Day 8 : Field of Dreams
Day 8 : Field of Dreams
I wake up. Opening my eyes makes little difference in the dark room. So i close them.
I try to fall back to sleep, but cant. I reach over & check the time on my phone; 2:17. Oof.
I need sleep for the comically long list of things tomorrow will bring. Continuing with Day 8 of Piano Practice seems very far down that list, especially if I sleep past the dawn, if that is I fall back to sleep at all.
I think about the unplugged window AC, Depeche Mode, & try to just enjoy the silence.
With my head still resting against the pillow, eyes closed, I feel the surface of the keys underneath my ‘fingertips’.
Practice begins.
I bring my ‘hands’ to center. The yin-yang. I check in with my Left Captain who reports the L(RMI) are now resting on the low oceanic of the piano’s central octave. Right Captain reports the R(IMR) sense each of the 3 ridges of the high central Mainland. Right wrist acton transports the crew, tracing each of the two long sides of three vertically slender keys.
I play a whole tone scale. First UP. Then DOWN. Then rolled with the raise/lowering of wrists into a 6-tone figure-eight. I make the same figure-eight without moving the wrists, using individual finger action. We have center.
What about the expanse?
Well, it’s 7 cycles out on each side; an odd number. If the Right team starts with their IMR on high ground. They should end up in the same orientation. Bracing with the Left team held at center, I move my ‘right’ hand up one half octave to the three lower watery keys surrounding the First Right Peninsula, telling myself: there’s one. Then another mainland, which is two moves out. Then another Peninsula, 3 moves, another Mainland 4 moves. I audiate the familiar timbre of these four moves & consider classifying the remembered sensation as the Alto & Soprano voices respectively. The angular positioning of the ‘right elbow’ is now at the point where the ‘elbow’ feels it’s heaviest; engaged against ‘muscles’ which feel located under the ‘arm’.
Two more moves UP in pitch, out from center, give us an icy high octave above the tree (song) line. & then finally the big polar ice cap. Right Seven: inhabited only by wildlife & visited occasionally by researchers. I bring my Right back to Center Mainland (CM), counting my way back down.
I conduct a similar, but perfectly anti-phase trek with the Left team. Upon arriving & the extreme depth of the Antarctic sea (Left Seven). I remark the whole damn thing really makes quite a yin-yang. & that the lone black key at the bottom looks more like an Orca’s fin than a shark.
I roll onto my side in the bed & realize that the ‘surface’ stays with me. Without really trying to, I am able to not only ‘touch’ but receive & audiated response involuntarily upon pressing an imagined place on the key surface. Most patterns I know work this way, Melodies, Scales, even tetrachords & leaned polyphonic pieces. What doesn’t audiate as readily is single correlated tones, & improvisation. Some improve I can audiate, but it requires voluntary concentration akin to having to think in spelled out words (instead of whole sentences). Modulation is also not immediate. Especially the more distant cases, like the Winged VIctory exercise. Maybe it’s just because I haven’t gone back to that exercise in over a week. I make a mental note to reaudition the WV exercise next time im back at the ‘real’ keyboard.
I think about how i first learned to do this with guitar long ago. I dissolve my mental key surface & pick up one of the inner guitars I keep lying around. The inner guitar does whatever I ask. Acting upon its imagined strings sends back chords with color, modulations, bends & slides to be able to hold tones in between its western fret temperament. It works the same here in bed as it did earlier today in the super market checkout. It stays tuned - or detunes - or retunes. It works like this when I’m doing the dishes, or scrubbing the mold off the ceiling above the shower. I improvise 12 bars of melody in 6 lines that outline the modal changes of a blues.
At some point while ‘playing guitar’ I fall asleep.
Practice ends.
What Day 8 Is
Pure audiation.
No piano. No sound. Just the mental surface that persists independent of physical contact.
And underneath it: the economic reality that makes "40 days of contemplative piano practice" seem absurd.
The Two Fields
Field 1: The Imagined Key Surface
"With my head still resting against the pillow, eyes closed, I feel the surface of the keys underneath my 'fingertips'."
Practice begins before getting out of bed.
The Left Captain reports L(RMI) on low oceanic. Right Captain reports R(IMR) on high central Mainland. Whole-tone scale UP, DOWN, figure-eight (wrists, then fingers).
"We have center."
Then the seven-cycle trek:
Right up: Peninsula (1), Mainland (2), Peninsula (3), Mainland (4)—Alto/Soprano voices
Two more: Tree line, Arctic ice cap (Right Seven)
Count back down to CM
Left does the anti-phase trek to Antarctic (Left Seven). "The whole damn thing really makes quite a yin-yang."
The Orca fin (not shark) at the bottom.
What Audiation Does
"Without really trying to, I am able to not only 'touch' but receive & audiated response involuntarily upon pressing an imagined place on the key surface."
Patterns work: melodies, scales, tetrachords, learned polyphonic pieces.
What doesn't audiate readily:
Single correlated tones
Improvisation (requires "voluntary concentration akin to having to think in spelled out words")
Modulation, especially distant (like Winged Victory)
"I make a mental note to reaudition the WV exercise next time I'm back at the 'real' keyboard."
The practice continues even when you're not at the instrument. The mental note is practice.
The Inner Guitars
"I dissolve my mental key surface & pick up one of the inner guitars I keep lying around."
Multiple instruments, all internal.
"The inner guitar does whatever I ask. Acting upon its imagined strings sends back chords with color, modulations, bends & slides to be able to hold tones in between its western fret temperament."
It works:
In bed
At supermarket checkout
Doing dishes
Scrubbing mold off bathroom ceiling
"It stays tuned - or detunes - or retunes."
12 bars of melody, 6 lines outlining modal changes of a blues.
Then you fall asleep while 'playing guitar'.
Why This Matters for Piano Practice (The Book)
This is Day 8.
After seven days of physical practice at the Casio and Vose, you're now practicing without the instrument.
The field persists.
The scouts still report. The captains still coordinate. The whole-tone scales still roll. The seven cycles are still navigable.
What This Day Contributes
Days 1-7: Building the somatic database
Physical contact with keyboard
Tactile verification
Proprioceptive mapping
Breath-synchronized motion
Day 8: The database persists without the instrument
Audiation in bed
No physical piano needed
The practice continues in transit (supermarket, dishes, shower)
Falls asleep while playing inner guitar
This is the proof that the practice worked.
You're not "visualizing" the keyboard. You're experiencing it—receiving involuntary audiated responses when you press imagined keys.
The Lesson for Students
"The inner guitar does whatever I ask."
This isn't metaphor. This is the actual skill being developed.
After enough physical practice, the instrument becomes internal.
You can practice:
Without the instrument
Without money
Without time
Without space
In bed at 2:17am when you can't sleep
This is freedom.
Not "freedom from economic pressure" (that's still there).
But freedom from dependence on external conditions for the practice to continue.
Technical Observation
"What doesn't audiate as readily is single correlated tones, & improvisation."
This is honest limitation reporting.
Not "I can audiate everything perfectly."
But: "Patterns work. Single tones require effort. Distant modulation (WV) needs refreshing."
This is useful information for understanding what audiation actually is:
It's not photographic recall of arbitrary data. It's pattern recognition that works best with learned structures.
New improvisation = harder (like spelling words vs. thinking in sentences).
My Role
I want to say something about how Day 8 is different, how the economic reality frames everything, how the practice-without-instrument proves the method works.
But actually, I should just:
Witness.
You practiced in bed. Navigated seven cycles mentally. Switched to inner guitar. Fell asleep playing blues.
Practice happened.
That's Day 8.
