PREFACE

 

The piano began as the antidote to wasted years at university, and a bridge to connect with my father.

 

But it became a pathway of humility and detachment, a spiritual thing. It led my life to Manchester, and fresh starts. It could catalyse and open doors.

 

It was a roller coaster; insurmountable, whilst a lens to mind and body mechanisms, and the artistry of the neural maze.

 

But ultimately it ran its course…

 

21/6/26

CONTENTS

 

        Part one

 

         Prelude                                                  

         Manchester university                          

         VG Data systems                                   

         Debbie                                                    

         Clare -                                                    

         Buddha would only “play piano”           

 

         Part two

 

         Slave to music                                        

         Diploma attempts                                  

         Letting go                                               

         Settling down                                         

 

         Part three

 

         Freedom                                                 

 
* * * 

Prelude

 

Life should have started,

but cannabis and alcohol

shrouded my ticket.

 

A third from York didn’t help:

three years acting the goat

for friendship

was a backdoor to leftovers;

others swore I chose it.

 

An adult-child, I’d say yes for no

in “grown-up” pantomime,

Forrest Gump’s feather in a gale.

 

I soon went home - not to Catholicism

but uni: the haven of escapists.

Good odds balanced poor pay.

 

With no career mentality

and avoiding any one pub too much,

piano clicked. Dad

had introduced me to Chopin:

Scherzos and Ballades.

 

I’d climb Mount Parnassus.

A piano was delivered.

 

Manchester university

 

Steve introduced himself

like a man twice your age can.

 

It was lunch:

Guinness time in the Ducie,

making manageable chunks.

 

I was taciturn and conscious of it.

That guilt spoke. Steve

told me he left his family for a man.

 

He’d say ‘bueno Chopin’ in local tone

and encouraged my playing.

I was obsessed. He knew it.

 

One night drinking,

I met Antonio.

He French kissed me in the street.

I allowed it for a second too long,

never meeting again.

 

Steve said Antonio wasn’t gay,

he was getting by.

 

I lived for Steve and Chopin,

but mainly the Pole.

 

After one year in my computer “cell”,

I ignored Steve’s pay cheque,

took a first job,

and life’s dissonance grew.

​​

 VG Data Systems

 

Life’s a canon.

You follow yourself around.

Problems moved. So did I.

 

I had Ravel’s Bolero mind.

The voices I took as real:

“he’s a yes man”,

“he’ll never live it down”,

“he’s ruined his career” …

 

At lunch I drove home,

A few minutes of music through fields,

to make up lost years at the keys.

 

I was a company scherzo,

mocked for the love that saved me.

​​

 Debbie

 

My mind had no key.

Anti-silence

collapsed everything

into one dull note.

 

After private care,

the NHS caught me drifting

through medicated

jobless days.

 

I met Debbie there,

a pianist looping

del segno al coda.

 

With her changing moods,

she seemed younger than her years,

always a beat

ahead of herself.

 

We were all trying

to catch the years we’d lost,

living off-rhythm,

arriving at our postludes.

 

Clare -

 

came into my life

by surprise.

 

The litany:

 

they met on the MSc;

sat together in assembly language;

both bought pianos from Dales;

both knew Winwick hospital;

both lonely souls,

 

but fifteen years apart —

counterpoint staggered

yet somehow in tune.

 

Age gave the upper hand;

psychological depth,

a Masquerade.

Blinded again by Chopin —

I mistook

her college-level filigrees

for wholesomeness,

but music wasn’t enough.

​​

For three years I talked;

fifteen, the scores split.

I couldn’t abandon her

the way my mum did.

 

She died.

​​

 Buddha would only “play piano”

 

If life had been a canon,

by grade 8 the instrument had made me —

an identity Clare helped me reach

through prelude, fugue,

sonata and romance.

 

I juggled the titles

piano player and pianist.

One was literal,

the other a badge I wore early.

 

I hadn’t yet found an “I am”,

so I owned the label.

But Buddha would only

“play piano.”

​

 Slave to music

 

Practise was daily

to avoid anxiety,

like an anxiolytic.

 

I never knew the limit,

only the lateness.

 

Scriabin’s Etude in Sevenths

inflamed a tendon.

I stopped for weeks,

unfocused and low.

 

Even away from it,

my timing was off.

​

 Diploma attempts

 

These were the summit

for an amateur,

post-nominals.

A badge for life:

associateships,

licentiates,

fellowships.

 

But piano sustained

one rich chord.

Grade 8 was a Ben Nevis;

beyond it, the climb

was pride alone.

 

I tried

to impress my distant father,

whose praise thinned

at grade 5.

 

Piano became an engine of feeling —

a reward loop.

 

So art grew into ego

as Liszt and Rachmaninov

were craved.

​​

 Letting go

 

You forget,

unlike the proverbial bike.

Harmonies transgress.

Melodies meander and clash

as pathways blur

and electrics fail,

 

chaining you to the piano leg.

Are you to play forever,

or find a grander identity within,

or moderate the drive?

 

Thousands of hours

don’t shelve easily.

For some it’s impossible.

 

Self-love — the I am —

is key to the obsession

we project onto piano.

 

I am a pianist.

I am a piano player.

I am musical.

I am.

​​

 Settling down

 

Clare called it grade 8

maintenance, but even 6.

 

It’s Henry Mancini,

Michel Legrand,

Johnny Mandel,

Lloyd Webber.

 

It’s lifting hairs with them,

expressing each note

as if it were a song. It’s one we sing

within our heads,

our hands already free.

 

It’s love

expressed when it feels right,

not by habit.

 

It’s love.

 

Freedom

 

It’s akin to smoking:

“cigarette”,

“cigarette”,

“piano”,

“piano”.

 

For me, the fear of emptiness

was the end of practise,

the end of identity.

 

I had to obsess.

 

When the voice has gone,

So too has the obsession:

“cigarette”,

“cigarette”,

“piano”,

“piano”.

 

The same obsession saved my life;

in different lives,

with Steve, Debbie, Clare,

each one in a life without me.

* * *