Once the dust clears...

Welcome!

It's a word I use frequently--it appears on the banner of all 99 of Pianonoise's web pages, and I use it here to welcome you back for another "season"--that busy period from October through June in which I attempt not only to live like an artist--perform, compose, study, and learn--but to hold down several musical jobs and be part of a functioning household--all while writing blogs three times a week, and updating the accompanying website every Tuesday as well.

These blogs are often about what I've learned or are learning as I continue my artistic existence. Loosely speaking, on Mondays I write about a piece of music and the act of listening to it so that it really comes alive for the listener--and my audience then is everyone who is at all interested; no musical skills or background required. You are my webwide concert audience, and whatever I am working on--usually for the piano, but sometimes for the organ--I will share with you, most likely before I play it for a live audience someplace.

On Wednesday, I am generally concerned with fellow musicians, and wish to help them refine their skills by offering whatever advice I am able to give. Consider this a very informal teaching studio on Wednesdays.

Fridays revolve around music for the church, and may include more music for listening, or discuss some general aspect of church music making, or share something that happened in church last week. It is a bit of a grab bag.

Generally, these blogs are meant to enrich your experience rather than simply sharing mine, although it is inevitable that whatever I am working on at the time will furnish most of the fodder for what I write about.

This year the articles will also be more likely to take on a diary-like aspect, simply because Kristen and I are in transition, and will probably be moving to another state in the summer, which will mean starting over both in terms of jobs and of associates. She is finishing Medical School and looking for a residency program, a very complicated process that has already engaged us for the better part of a year and won't be completed until March. Although that has nothing to do with the subject matter of this blog--piano and organ music, the concert hall, the teaching studio, and the church--you may hear about it from time to time. Some of my fellow towners may want the occasional update, even though most have chosen to be in denial about the whole thing!

Three years ago this week this blog began, and it has become standard practice to take the summer off and begin blogging again in (mid) October. But already it feels like trying to hop on a moving train. I am in the midst of preparations for an organ recital that you will no doubt hear more about, and there are a number of things that have gone on at my church lately that might be of interest to fellow organists and non-organists alike. But then, Henry David Thoreau wrote "My life has been the poem I would have writ, but I could not both live and utter it."  Mr. Thoreau did manage to write quite a bit, however, besides really short poems. If even he didn't feel he could keep up, or adequately share the experience, what chance do I have?

Probably you wouldn't want to read it all anyway. You are busy living your own lives and trying valiantly to write your own poems. But I thank you for stopping by and reading, whenever you can, whatever of my broad subject matter interests you. I'll be here three days a week from now through June. Let's enjoy each other's company.