous than the last. Only to end the whole thing in a soft tip of the hat, a nod to his own genius and a laugh at the sucker who sat through it, weeping or laughing but definitely amazed.

I mean Beethoven was a bit of an arse, drinking too much, criticizing the friends who helped him most and  must’ve been the uncle from hell for his nephew. If Facebook or whatever people are using these days was around, Ludwig would’ve made cringy posts, though in the current world of meanness as a badge of honor, maybe his followers would be legion. I would like to think he would be on Strava, mapping his long country hikes where he did a lot of his thinking about music. How cool would it be to see the route where he composed Opus 2, all 3 dedicated to Haydn, and all 3 brimming with nature if you listen just right. 

Clarence, the dog, has a very recognizable bark. He is the neighborhood curmudgeon who doesn’t suffer fools, but is head over paws in love with his main person. Anyone else might want to watch for the shiv he keeps tucked in his adorable fur. Maybe Beethoven kept one tucked in his mane of hair too. I can relate to this-not the shiv part as I am a pacifist at heart, but the part about things being stored in my hair. After a romantic dinner with my gifted better half the other night, I realized I had 2 large redwood fronds in my hair the entire time. It may be he did not notice, but knowing him he just liked them being there. 

The Redwood Forest is hard not to take along with you. It is the fog and mist that fills a mind overawed, it is the seasonal dust or mud, the ferns unfurling like a heart cracking open and letting in light even if it might get burned. It is the creaking branches that could kill you in one fell swipe, reminding you each day is precious and asking you what your plans are regarding that fact. It is neon yellow slugs, wedding dress white trillium, unashamed iris purple like the old ladies who might wear it in defiance. It is the sense of a mountain lion nearby, which is a good way to describe the anxiety of parenthood, or the anxiety of playing all 32 Beethoven Sonatas in a world where Lang Lang also lives.

For about 25 minutes there is this escape into a world called opus 2, number 2, that is oddly a slightly different planet each time it is visited. Music is like that, a science fiction, science of tonality and reactions, of gravity and rate determining steps, with hypotheses and alien life forms popping in with their double sharps and crossed hands. The fictional aliens fit right into the world-building done by @LVBeethoven, which was his sci fi handle. And holy shit things just get weirder the deafer @LVB gets, until the science fiction in the late opuses is almost too mind-blowing to fathom. It is possible Opus 106 is a space opera. I’m gonna need some serious calisthenics to ride that particular flying saucer.

But I get ahead of myself. Next up is opus 2, number 3 which is one of my very favorites. While I try to get that one reasonably under my paws, please reach out if you know a canine music savant that wants to run around, snooze, chew a bone, fart or bark madly while I play it for them.

For today, thank you King Clarence, for giving 25 minutes of your one precious life, and for letting your person film the video. Incidentally, she was specifically instructed not to focus on my big ass, and if you make it to the end of the video, I am pretty sure she decided to defy me and do an actual close up of my derrière. For what it’s worth, I imagine Beethoven liked a good butt joke, though maybe not quite as much as Mozart did.

If you would like to listen, and meet Clarence, here you go: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qvLFNY4WqMs

Opus 2, Number 1, for Monk

 My dogs, through the years, were often runners. My Reverend father named the childhood dog the Rabelaisianesque “Brandy”, make of that what you will. Brandy never needed a leash, always at one’s side. He equally enjoyed parental walks, cross-country running obsessed trots and sprints alongside my skateboarding brother. As he aged, sometimes I’d notice he wasn’t at my side and instead had joined an old jogger neighbor some ways behind me. I mean she was probably at least 45 years old. In our small home he laid near the piano when I played (probably used to my siblings loudly begging me to stop). Maybe he too was begging me to stop. 

But I think all dogs appreciate music. Zoe, a neurodivergent, stunted golden doodle, actively sought out music. I had impulsively picked her out from a breeder in Washington state who had their puppies listen to classical music. When I finished reading to the kids at bedtime she would trot click click click down the hall and sit at my feet gazing up while I sang „Müde bin Ich“ and “ You are my Sunshine”. She preferred music no later than Brahms. When anything in the 1900’s started up on the piano, and God forbid the 21st century, she click click clicked upstairs in a huff. But she also frantically did what one friend called the “breast stroke” on leash to try to dine on horse shit. So I am not sure she gets the last say on modern music.

Buster the border collie had no opinion about the piano but was completely devoted to me, he wore his black and white tux to every practice session. He had class.

Shasta really didn’t like me very much and the piano was just another confusing part of the universe she was thrown into when we brought her in after her owner had died, near the end of her life. Which turned out to be 4 years later. By the end she tolerated me and really that’s all I can ask of anyone.

Moving into the jazz era. Miles took over Buster’s fierce devotion immediately upon his Christmas Day death, a Christmas Day spent in a hospital shift after laying on the floor hugging old Buster all night. As I lay weeping later, Miles tucked right up next to me and sort of just stayed there for the next 10 years. When Our favorite violinist or a string quartet came to join me for music adventures, Miles would quietly stand in the middle of the group just being a witness, like someone quietly swaying in church during an especially fiery sermon. Though if the beach had not been visited before a long music session, he would head-butt my hands off the keyboard. When I met him as a puppy he seemed the most chill of the litter and I thought he was cool jazz. He went through several phases though, not unlike his namesake. He always knew how to use silence, and that it was at least as important as the woof woofing.

Monk has an old soul, a goofball presence, and never fears mistakes. At 9 months he already outweighs Miles (may he rest in peace). He is a lab so EVERYTHING IS AMAZING AND MIGHT ALSO BE GOOD TO CHEW ON. Somehow he knew chewing on the Steinway was the antithesis of joy. As he matures I believe he finds chewing on the tasty chords that fly through the air quite satisfying. He told me once that there are no wrong notes on the piano. Or maybe that was his namesake who said that but either way, I am in.

I wanted to be a concert pianist who wore tails. I decided that when listening in the dark to the LP of Horowitz playing the Moonlight Sonata when I was 5. We didn’t even have a piano, but THAT was my future.

When my cervical spinal cord was all messed up in 2023 I couldn’t quite walk in a straight line. Then I couldn’t pick up a jigsaw puzzle piece. Then I couldn’t play a scale. Which finally made me stop gaslighting myself and seek medical care. Thankfully it was mechanical and a neurosurgeon just fixed that thing. The dexterity hasn’t quite returned but since there are no wrong notes on the piano I don’t sweat it too hard.

I am so grateful to be able to play. And here is a secret: I love Beethoven. It’s beyond reason but probably there is some neurohormonal attachment from that 5 year old girl sitting under headphones with Horowitz at the helm of an 88 key mind-blower. Before my spine surgery, I played through all 32 Beethoven sonatas in a few days. It occurred to me that the very slight possibility that something could go wrong could leave me unable to play at all. Over the years, from music school days as a teenager to the years not playing much at all during medical training to a reengagement with grace to my diminished stature as a musician, I have always come back to LVB. 

I haven’t ever been a concert pianist who played in tails. But I like to make others wag their tails. And in however long I have left on this spinning rock, I am finally going to learn all 32 Beethoven piano sonatas reasonably well enough. In fact well enough to entertain the purest of all critics, the best boys and girls in the universe, the chewers of the bones of the repertoire and the inhabitants of a world where open hearts is just wagnificent.

Thus begins the Beethoven Project. If you know a dog needing some Beethoven, give me a holler. The first one though is for my best little brother, my current zen master and the loudest snorer in the universe.

If you’d like to watch Monk watching the first Beethoven Project performance, click below!

Let’s start at the start, little Monk. 

https://youtu.be/DndQqkktMl8?feature=shared

Tree Magic

 While running through the old growth redwoods today, the older adult redwoods, the elders, the sages, sensei masters, maestros of the girth of a Mahler symphony, while running among them on the paved path inserted by people in order to allow us to see and be among the trees, I thought about community. I touched the bark and moss and burls as I loped past, in gratitude and like all of my species, in an attempt to take with me some of the mystery, the tree magic.

16 months ago, I was not sure I would ever run again. Myelopathy had me walking askew and unable to do the things that come easily enough to me, like playing piano or lifting a puzzle piece with my fingers. Turning pages of a book and walking in a straight line required a connection no longer being made. All my skepticism about modern medicine had to take a hike for the relinquishing of control to an anesthesiologist and neurosurgeon, all standing in a row with nurses when I entered the operating theater. 

Good fortune, skilled and attentive physicians and good old fashioned fear of what was happening to me spurred me to take the leap and have led me to be a good deal better than I was. Including, today, running the marathon again.

I heard someone around mile 18 say “did she just touch that tree?” But around mile 10 when I did a little leap up to tap Sir Redwood, someone else shouted “Yeah! Tree magic!” Either way I might be weird but besides the tree magic the people magic has me thinking that our world is on the okay side of disaster. While we are seemingly surrounded on all sides by rage, the hundreds out running today had smiles and good wishes. A 3 year old handed me a cup of water with bright eyes gazing upwards and a huge smile. James Washington and a multitude of volunteers fed, watered, herded and cheered on the racers. 

I reached out to some friends before the race to help me build a playlist. Earth, Wind & Fire made a couple of appearances. David Bowie, AC/DC, Jenny Scheinmann, John Coltrane, Jon Batiste, Beyoncé, and of the 3.5 hours of music, there was only one duplicate (Batiste-Freedom), and only one that I picked myself (Boom Boom Pow). One of my favorites was Femininomenon. Right at the half was Mountolive and of course, Journey was there, Not stopping believing just like they didn’t let us stop believing when we boarded the bus to a high school cross country meet at 6am on an autumn Wisconsin morning in the 1980’s.

So What, you say? And no, Miles Davis did not get on this list, but I will make sure he is represented next time. A friends’ playlist through bone conduction headphones while doing something you aren’t sure you can actually do is a huge gift of community. I could identify who had picked what song, and Monica, did you hear me laugh when East River came on? 

On Friday an angry patient yelled and swore at me. But I still believe in community. Our local university campus is closed after demonstrations, but I still believe in community. My middle child is in prison but we talk almost every day and I still believe in community. We do not have to navigate alone the crazy fact of being alive in this broken world (thank you Mary Oliver). Michelle, who ran (SMOKING FAST) the half marathon today hung around to see me finish and make sure my weak, donut ass got safely into my car with my incredibly thoughtful husband after the race. 

Regarding donuts, I binged on them at work on Friday. See above re angry patient. Coping mechanisms are a work in progress, likely till the day I die. And when that day comes, I know the community will turn their hearts to my family and friends, and will make sure my patients are cared for. I don’t plan on a celestial discharge anytime soon, but, again with the Mary Oliver: one precious life can zip by faster than Yuja Wang can play a Chopin Etude!

We do not have to be alone. Just ask the Redwood trees who have all sorts of interesting chats over intertwined roots plugged into the Mycorrhizal network. Chats that maybe started 300 years ago. Tree magic.

Driftwood

 I have not surfed for several weeks. Aside from the size of the waves, beyond my ability, I might get clocked by a redwood tree.

Humboldt style driftwood is not for the faint of heart. As with almost everything else in this far Northern California blend of the sublime and the ferocious. This ought to segue into a long discussion about Beethoven, but I shall spare you.

Buster, the second dog love of my life (after childhood pal Brandy, named by my pastor father after his color, not as his porn name, no offense to Brandys everywhere as it is actually cool name), used to bring me beached trees, actual trees, dump them at my feet and say “you strong, capable woman shall now throw this tree and I will then fetch it for you.” Buster was bewildered by my declaration that I was not actually the princess warrior he was picturing.

A few weeks ago Miles (current dog love, bless his 13 year old heart of gold) and I were on a beach walk when a sudden storm blew up. The wind was scary in that “is this a freaking cyclone?’ Sort of way and it did not rain, rather it hailed ice stones that actually hurt. Being exposed on the beach, the first place I dove for with dog in arms was a great big log. We huddled there, still getting pelted but less fearful of being blown into oblivion when there was a fantastical lightning strike and beach-shaking thunder. Miles, who is cachectic and relatively hairless after a grumpy groomer decided he needed to be stripped naked, was shaking and we locked eyes for a second, maybe both thinking it had been a nice life… 

I scooped him up again and scrambled up a dune and God seemed to have deus ex machinaed a hole covered by a bush right over the peak of the dune where we rode out the rest of the storm. When we could finally walk back to our car, me pretty much blue lipped frozen at this point, a sassy rainbow appeared. Nice one Mother Nature! 

Before storm

                                                                        After storm

Today, as we walked among the wood drifted upon the beach, we managed to just miss the rain. January has been making up for our relatively dry winter. I was obsessed with the sky and the way the wind blew eddys of sand. Sneaker wave weather for sure so we hugged the cliff, always with an eye out for an escape route. Rip tides apparent. I miss being in the water, substituting the pool after long work days. Still healing but not the same.

Sky like a paint by number masterpiece, and the strong smell of cow dung. I kept checking my shoes but it was just the way the wind was blowing, exactly picking up the scent and spreading the news, or perhaps spreading the moos.

Diagnostically speaking, it’s been a good week. Just when the dysfunction and drama of modern medicine has me down, I remember the joy of noticing something with my eyeballs—not needing a fancy scan or a blood test—-just seeing the malady and knowing. It’s especially great when there is something that can be done to heal, to help. Pondering the way my brain works, I seem to have a knack for patterns. Reading music, reading EKGs and seeing/feeling/noticing a subtle sign on physical exam. Just don’t ask me to remember a name, a part of my brain woefully underdeveloped, or to remember all the brand names of the millions of medications now available for type 2 diabetes mellitus.

Though if you want to know my super secret memory device for this:

“Some guys are losers” =SGLT2 inhibitors (the -lozins)

“Good looking people surf”=GLP-1 agonist (the -tides)

Driftwood has been useful to humans over the ages, as a supply to build boats and other stuff. It has this lovely, twisty, water-polished surface that elevates it to almost-art. It isn’t unusual on our beaches to see driftwood forts, some elaborately designed. Driftwood is a place of refuge when surprised by a storm next to the not really all that Pacific Ocean. 

And don’t even get me started on the magnificent fact that we are alive, all entangled in the wildness of a universe that produced Bach, the surfboard, Miles the dog, Miles Davis and the warm bath after the beach. Just at this very specific right now moment, things are ok.

Well Tempered

 Johann Sebastian Bach probably wrote some of the well tempered clavier during his month in prison. He snubbed a royal who didn’t want him to go work somewhere else. 

Some of the well tempered clavier was thus written in his head in likely miserable conditions. If you’ve never tried writing a fugue, under the best conditions it’s sort of like being asked to thread a needle seven different ways while blindfolded and standing on your head. 

The well tempered clavier was written before there were pianos. Purists might play it on a harpsichord or clavichord. Glenn Gould plays it like an alien who was actually Bach on another planet.

The 48 pieces come in two book volumes, I’d say 6 eight track cassettes, 4 CDs, 8 LPs and just a blip on Itunes. Each piece has a prelude and fugue demonstrating, yes indeed, a well tempered keyboard. If you start on a C and do it in major and minor and climb up the scale by half notes till B (then back to C again), all those guys sound in tune. It’s math, it’s art, it’s engineering. It’s like that scene where the Von Trapp children sing about deer and sewing. Threading a needle.

When the world is falling apart, I usually rest in the well tempered clavier. Some call it the Old Testament of music. Like “in the beginning” there was Bach. But in the same way the well tempered circle has no beginning nor end, there was music encircling our ancestors. Maybe we sang before we grunted coarse words. 

Bach just happens to tap into my own primordial goo, which seems to be located in the liminal electrical space between my atrium and ventricle and between my motor cortex and my fingers. If you notice I’m well tempered on any given day, thank Bach. 

Prison Bach especially. The guy who threw him in prison was a monstrously rich megalomaniac-JSB actually got off easy compared to some other employees who didn’t wear the proverbial red hat for the Duke of Haters. It’s a good reminder that mean people in power is just a part of the human condition. They might win a little sometimes but in the sense that not a single soul can hold back the long arc of beauty and justice, it’s a hollow victory. A deep well tempers grief with compassionate waters. A well that welcomes all. Please notice who usually gathers at the wells of the world, to tend to the thirst of their children and their community.

Please notice the helpers.

https://youtu.be/HZ_muo3BzI8?si=FNS-CCA2f2LALsYE