AN EMERGENCY

If you've been following this blog, you know I've been working on a challenging left hand trill in Bach's Two Part Invention #7.  I practice it a little bit every day. I'm living with it, making it part of my life, part of my body.

This morning I realized that, at some point, I slipped past a threshold with it.  It no longer feels like an emergency when I play it.  It no longer saps every particle of my awareness just to be able to get through it physically.  I'm relaxing into it more and more as it becomes a routine that's solidly in my physiology.  I'm able to turn the passage it into music now, maybe shape the little melody going on in the right hand, or grow the trill louder or softer.

It makes me think of a lot of the difficult passages in things I've played over the years.  Many have felt like an emergency to me.  They take so much attention to play that I don't have any awareness left over to turn them into music.

The only answer, the always answer:  more practice.