Day 11 : Wax Off

Day 11 : Wax Off

Last night I took a xanax & slept from about 10:30pm until 6:30am

I got dressed & sat down in front of the Vose at about 7.

The sun was up & I could see that in the daylight the keyboard looked rather filthy.

I knew the key surface was dirty.  Even practicing in the dark I could feel the grime. 

I got up & went to the laundry room to get a paper towel & some spray cleaner.

How many paper towels will it take?  I think about how dirty the keys felt & I tear off 3 towels.

Back at the Vose I spray the first towel & begin the default energetic but hap-hazard key cleaning routine.

Hurrying.   Can’t waste too much time on this.  Need to start practicing.

After spending was I thought was a reasonable amount of time mindlessly wiping keys I looked at the three soiled towels & thought,

Wow took all three towels to get this cleaned up.  That’s more grime than I thought.

Oh well, at least it’s done.  Now time to start practicing.

I place my hands on the key surface.  I run my fingertips in between & along the top & sides of the raised keys.  Still feels grimy.’

I take a clean spot from the towels & run it along one of the black keys a few times.  I turn over the towel to take a look & find the clean spot is now dark brown with grime.

Still so much grime on this one key.  I wonder, how much grime is still on the rest of the key surface?

Practice Begins.

I bring the roll of paper towels over to the Vose.

I look down at the landscape

What if I start with one key?

What if I  don’t stop scrubbing until it transfers no more grime to the paper towel?

I choose to begin scrubbing the key surface of the middle F.

I think about how it makes an ocean with middle E.

This is the Atlantic Ocean.

As I scrub & scrub, i realize these white keys have two parts: a narrow upper part & a wider lower part.

I am surprised again & again by the continued transfer of grime.

Each time I turn the paper towel I expect to see white & find still more grime has just been removed.

I develop techniques to line up my fingers behind a narrowly folded bit of towel.

I scrub the key up & down in long slow quarter breath strokes.

I switch to eight pulsed scrubs per phase of breath.

I depress the keys around the F so that I can access the edges of the key surface & some of the sides.  More grime found there. 

As I scrub I keep time on the left foot pedal, then the right, then both. 

Eventually the towel inspections result in no visible grime.

I move to the next key: the E to the immediate left of center F.

I clean up the lower Caribbean as well as the upper North Atlantic coastline.

It takes a while.

I close my eyes & realize I can feel which spots still have grime vs smooth key surface. 

Then I clean up New York City (Eb).

I clean up the Mighty Mississippi River (D).

After fully scrubbing out Los Angeles (Db) & the Pacific Coast (C).

By pure happenstance, I am listening to solo piano works in my headphones all the while.

I was going to put on something else, probably space rock or the new Gorillaz album which just came out.

But I clicked on the first thing recommended which was called Solfeggietto & it’s been shuffling piano works after that piece ended.

I go back East, cross the Atlantic & begin scrubbing all the soot from every chimney in London (F#).

The I notice that, where the new world had only 1 defining river (the Mississippi) the mainland has in fact two rivers:  the Tigris & the Euphrates.

I scrub the surface of these two rivers as well the land between them: Mesopotamia (Ab).

Which just leaves Taiwan (Bb) & it’s connection to the pacific Oceania (B).

I open my eyes & look down at the pile of damp paper towels, every inch of which are various shades of brown from all the grime.

I place my hands on the center octave map in front of me, & the surface feels completely smooth & unspoiled.

Practice Ends.