In the thesis in between chapters I wrote short asides. They were not directly linked to the project yet seemed to have a tacit bearing on it. Here’s the first one.
…My father tried teaching me the keyboard but, as I’ve since discovered, sometimes parent-child relations don’t translate into teacher-student ones! I, however, used to play the keyboard with him. I would play the left while he played the right. Not because it was simpler, but because I was left-handed. I particularly liked Bach, not for his many musical properties but rather that he seemed to give equal importance to the left and to the right.
Through that experience, I became very aware of harmony and chord progression. To such a point, that, melodies were fundamentally boring to me. It was fascinating to hear how notes worked together at the same time, rather than one after another. My musical activity and listening since has, mostly, been in some sense at the back. I sang bass in the choirs, played instruments that were mostly at the back, like bass and rhythm guitar and keyboards. I avoided solos as much as possible, whether singing or instrumentally. It always seemed much more interesting, skulking around the back of the music, subtly changing everything with no one really noticing.
June 2018
Sacred Blue 