The window at the back of the Pit squeaked as I opened it, and a cold breeze meandered through. The garden on the other side was swathed in shadow, and touched by only a few licks of light from the street. Despite being right in the centre of Dunedin city, it was a remarkably peaceful little place.
A secret little garden would be, though.
I hopped onto the window sill and perched there, straining my ear for a certain pocket of sounds. The sounds were there as I expected, quietly though, like a wasp sneaking through the garden. However faint, it still sent a wave of anxiety through my body. No… nerves. They were nerves, tinged with excitement, disguised as anxiety. I slipped down into the garden, the shrubbery crunching beneath my sleek kung fu shoes, and stalked down the zig-zag pathway like a cat in the shadows. I made a brief glance up to the giant manor, hidden the middle of Dunedin city, the residence of some mysterious 'philosopher' that I'd never once seen. I wondered what he would think about my sneaking through his garden.
(Here is a picture of the manor and secret garden! The Pit was our flat nestled deep in the belly of the building on the right, and our back window opened out to this secret garden here. That is to say, my Narnia-esque Fantasy days had begun. Anyway, back to the story at hand...)
The noises grew louder as I inched closer, yet hidden behind the massive stone wall of the private garden. I could hear chattering and laughter - quite a lot of it - and I was wondering how many people had showed up. And then I slipped through the hefty gate and into the street. Dog with Two Tails was busy! It oozed liveliness, especially with that many people outside, smoking cigarettes, drinking beer, passing conversation back and forth. I rubbed my hands together, warming them up - as if I hadn’t done enough of that already - and made my way passed the people and through the door. It was loud inside, loud with the the vigorous strumming of the guitarist in the pocket, loud with entertained people, musicians and appreciators alike. Every table was full, and even the couch was taken.
It was overwhelming, and my nerves spiked. All those people, all those faces! I had been doing this for a couple of weeks now, and yet I was still just as nervous as when I first stumbled into the open mic night to perform, awkwardly and unintentionally. The guitarist was done, I realised in a heartbeat. “Joshua St Clair?” The host announced, eyes searching the room. They found me. “Ah, there he is.” I smiled and nodded, crossing the room to take my seat at the acorn-coloured piano. It was open, revealing its marvellous contraption of strings and hammers (Nick Knox, the Dog with Two Tails pianist resident, only ever played with the piano open. I think they were very close friends.) I placed my fingers across the keys, and launched into my performance like a tiger pouncing on its dinner.
It was what I had been waiting for all week!
— — —
Five weeks earlier…
I sighed, and dust on the window sill spurred.
Hanon. I practiced Hanon every day, but today it was numbing. Nonetheless, I continued the exercise, my fingers cascading along the keyboard, up and down, up and down, like pistons. Robotic. Mechanical. Without joy. It was my routine, though, and practicing the piano was part of my ‘job’, or my ‘Quest’. I wanted to get better at playing my instrument, so I practiced. Simple, yet sometimes soul-crushingly boring. After 20 minutes of Hanon - my first exercise - I proceeded with scales. Again, my fingers climbed the keyboard and scuttled back down. Climbed up again. Scuttled back down again. Why was it so boring today? To the point that I wanted to give up? It was the same mechanical practice that I did every day, to improve my playing; to get better at my instrument. And yet, after months of this, I didn’t feel like I was improving. Still, my fingers proceeded with their duty, climbing, scuttling, climbing, scut...
My frustration piqued and I abruptly smacked the keyboard. It was maddening. Why was I practicing? What was I really doing this for? Hours I was pouring into these silly exercises and getting nothing out of it but this one episode of explosive frustration. Sometimes my practice sessions were exciting and fruitful. But lately they just felt like a sink of my time and energy. My main piano project - filming/recording my piano nature videos - wasn’t much of a help either, as I was still chewing through my older pieces of music that I felt I needed to publish in order to move on. My other main piano project - busking in the streets of Dunedin to earn my necessary wage - didn't help either. I was pouring my heart into these songs, to people who were busy about their days. Some were generous, but it was extremely rare to have somebody stop and listen to my music. I couldn’t complain though, as I was earning what little income for myself that I could. But still, I could have done the same a year ago, without wasting all this time on ‘practicing’.
I got up and left the room and went to sit in Tommy’s room (the lounge) to watch them paint something on their canvas board on the wall. My agitated fingers, torn from their morning jog, began twirling with pieces of the mangled couch. “We having a SHEEP practice tonight?” I asked.
Tommy nodded, not taking their attention from the painting.
“Good. I think I need it aye.”
Tommy turned to regard me, paintbrush suspended in the air, thick with red. “What’s up?” they asked.
It felt stupid, really. “Ah it's all this piano practice I’ve been doing aye. It seems to be going nowhere, and I don’t know what to do.”
Tommy waved the paintbrush as if trying to slash the air red. “Ah don’t worry about that. We’re gonna have a sick practice tonight, get the songs sounding tight for our show at the Crown on Saturday.” They turned back to their painting. It was of a red sheep with horns, rising out of some kind of black sea… My attention turned inward, to thoughts of our coming gig. I completely forgot about that actually, and somehow it re-energised me. I loved playing gigs with SHEEP. I loved playing with SHEEP even in the practice room…
It was half a day yet until we were ascending the dusty steps of the Attic, into the darkness. Johnny - the keeper of the Attic keys - lead the way, his mass of curly blonde hair bobbing behind him like some noodle curtain, drum sticks clanking in his hand. Tommy followed, hefting the guitar case that now had a painted skeleton on both sides. I was at the back - fitting, for the bassist - my Korg R3 slung across my shoulder. The Attic hadn’t changed, except for a new coating of dust and a few wooden panels having been misplaced. The practice room was precisely as we left it too. It didn’t take long for Johnny and I to prepare our instruments and brace ourselves behind them, waiting as Tommy arranged their various pedals leads and amps. “All right. Shall we do the new one?” Tommy asked, left hand already searching the guitar neck for the first chord of the ‘new one’.
The new one… I thought, eyes and fingers questing the keys in an attempt to recall the bass line. I found it, and exchanged a nod with Johnny. The instant I remembered it - the same instant Johnny launched the song with the bass drum - excitement surged through my body, as if from some unknown reserve. I planted a finger on a key, joining the wall of noise with my grizzly bass. Tommy ripped out some guitar fuzz and flung it onto the stack. We were locked in, toiling with the noise, moulding it and tossing it between each other, bearing witness to the rampant and furious ‘new one’ that was experiencing itself for the 3rd time through our ears. It sounded wild and catchy. I could almost see the crowd in front of us, drawn and locked into the song as intensely as we were.
We practiced for an hour, maybe two, pummelling the wooden panels of the Attic with relentless practice. Tommy pushed us hard; Tommy wanted us to sound as tight as possible for the show. I didn’t mind, nor did Johnny. We went at each song three times each, treating each ‘practice’ as if it were the actual performance. In fact, it never felt like practice - it was just like playing a gig, expect without all the people. It made me think of my own piano practice. SHEEP practiced because we had a gig coming up, and we wanted to refine our songs for a ripper of a show; to achieve the highest entertainment value we were capable of; to deliver a stellar performance. That’s ultimately why we congregated in the Attic: to prepare for a performance. As my fingers bounced on the synth keys and my head swung to the beat, it would have looked to Johnny and Tommy like I was fully engaged in playing the song. But inside, I was wondering about my own piano practice and how to make it more like SHEEP’s. I needed to perform my music! I was busking, yes. But… I needed a crowd. I needed to actually perform my stuff.
“Josh!” Johnny called again from behind the drum kit. “You good to do it again from the end of the last chorus?” I blinked at him, barely even realising we had finished the song. “Yeah man, for sure!” He thwacked his sticks together, and the practice once again consumed me.
I knew what I needed to do to fix my problem. But the question was still how?
— — —
A week or so later..
“I’ll get the chocolate,” Tommy said. What a relief! I thought, wondering if I even had enough money to pay for my own basket of food. Tommy reached up and grabbed a bar of the crunchy chocolate. “Nice. Good choice,” I commented. “Dunedin burgers on me then.” We proceeded to the self-checkout, and left holding two bags of shopping each. Thankfully, I did have enough money in my wallet.
It was that biting Dunedin chill that greeted us outside. A light rain fell lazily from the night sky. The city streets sparkled with the reflected liquid-light and colour, oranges and reds and greens; the wetness was licked up by the wheels of cars as they sped by; Tommy and I crossed, assaulted by a draft of icy wind. Adjusting my jacket was awkward with the shopping hanging from my fingers. “I can’t wait to get back and practice some piano aye,” I said to Tommy. I wasn’t sure if they nodded or shivered. I had a new tune on my fingers, a really groovy one that had spawned out of a keenness to really perform on the piano. I wanted to embellish it with some tricks - one of my ideas involved literally throwing entire fists onto the keys.
It was only a couple of minutes until we returned to our corner of Moray Place. Dog with Two Tails was jiving, and it caught us in mid-step, had us staring at it from the shadows across the road. People were spilling out the door, and some folks we knew were nattering on the tables outside. Tommy and I both wondered the same thing: whether or not we go and say hello before heading back to The Pit, or perhaps avoid them entirely. I wasn’t sure about Tommy, but I wasn’t feeling particularly sociable. “Hey!” one of them called to us, waving. Our slinking in the shadows wasn’t enough, apparently. Looking for cars, we crossed, the shopping bags weighing our hands down. We merged with the bar-goers on the other side, and my attention was immediately grabbed by the music oozing through the glass walls of the cafe. A bearded man with a guitar held the attention of the people inside, and he was rocking out hard. I found myself unconsciously being drawn in through the door and into the vibe. I realised all too quickly what was going on. “Open mic night,” I said under my breath.
Somehow, the first thing my eyes fell upon wasn’t the performer - it was the scrap of paper sitting on a chair next to the door. I went up and noticed that all the spots were filled, except one. Before I knew it, the shopping bags were leaning against the legs of the chair, the pen was in my hand, and my name was being written in that slot. I watched on in horror, not entirely sure what I was doing, really. And then I stood by the door, my thoughts only just catching up with my absurdly spontaneous and utterly ridiculous action. They came in an avalanche, causing chaos in my mind - I didn’t even notice that that whole room was clapping and the bearded guitarist was now sitting down. I needed to cross my name off, ASAP. Turning back to the chair, I went to…
The paper. It was gone.
“Alright, now we have…” the curly-haired fellow at the mic said.
No… No it can’t be, I thought desperately.
“Joshua St Clair?” All the weight in the world thunked in my belly. What had I gotten myself into? I was just out to get the groceries, not to…! Awkwardly, I shuffled up to the stage. The lights were sharp, glaring at me. I had to crane my neck to reach the microphone. “Ah, I’ve got my shopping here,” I said, lifting up my shopping bags, already feeling entirely ridiculous. A room of blank faces stared back at me. I heard someone chuckle. It was a bad start. “I’m .. just gonna play a couple of tunes, uh, on the piano.” With so many people in the room, why was it so silent? Inside I was cringing, groaning, wanting nothing more than to hide in the Pit. I plonked my shopping down and sat at the acorn-coloured piano, trying me best to look composed, like I knew what I was doing. I looked at the keys. Well, I did actually know what I was doing. What was I worried about? This is what I wanted! And yet… the nerves were waging a war in my body.
My fingers spidered themselves on the E minor 7/9 chord, and the new tune I had been working on came exploding forth. Before long, I was tapping my foot to the music, my fears and concerns scurrying away like beetles from a lifted rock. The ‘new one’ was being brought to life by the tips of my fingers, and even I was shocked out how much energy it carried. The acorn piano felt great to play - the very piano I had sat next to so many times but had never played, as I scribbled my life into a journal.
It seemed pleased to meet me.
I couldn’t see the audience’s response, but I could feel it, just by how much fun I was having. They were as entertained as I was! I could hardly believe it. All this time, I had been making slaves of my fingers, demanding daily practice, demanding speed and alacrity, but missing the point entirely. All this time, I had been anxiously wondering why nobody was enjoying the music I was sharing online. The acorn-piano and the means to perform with it were under my nose all of this time.
My performance days had begun.
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