Slow and Steady

  I sat down to play some new songs this evening and was pleasantly surprised to be able to work my way through them without a lot of long stretches of staring that alternated between the keyboard and the sheet music. Usually I feel like I'm trying to crack the Rosetta Stone when I look at a new piece of music and it takes such a ridiculous amount of time for me to get through a very short amount of music.

"Eleanor Rigby" by the Beatles.

  I'm used to fighting tooth and nail to make progress on every single beat. First I would work my way through the notes, then I'd notice the song had dynamics, then I'd notice some accidentals that I had missed, then oops, this alternates between mezzo forte and pianissimo several times, and at last notice I'd completely overlooked the repeats. It was nice to flow through a song for once and feel somewhat competent at the whole process, being able to take in a majority of the nuances the first try and actually play them where it almost sounded like the actual song on the first go-round. It made me think of those 3d puzzles you'd stare at as a kid, when you'd say, "I think I might possibly maybe see the spaceship," before getting to that point where you could see it instantly, every time, in its entirety.

Hint: not a spaceship.

 Progress isn't something you tend to notice in the present when learning something new. Usually it's only after looking back at where you've come from that you notice the improvements, which I suppose is pretty much what I did today, but it felt more "in the moment", if you will, than I've experienced before.  It made me think that everything was really coming together.

There's one thing I want to say, so I'll be brave.

You were what I wanted, I gave what I gave.