The old family piano. It comes to me now after the passing of my mother on March 16th 2020. She was diagnosed with ASL 6 months earlier. On that night she is in her bed, unable to speak, struggling for air. A ventilator, pressing oxygen to her failing lungs, hisses and puffs. Its soft timely heaving, devastatingly peaceful. The Piano is right next to her and I want to play something for her but somehow I just can’t.
Later I wish I had given myself to that.
This 1913 piano is also showing its age. It has a cracked frame but still holds it’s tuning. In the months after her passing the idea of sampling this piano begins to obsess in me. I want to remember its sound long after it is gone. It is only later that I realise, this is my catharsis.