Piano Method for Beginners

The piano is easy. Your first step is to sit down. Obviously a well made bench is good, but a chair or a stool will do, for this once at least. You'll replace it later. Wipe the dust off the top and make another mental note to get a good rag and finish the job in an hour or two. Wear good socks for this. The sustain pedal is too cold for bare feet and too clean for shoes. Press it twice, once gently so that your foot is used to it, once a dash quicker so the piano is used to it. Hold it that second time and listen closely - hear it ring, the string's soft pulse magnified just enough so that the human ear can sense the forgotten memories that others have left there.

You now have permission to touch the keys, but only to make sure they're in tune. If some aren't, it's too late now, but remember to avoid the offending keys. Now look around. Melodies are everywhere. look under your seat, behind the couch across the room, in the painting next to you. You should keep a few with you everywhere, just in case, too. Put them in those socks you're wearing. When you find one, a good one, don't grab it. You need its permission. If it comes down for you, hold it gently between your fingertips. Slowly, gently, reverently, touch a note. Any of them. Now let that melody work for you.

It's always nervous starting out, touching just a note at a time, tapping out a subtle rhythm into a small chant. At first it might just be your right hand, softly floating over the ivory and defining its personality in a flurry of whispering movements, an infant realizing things for the first time. Now it will pull your other hand into the fray - either strongly, a power introduced that the music didn't know it had, a new force that further pushes the piece into a symphony, or, it will be more subtle, one more string of keys, at first being one with the right hand, then slowly pulling and stretching the tone into a double entity, not at peace or at war, not at tension or at comfort, but at something those terms don't understand: Harmony. Either way the music grows, and expands, and matures. It has now become fully conscious of itself, and this is where we have elements of danger. Don't let it get too big, This is not the end or even a climax. That's later, and if you peak early you stand a solid chance of losing everything.

If you manage to tone is down - which is the mark of a true pianist - then your right hand will begin to climb. Let it. It starts on the ladder of keys and deftly moves to a higher rhythm and your left hand begins to bow, perhaps in total submission, to a sense of superiority. Remind the left that it isn't worthless, but this is the right's shining solo, and jealousy is pointless. Now bring it back down again, not all at once, small , individual steps that cascade into a solid cadence once the finger join together. Add one more melody between the hands to make it bigger than it was before.

This is where the melody begins to fight you, and this is how music escalates into a war. It's a battle of fingertips and piano keys, a flurry of knuckles in black and white. The sound separates itself from your hands, doing things whether you wanted to or not, and just when things seem beyond your control, withdraw -

and the music will stop. The piano is in submission once more. Allow a few seconds for silence to reverberate through the room. Take a breath, because you're nearly there. Press that first note again, then again as though you were starting piece over again. But don't. Go the opposite direction, catching the Melody in a deep bass voice as the right sings its chorus to remember, to paint the picture of what it once was. Finally, let the essence of the song - that weary spirit that grew for you and let you tame it - let go of it. It no longer has room to grow, but will settle into your lap. Comfort it, caress it one last time, and end on a chord.

Written at Writer's at Harriman

The Grey Haired Man

The grey haired man stood, staring out the 12th story window, blinds opened to flood the room with the evening light. Massive panes of glass, across the room, made believe they were invincible, guardians against the city lights. The setting sun turned shadows from the buildings into darkened claws that would no doubt consume people, cars and streetlights, feeding them to a black monster past the horizon. The desk behind him, normally so tidy, the product of obsessive dusting, polishing, arranging, now so lonely, covered in crumpled papers stained by coffee rings and an untouched nametag. Jeremiah Kingston. He hadn’t slept in the last three days, showed in his in his bloodshot eyes and worn face. Dark stubble on his chin had begun to thicken. Three weeks- three weeks of writing and signing and calling and heaven knows everything he’d worked on. And it ended in nothing. The deal had been broken by the associate company. There had been full out war between corporations, with Jeremiah at the front lines. He told the directors that he had the upper hand, that he had an unbreakable case. But with such surety in his company comes the risk. If someone is that certain, stakes inevitably go upwards in the hectic, business defined world of Wall Street. And someone like him- at the height of his game, at the peak of his potential- he wasn’t allowed to fail. He knew there would be consequences worse than death in this gambit. The city outside was hushed, and the earth began to slowly recede from him. Up here, in the darkened New York skyline, he was alone, a failure society had thrown in the windy cloudless summits. A knock on the door behind him. A pause. The man didn’t turn to look and see who entered without invitation. It didn’t matter. The sound of a paper sliding onto his desk, then the click and knock of the door closing once more. The man had one more thought. He wondered how simple it would be to break the window’s reinforced glass.

Written at Writer's at Harriman

Word for Word

That box is still buried in my closet somewhere. I find it when I'm cleaning or rearranging things and I'll spend a few minutes pulling out all the little knick knacks and things I collected in a past life. And while it gathers dust today, the story at the bottom of that box is more valuable than almost any other earthly possession of mine. Because in that box there is a note in a handwriting only slightly neater than my own. This is the story of that note.

The exact moment we met is lost in time, but so is most of my early childhood. She had a soft round face and golden blond hair that changed styles every day. She was a fan of everything fantasy that matured into a love of anything Japanese. She had a look that could kill you and a smile that could break your heart. She lived on the left side of the street with the four annoying dogs and if you saw a black cat, it was hers.

In elementary school she always was in the back ground, and later, as we got placed in the same classes, we became really close friends. She picked up the clarinet when I found the trombone, and we were in an advanced placement class together. This was sixth grade, and we were twelve. I miss those days. Once, while we were walking down a hallway, poking and laughing and giggling, the school's gossip (though I was probably to thick to notice) asked us if we were going out. Love? I'd never thought about love before. I couldn't sleep that night. I couldn't sleep for months.

Weeks went by. I'd look at her. She'd giggle. She's look at me. I'd laugh. We kept at it. Looking back, it was probably pretty pathetic. I could only think of her. But summer was upon us, and sadly, both of us were moving. In opposite directions. Posters were being put up about the End of School dance. While it wasn't really a date dance, I wasn't in the mood to care. It's not like I was at all rational. I was only formulating ways in my already too big sixth grade brain to ask her out. For a few days before the dance I would see her and all too literally run. I wanted to write a note, but I couldn't get the words out. All of my friends thought I was radioactive, which, wasn't too far from the truth. In the most embarrassing moment of my entire life, I scratched illegible words on a notebook and threw it. And ran again.

She knew what I meant, and her reply- a short sentence and a big smiley face- is still in a box in my room.

memo to nobody right now

No, no, no, see, you're not in love with me. This sort of thing happens all the time. You're in love with Captain Hershey Bar. I mean, look at Spider man and Mary Jane. Batman and What's her Face. What's-Her-Face and That-Guy-She-Had-A-Chance with. Romeo and Juliet. DnAngel. Mix ups between heroes and their secret identities get mixed up with people's love lives happens a heckuva a lot more often then we want to think about it. I'll admit I've been slacking off on some hero duties, like that dude that got mugged in Tokyo or that cat that's stuck in Melbourne. But you've got to promise me you'll lay a little lower on the montages. Otherwise we'll get too close and I'll have to rescue you from the Bad Guy. And that doesn't always turn out well- we don't want to end up like Batman and What's her Face. Dark Knight. More like... a Dim Kight.

Faster than speeding molasses
Stronger than a frozen Twix Bar
it's Captain Hershey Bar!!!!

I made my layout with the Myspace Background Maker. Get myspace layouts, graphics, and flash toys at pYzam.

The Creator

Winds howled and lighting cracked over a barren, primordial sea. It was a harsh green water that whipped itself, ever trying to swat some annoyance just beyond its narrow reach. Methane bubble rose to the surface if to stop the tension of the water into submission, but they quickly abandoned the pool and fled into the sky. Almost merely to capitalize on the futility of the scene, a rock from the sky fell- screaming harder and burning brighter than most of what the young planet had remembered. The water was stunned for the smallest instant, then turned and ran from the foreign threat. Waves circled the calamity for miles.
On a small island, newly risen to compete with a world of water, an Entity watched. It was female. She waited until the last of the waves crested on the starving shoreline, then lifted the feet of her spotless white robe and walked slowly to the site of the fallen stone. The soles of her feet gingerly touched the surface of the water, in no way disturbing the still frantic twitches of the water. She looked down, and trained eyes saw the glow of the meteor half a mile below the surface of the water, sinking fast. She lowered to her knees, and from the folds of her garment she pulled a weightless, white glowing orb the size of an acorn. From it, she loosened a strand of milky substance that dropped below the water and found its way to the glowing rock. The waves around her paused for a holy moment as she muttered an ancient incantation only a true gift of tounges could interpret. Below her, the first pulse of life on the infant planet multiplied, and gave seed.

The Monarch

A man who was once a boy sat on a finely decorated bed clinging to thoughts of false prestige as a crowd of housands marhed against him under his window.

"It is I who weild power, true power, not a worthless, sackclothed band of rebels."

His robe, white with gold laced in intricately designed patterns, had been torn by the tailor who made it.

"I killed their leader and showed them his blood- they will surrender."

One of the protesters had brought enough small explosives to break down the thick wooden gates.

"I have divine right. How else could I be here?"

Some had brought small tanks of gasoline, and although there were enough torches, in the end only a small metal lighter was thrown on the floor.

"Don't those fools realize that they are fighting against God? Against fate? Against the will of the heavens?"

Although the building was layered in marble, enough thickly laid carpet was present to feed the blaze from room to room.

"This will only lead to their destruction. All they will truly accomplish is a mass suicide."

The mob's roars grew as they pushed back from the groaning building. Butlers and other servents were killed as they fled the fire into the dense, angry crowd.

The man began to inhale poison fumes, and as his vision began to fade, he dropped to his knees. His dying breath opened an earnest prayer.