Monday, April 26, 2010

Yellow Dress: A Keyboard Odyssey



“The keyboard is as many sorts of places as there are activities to be undertaken with it, a rather different–looking place to the cleaning lady than to the musician who in the course of play may see past it into the music with a look that is hardly looking at all.”






... from the 1978 first edition.
I have heard David has
gone through his book and totally
re-written it. I haven’t yet read
the 2.0 version.








This girl’s yellow dress
is many sorts of places.
I’m looking past it

and hardly looking.
There are activities here
and this yellow dress

is activity.
I’m staring at the keyboard.
It is staring back.











. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .



He who fights with monsters
should look to it that he himself
does not become a monster.
And when you gaze long into an abyss
the abyss also gazes into you.


Nietzsche



Yellow Dress! Yellow Dress!


The Apocalypse Of Her Yellow Dress




I read “Ways of the Hand” in 1978. It helped
me become a better typist. And when
I started approaching the guitar seriously
it helped me become a better guitar player.

I’m sorry David has re-written this book.

The first edition is one of the most
unusual books I’ve ever read. I can’t
imagine re-typing it will either
clear it up or make it “better” than it was
because it was so clearly, as the phrase goes,
a
Thing-Unto-Itself.

I probably won’t read the new edition.

But I am re-reading the first edition.

I’m trying to get better at some things.















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