In message <Pine.SUN.3.91.960608124703.14538A-100000@netcom10> Nelson Hinman
writes:
> Why play, indeed? With the piano, especialy early on, it seemed to be
> something that others wanted me to do. Yet, I was seldom resentful of
> practicing while other children galoped about the neighborhood.
>
> The guitar was an instrument of my own choosing, a wooden box craddled in
> the lap with fingers sore from holding down steel strings on an action
> that was not set correctly, but I thought that's how it was supposed to
> be. Parents resentful of my not playing the piano so much as the guitar,
> and the music I played that awful folk music usually said with almost a
> sneer on their faces. In continued on 1 3 5 10 15 years, and the
> expressions changed to surprise when I began working playing music. It
> wasn't for a living, but for joy and sometimes for pay.
>
> then came electronics synthesizers with countless patch cords and dials
> and like some conjurer out would come sounds of birds and animals, and
> unspeakable things that bumped in the night, and that was indeedd done
> for money, cross my palm with silver, and more and more hardware with,,
> in more recent years computer power. And reading books full of arcane
> mathevatics and developing my own hardware that hoots and clacks and
> squaks and sounds sometimes like a great pipe organ and others like a
> boiler factory gone mad, but the music industry moves along faster than I
> can move, and now people who can sight read and so on displace me.
>
> Then, one day, came the gift of an aoyama harp. And now I have a sense
> of coming to rest, of finding a patient friend to talk with me and share
> secrets no words will express.
>
> playing music is part and parcel of what and who I am. The current
> working environment is there to promote my musical interests, and out
> before me somewhere awaits a purchased harp(s) to fullfill and draw into
> the here and now some of those sounds living inside. I have to play I
> follow an old tradition, and once a part of it one e neither desires to
> quit or can really. I've tried, for at one time the demands of the
> computer biz were such that there was little time for playing music. My
> wife complained of having to live with some sort of sour old goat who
> found little joy in much of anything.
>
> then came a conference and a boring session on the finer points of file
> access method design, and a trio playing music on the other side of the
> wall. Playing badly terribly, and out of tune, and yet the call the call
> to play again the little small voice inside reminding me of an obligation
> to share with those who annot play or do not bvelieve they can play
> music. After that time a return to acoustic instruments, and this rare
> gift given me by old man who told of his travels and a desire to own a
> harp, and having done so and played for a time passed the instrument on
> to me
>
> It stands here on its three stubby legs leaning toward me asking that it
> be held and its strings touched. I cannot resist.
>
> Nelson
Maxemilian Productions voice 612 227 6041 fax 612 227 0320
PO Box 40275 Email: schlomka@well.com
St Paul MN 55104 USA Order Line 800 985 8040
"Twas a little fairy harpist playing on the subtle air."
-Shakespeare
The Merchant of Venice