This has been a rotten year for practicing--a combination of farm work, family stuff, stiff hands and other excuses. When I am in good shape, I try to keep three or four pieces in practice. There has to be some Bach, a Classical piece (Mozart/Haydn/Beethoven/Schubert and their ilk), something from the Romantic repertoire (Mendelssohn through Rachmaninov), and one or two other things, maybe something by Shostakovich or Byrd or whatever. As my time (and hands) have withered, it's gotten pared back to just Bach, and nothing big, maybe an Invention or a number from the WTC. Right now, I am working, piece by piece, through a French Suite, but a few pages of music that have taken me months to learn. I am just starting the Gigue.
I could not survive this age without Bach.
The news, day in and day out, is awful. Horrible. The night of the election, I could not sleep--the demons of the future were gibbering in my head, warning me of all the terrible things that were to come. Well, those demons were understating the case, and every day the news fills my head with excrement. It is getting to be that one of the only things that can silence those demons is playing Bach. I am chipping away at it, and by focusing very hard on moving my fingers in the way my brain wants them to, I can buy myself--or maybe steal--a half hour a day of peace, in which my neighbors and my government are not trying to poison the wells from which we all drink. Bach is still the pure spring.
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