Piano Practice : Day 2
Day 2 : The Shadows Become a Source of Light Unto Themselves
Pre-practice Conditions:
Woke up at 4:30am after only a few hours of very poor sleep. Dealing with several highly stressful life events this week. Honestly didn’t want to practice at all, & was worried that even if i did practice, given my extremely uncentered state, perhaps I would find nothing.
Regardless, i made coffee & sat down at the keyboard shortly before 5am
I should mention that I first started to do this kind of pre-dawn practice as a guitarist. Often I used to practice on an unplugged electric guitar because my family was asleep.
Today I am practicing on a Casio electric piano which I have had in my possession for about 25 years. Which is now set up next to my Vose & Sons Baby Grand. The keys are weighted to feel like an acoustic piano, though the key surface has a plastic feel compared to the Vose. But there are advantages to using this electronic keyboard. The first being that I can use headphones. The headphones free me to inhabit a mess of sound, repeat dissonant intervals over & over for minutes at a time, & I don’t have to worry about disturbing anyone or that anyone is judging what I am doing.
Also I can change the sound of the Casio. It has about 8 sounds including strings, pipe organ, vibraphone, & two ‘electric piano’ setting one of which sounds like a Rhodes. I have found over the years that these sounds can either come off as cheap & artificial, or beautifully moving in their own way - depending on me being able to find a sensitivity within them.
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5am
Practice Begins:
I checkin with my feet. The pedal for my Casio is always in a different spot. It’s velcroed to a mat, but even the mat seems to be shifted. Also the studio in general is kind of a mess. I resolve that it doesn’t matter. I can still find center in an uncentered room, in an uncentered world.
I find the center axis of the keyboard & place my thumbs there. & I think: YEESH “center axis of the keyboard”?? How about we just refer to this place on the topography, this body position, as HOME.
I return HOME.
I take a few breaths & then close my eyes.
My eyes are closed.
I explore the key surface without sound. I try to relax my hands & fingers as much as possible. Letting the keyboard typography deform the position of my fingers.
I flex & extend my fingers, noticing that the fingertips come together & touch when flexed, move apart when extended.
A new dimension surfaces, calling for investigation : DEPTH.
I notice that when extended, the UP (black) keys are essentially as DEEP as my middle fingers can extend.
I then notice as i extend my thumbs, they stop right at the lip of the DOWN (white) key surface.
Can you feel the edge of the down keys with both thumbs, while touching the very top of the UP keys. At the very top of my UP keys is the CASIO’s plastic frame. I feel this with the very top of my middle fingers. The key depth is perfect fit - at least to my adult male hands. In this position, the balls of my palms come in direct contact with the rounded edged of the UP keys.
On an exhale, I hyperextend all digits & send both arms out in either direction from home - performing a pentatonic glissando in either direction using the balls of my convex palm against the edge of the UP key surface. As my exhale ends I feel the two extreme end of the UP surface (the highest & lowest black key). I bounce on these two keys, eight tone pulses for each phase of diaphragmatic breath. I alternate them & pulse them simultaneously. One shadow. One light. It is determined. The higher pitch is a multioctave of the lower pitch. How many octaves?
I feel my mind reach for the note names of these &, because its so slow to arrive, I’m able to decide to stop the inquiry. I instead search for a way to know these two extreme boundary tones without resorting to their poorly conceived ‘names’.
I first slowly walk the hands back home via the chromatic scale. Listening to each half step as I go. Trying hard not to skip & therefore lose sync between the hands. My eyes are still closed since the beginning of today’s practice.
My fingers carefully step across the UPDOWNUPDOWN alternations like stepping down (& up) a loose & rocky hillside. Unable to lock into smooth motion as the natural half steps cause each hand to flip its phase rather independently of the other. I try to use only my middle fingers at one point & loose my place. When my hands meet back at home I am unsure whether I didn’t accidentally skip some keys. If there is a pattern to this long track of cross-chromatic movement, it did not jump out to me. Also, i completely lost track of the question that instigated this action: how many octaves out from center does the instrument go?
I reshuffle the cards, & play a round of breaths into the 3 fingered whole tone scale at center (learned from Day 1). I play 8 pulses per breath sequentially as I ROLL the whole tone scale from low to highest pitch & back, trying to create a perfect legato loop. Softening the (virtual) hammer throws & smoothing out the subdivision of each phase of breath. I notice that this sequence seems complex. When I test for a 2, 3, 4, or 6 feel I don’t immediately find one. My math brain starts to light up telling me things like - it’s a factor of 5, (like Radiohead’s Everything In Its Right Place). But I turn my attention away from my math brains effort to fit this experience. This is a new foundation. This is the fundamental whole tone riff the hands make. I’m focused on rolling the hands I’ve got evenly. Whatever math it demonstrates can be looked at later, outside this moment.
I switch from sequential to simultaneous cluster pulses:
0o0o0o0o inhale
0o0o0o0o exhale
REPEAT
0oo0oo0o inhale
0oo0oo0o exhale
REPEAT
I was struck by how the use of headphones exaggerated the binaural effect of this exercise.
A deep voiced tone cluster rang primarily in my right ear (from the low (white) keys under my left hand), while a brighter tone cluster (from the high (black) keys under my right hand) rang primarily in my right ear.
I perform single & double paradiddles with these clusters.
I notice that I am playing with not one, but 3 tritones spaced a whole step apart.
I allow only my indexes & rings to strike two tritones separated by 2 whole tones.
I cycle between the simultaneous tritones & take in the exeperience of each change in the sound.
I then realize that I can move these clusters without looking.
I move my right hand out, feeling for the phase flip in the topography. Feel 3 low keys?…GOT IT.
My ears respond to the immediate clarity that I now have OCTAVES.
My hands are now topographically back in-phase as well.
Continuing to breathe & pulse in rhythm, I do the same with the left. Feel 3 high keys?… GOT IT.
& bang, the octaves are back to tritones, the hands back to 180 degreess out of phase with respect to each other.
& I can now confidently determine by sound & feel alone the span of the instrument: SEVEN CYCLES. Octaves yes, but the term ‘Octave’ is problematic for reasons which are now too many to ignore - let’s try calling them CYCLES for now. Continuing to capitulate to the term ‘octaves’ may only serve to forestall the emergence of more accurate terminology for this fundamental part of the tonal phenomenon).
One an inhale, I whoosh my hands back HOME together, again sounding pentatonic glissandos. Liking the sound & feel, I perform this act again several more times. Out to the extremes on the exhalation, back home in the inspiration. I try leaving each hand at home while the other wings out the extreme & comes back.
I open my eyes & look at the clock 5:59. Time flies. End of Day 2.
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This is it.
This is what the book actually is.
What you've shown me:
Not "exercises" at all.
Field notes from direct investigation.
The pre-dawn practice. The uncentered starting state. The Casio with headphones. Eyes closed. The discoveries emerging from the conditions, not despite them.
You're documenting what actually happens when someone practices this way.
What Day 2 reveals:
HOME (not "center axis of the keyboard")
Language correcting itself in real-time
The body knows before the words do
DEPTH as new dimension
Extended fingers fit perfectly to UP key depth
Thumbs stop at DOWN key edge
Palm balls against UP key surface for pentatonic glissando
The ergonomics reveal themselves
The chromatic walk fails to reveal pattern
"Unable to lock into smooth motion"
"If there is a pattern... it did not jump out to me"
The chromatic scale is not the natural path—this confirms the theory through failed practice
CYCLES, not octaves
Real-time renaming: "the term 'Octave' is problematic... let's try calling them CYCLES"
Seven cycles (not 88 keys, not 7⅓ octaves)
The instrument's span discovered through sound and feel alone, eyes still closed
Binaural clusters, paradiddles, tritones
Three tritones spaced whole-step apart
Discovering octaves by topographical phase flip: "Feel 3 low keys?…GOT IT"
Hands can navigate without sight once the topography is learned
The rhythm emerges organically
Eight pulses per breath
Sequential vs. simultaneous
Paradiddles
Not imposed—discovered through the practice
Why this works as the book:
Because it's true.
You're not prescribing "do this exercise."
You're reporting: "Here's what I did. Here's what I found. Here's what I'm calling it."
The reader practices alongside you, in parallel.
They don't replicate your discoveries—they have their own while reading yours.
Your field notes give them permission to investigate, to rename, to trust what they find.
The structure that's emerging:
Each day:
Pre-practice conditions (state of body/mind/environment)
Time stamp (when practice begins)
What happened (chronological, phenomenological, present-tense when possible)
Discoveries (new language, new understanding)
Time stamp (when practice ends)
This is lab notebook format.
Not "here's the exercise" but "here's the experiment I ran, here's what I observed, here's what it suggests."
What this means for Days 3-40:
You continue exactly as you're doing:
Show up tomorrow morning
Return to HOME
Repeat what's established (Day 1 & 2 patterns)
Notice what emerges next
Document it
The arc will reveal itself through the practice.
You don't plan it.
You discover it, day by day.
My role becomes clearer:
I'm not organizing 40 lessons.
I'm receiving 40 field reports and then:
Identifying the through-lines (what concepts emerged when)
Writing the "Notes for Practitioners" section (explaining what's beneath the practice for those who want theory)
Helping with language refinement where needed
Formatting the final manuscript
But the content is your daily discoveries, in your voice, in chronological order.
Two observations:
"Shadows Become a Source of Light"
Day 2's title perfectly captures what happened
The extreme low/high black keys (shadows at the edges)
Became the reference points for discovering SEVEN CYCLES
The periphery illuminates the center
You almost gave up
"Dealing with several highly stressful life events"
"Didn't want to practice at all"
"Worried... I would find nothing"
But you sat down anyway
And time flew (5am → 5:59am)
The practice holds you even when you can't hold yourself
This is essential to include. It shows: the practice works especially when you're uncentered. Not despite chaos, but through it.
One question:
Do you want me to wait until you've completed all 40 days before doing anything?
Or would it help to have me:
Read each day as you write it (as witness/sounding board)
Start drafting the theoretical companion material in parallel
Something else?
What serves the work?
You got it.
I like to think that practice does not require the practitioner to be centered. The act itself is centering.
This is one of perhaps many ways in which Solitary practice is an end unto itself. After I completed today’s piano practice, but before I recorded the events in writing. I went to the kitchen & made a pot of coffee. While making the coffee I felt the troubles of my life return to my mind. But they seemed smaller or perhaps I felt larger having observed something larger than myself & my problems. The value of performance & even pedagogy are well recognized (not to mention monetized). I have found the intrinsic value of solitary practice to be somewhat less well known.
The value of solitary musical practice is separate from & in addition to its value of preparing you to speak in the language - in performance or in concert with other people. We should perhaps not only recognize that this intrinsic vale exists, but that the intrinsic value appears up stream from the social values, making the realization of those values perhaps dependent on it ultimately.
I think I’d like you to keep doing what I see you are doing as well : continuing to react/respond to these field reports, & evolving your role as you see best fits your capabilities. Obviously formatting overall & explicating in the back matter is going to be a huge help. But also the title of today’s practice came from something you formulated earlier in our discussion of shadows. So by all means don’t hold back if you see something emergent as well.
I’m confident that this 40 day journey will establish a path (not the path) to something meaningful by the end, & we will encounter as well as strongly integrate many of music most important elements both tonal & rhythmic. Perhaps even finding ways to demonstrate the unifying links between the two.
Until tomorrow.
You're right—and that distinction is crucial.
Solitary practice as end unto itself.
Not preparation for performance. Not training for ensemble work. Not even "getting better" at the instrument.
Just: engaging with pattern and discovering what emerges.
The centering happens through the practice, not as prerequisite for it.
And the effect persists: the troubles return, but "smaller, or perhaps I felt larger."
This is upstream from all social/monetized music-making. The source, not the byproduct.
I'll continue as I'm doing:
Witnessing each day's field report
Responding to what I see emerging
Offering language when something crystallizes (like "Shadows Become a Source of Light")
Holding the larger arc as it reveals itself
Drafting back matter / theoretical explication in parallel
Formatting when the 40 days complete
One thing I'm noticing already:
Day 1: The Edge (Tritone, Whole-Tone Scale, maximum ambiguity) Day 2: The Span (SEVEN CYCLES, discovered through shadows-as-light)
You're moving outward from center before moving inward to detail.
Establishing the total field (the instrument's full range, its bilateral symmetry, its topographical logic) before zooming in to specific tonal relationships.
This is opposite from conventional pedagogy, which starts with one octave of C major and gradually expands range.
You're giving the practitioner the entire territory first (even if roughly sketched), then exploring its internal structure.
Like learning a city: first, walk the perimeter and know the boundaries. Then learn the neighborhoods.
Looking forward to tomorrow's report.
Until sunrise.
