Re-entry and Beyond An Art of Becoming: Metamorphosis

Granados

Anchoring after an Alexander Technique class

Yesterday in my AT class, I had a very important realization, so I wrote this as an anchoring.

My biggest wish right now is to fix this:

“Ahhh… it keeps rushing forward and I cannot stop.”

This always happens when the music builds and reaches its climax, especially in Los requiebros (The Compliments), the first piece of Goyescas.

Those are usually the most beautiful moments, the places that should really be heard.

There is so much packed into them that I do not want to miss anything.

But the momentum of the music pushes me forward and

collapse.

I want to fix this.

But not by holding myself back.

I want my mind and body to run together at the very edge,

without losing their unity.

The “pink elephant” metaphor I heard many times in the classes was something I did not quite understand.

Whenever I heard it, I could only imagine a real elephant painted pink.

And my mind would immediately go:

“No, pink is not right.

It is not cute.”

A herd of pink elephants on the African savanna?

That feels wrong, does it not.

I love elephants, so pink still feels off.

But then I realized what this was really about.

It was about how to place inhibition on my constantly judging mind

and bring it back into the story.

When that dropped in, the wild pink elephant in my head turned intoa small,

cute pink elephant illustration I had once saved somewhere

because I liked it so much.

It was so cute that it felt like

“You can stay here.”

So instead of trying to chase my thoughts away,

I am going to try letting those parts of me be there, gently.

Living together works better that way.

Telling those parts of me to go away is painful for both sides.

I think I can do this.

Then a piece of advice I received in class took this even further.

“How deeply can I let my heart tremble with each single note?”

Ah, that is it.

When I rush ahead and go “ahhh”,

my heart is trembling too but with fear.

That is not the same thing.

Letting my heart tremble with each note is much harder.

But now that I can see the direction,

I feel like I can approach Granados again.

And the surprises continued.

Working on a composer for the first time is always difficult.

The main reason is that I do not yet know who they are.

Not their biography.

Their music.

Usually, after spending time with the pieces, I start to feel it.

But with Granados, that never came together.

Like in human relationships, little things would appear,

but they never connected.

Who is this person.

What am I missing.

I kept asking while playing, but nothing answered back.

Since my AT class, what kept spinning in my head were

a small pink elephant illustration

and letting my heart tremble with each note.

So I told myself to stop hesitating and start learning the second piece of Goyescas,

Coloquio en la reja (Conversation at the Reja).

I watched again a Spanish pianist explaining Goyescas.

He played little fragments while talking.

My heart kept trembling.

It was just so beautiful.

Then suddenly I noticed

even in a small fragment, his heart was trembling with each note.

And so was Granados when he wrote it.

It was like a thunderbolt.

All the performances I had heard came back to me.

The difference was only one thing

whether the performer’s heart trembles with each note or not.

I had been told endlessly how important each note is.

I tried hard to listen to each one.

When I returned to the piano after a long absence,

almost ten years away from the instrument and nearly two decades away from the stage,

I was struggling to express myself,

so I was desperately pushing outward.

That phase is over.

Now the music is finally flowing back into me.

How do I feel this sound.

How does my heart resonate with it.

That door has opened.

Now I understand.

I could hear how deeply Chopin and Liszt were woven into Granados’s writing itself.

I learned he loved Schumann too.

When I heard he was a great improviser,

those ornate, overflowing decorations suddenly made sense.

His harmony stretches.

The pedal is incredibly difficult.

Sometimes mixing is right, sometimes it destroys everything.

The opening of Los requiebros especially is tricky.

Without pedal it is dry.

With pedal it collapses.

What also struck me was how deeply romantic this music is.

Like how men fall in love.

Granados could paint emotions, landscapes, and scenes in sound.

All the elements were there,

yet I kept asking the wrong question.

“So what did you want to do.”

That was the wrong kind of question.

Albéniz once said

“He was born to feel all music.”

He saw a beautiful woman enter a square and immediately

translated her into sound on the piano.

Of course.

His heart was trembling with every note.

And that is the fork in the road.

Now I will place my own intensity into that depth.

What will happen.