7:19 pm: I had eleven minutes to practice the Yale Memorial Carillon. So I pulled on my right MTB glove and sat down without sheet music. The tritones of "Motorhythmia" began to pummel the campus as my fists pummeled the keyboard, probably audible from distant places where nobody had heard the carillon before (particularly since nobody can pull a fortissimo here).
By the penultimate page, the g1 (above middle c) felt funny. I tapped it a bit harder.
SNAP!
Something metallic flew out of the back of the keyboard and clattered on the cement floor. Ignoring the disaster, I kept playing and then trudged through an unfortunate rendition of "Image No. 2," which is filled with g1's.
7:30 pm: I had to stop for the Festival of Arts & Ideas. Getting down on my hands and knees, I sought the source of the bent metal rod in my hand through the cobwebs beneath the keyboard. The rod proved to be an (archaic) pedal return spring. Perhaps it had come loose?
No. It had snapped cleanly in two.
Should I feel badass for breaking a real carillon during a performance for the first time? Or should I just feel bad for the damage? (No, because the repair dudes were fortuitously scheduled to come on Wednesday, and anyway the pedal would have broken during someone's concert at the Congress instead). Should I worry that my playing has become too virtuosically European?
Nah, I kinda like the idea.
1 comment:
nice blog...
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