Friday, December 28, 2012

Synthetic Monsters, Liminal Entities And Scripts




Modern pianos have eighty-eight keys.

Many modern synthesizers do too.

Musicians almost always use two hands
on an instrument with eighty-eight keys.

But a musician can use only one.

Nothing stops a musician from using
only one finger to play a keyboard.

Nothing stops a musician from using
only one finger to play a keyboard
but nonetheless most musicians use more.

Maybe something does stop a musician
from playing a keyboard with one finger.


Last night I wanted to record a song
but I was in a hurry so I played
only the melody with my right hand
and I didn’t play chords with my left hand.

I used all five fingers of my right hand
but I’m not as practiced yet with two hands
as somebody who’s played keyboards for years
so I concentrated on just one hand
and recorded sixteen bars my first take
with every pitch and time value correct.

My synthesizer synthesized flute sounds
with both attack and breath variations
so the melody without a chord part
still sounded something like magic to me
even though I made up the melody
and even though I played it with one hand.

Listening to the recording I thought:

If I was listening to a real flute
I wouldn’t miss a chordal foundation
but my memory of playing the song
for some reason is about my left hand
and all those other keys I didn’t play.


Nothing stops a musician from using
only one finger to play a keyboard
but something does. Nothing can be something.

If nothing can be something I wonder
if nothing can be something like monsters
and defeating monsters is something like
making something like magic when we think
there’s something between us and the magic
when really there is nothing there at all.

I have that song I recorded last night
and I remind myself that’s a real thing.

But what if I hadn’t played it because
of something about all those other keys?


It’s hard sometimes just reaching out one hand.



























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