Son Can You Play Me A Memory

Just over a month ago I was remarking in this blog how subdued the atmosphere was at Pilsdon. It was the darkest of months and many were away. Yet it is remarkable how in a few short weeks the community has burst into life once more. We are bursting at the seams in the dining room, especially at lunchtimes with day visitors included; on Wednesday I had to prepare gallons of lentil and pumpkin soup to feed 34. Meals are becoming noisy affairs, with wry comments thrown out across tables and raucous laughter breaking out every so often through the general hubbub of conversation. 

It’s partly that people are back from their Christmas breaks, and partly that the community has grown in numbers with two new guests since Christmas, another re-joining after a period of absence, plus another currently on her week’s trial.  An American couple hailing from the Bruderhof community also joined us last week as volunteers. As well as the growth in numbers has perhaps come a forging of deeper friendships, which in true British bloke style involves incessant mickey-taking.  With the lighter evenings beginning to return, people generally seem to be of better spirits than a few weeks back. Thank God.

One of the ways I like to try to keep myself in vigorous mental health through the ups and downs is to play the piano. There’s something about the absolute concentration it requires, and the pleasure of playing the tune well enough to my satisfaction, or at least improving through practice. Then there’s simply the music itself that the instrument produces which feeds the soul, so they say. Depending on my state of mind I’ll either be reading music composed by Chopin, Bach, Beethoven, Satie, or other long-dead geniuses, or I’ll be producing my own improvisations of variable quality.  Either way I’ll come away feeling refreshed and ready to face the rest of the day.

I’ve found myself playing the piano much more at Pilsdon than I have in many years, despite having had my own electric one since 2005 and having lived with people who’ve owned pianos before that. (I’ll never forget one housemate, Charlie, who decided to hire a crane to winch his baby grand through the windows of our first floor flat where we lived for less than a year and a half. It wouldn’t even stay in tune, being over a century old). Perhaps it’s because with an acoustic piano you can just sit down and play it, rather than faffing around taking the cover off of the electric piano, switching it on and waiting a few seconds for it to boot up, and switching its amp on. Neither does the feel of an electric piano, in my view, match that of an acoustic: the weight and response of the keys, the differing tones as you play louder or softer.

It might be something to do with the surroundings too.  I know everyone at Pilsdon, so I know that if they want me to stop playing they’ll tell me, or simply go elsewhere. In London you never know if the neighbours in flats above, below or next door hear you and are slowly working up into a boiling rage.  Or it could be to do with the available free time. I’ve got into the habit now of heading to the piano after lunch and playing for 20 to 30 minutes, which was clearly impossible when I worked in offices given that companies generally don’t seem to consider it their duty to offer employees the use of a fully equipped music room (although subsidised gym membership seems to be a common enough perk.)

I’ve been encouraged by the responses of people here. One guy who is big into indie music told me that my playing has got him interested in listening to classical. Another resident has started to turn pages for me, as he is just about able to follow the dots from his childhood violin lessons. When I played Beethoven’s Sonata Pathetique it got someone else reminiscing how their mother used to crash through the first movement when her children had wound her up sufficiently. Sometimes people bring me sheet music to play - I’ve even agreed to play through a few of the works of Barry Manilow, just to keep the peace. It’s true to say tinkling the ivories is definitely something I will miss when I move up to my Welsh bog in April.