Badsleeper Life

Speaking of obsession. I am obsessed with the piano. I spent hours tonight playing an extremely simplistic arrangement of Sir Edward Elgar’s ‘Pomp and Circumstance’. Over and over and over.

There are schools of thought which attest that progress is made by pushing towards the edge of what is possible. By pushing oneself to the absolute limit. Dancing on a razor’s edge and going for broke. There is a certain reward to be reaped from this mode of pursuit.

But there is another very rich and fruitful pursuit. The act of taking the simplest thing possible and attempting to play it to perfection. If you think you’ve reached perfection, asking oneself, “Am I missing something? Are there levels of ‘perfect’ far beyond what I can currently understand?” Scrutinizing every detail. Trying to uncover the shrouded and clandestine depths that may exist in what most see as the most shallow puddle.

I’ve always been attracted to this concept. Doing things that appear simple but have tremendous depth. I always loved picking simple characters in Tekken and carrying out simple gameplans for instance. Poke, block, punish. I would try to conceive of the game in a simple way and when I did, endless challenges and fun arose. I am interested in similar ideas in music.

I learned so much tonight playing this little children’s piece. Trying to play the repetitive left hand chords with a perfect, consistent balance. Trying to tend to every phrase so that not a single note juts out or breaks the flowing melodic line. I never succeeded. I was never perfect. But I found a labyrinth in a shoebox.

“The Universe is a labyrinth made of labyrinths. Each leads to another.”
― Stanisław Lem, Fiasco