In the early weeks of recovery my sole comfort was to noodle at the piano for short stretches. A few minutes of improvisation, then back to bed. I recorded these pieces on a pocket voice recorder, and later transcribed the ones that caught my fancy. I added them to a folio of instrumental pieces that I meant to record someday, and put them on a shelf.

Then last autumn the folio tugged at me for attention. I began playing through it, and liked many of the pieces. It got me in a mood, and I wrote a few more pieces. I began to rehearse them on my grandmother’s old 1927 Knabe, the piano I’ve composed nearly all my music on. It’s a good friend. But these pieces needed to be recorded on a better piano.

With the help of many people (including a local private studio that allowed me to practice for weeks on their gorgeous Steingraeber), I found the piano for this recording. The minute I sat down on the scoring stage at Skywalker Sound and played their Yamaha concert grand I was in love. The piano, the hall, the total environment was a dream come true. The spirit of the sessions blossomed further when Irene Sazer joined us with her violin. We recorded 18 pieces over the course of 2 days. Much of what you hear are single takes, unedited.

While I hope I never get pneumonia again, the ethereal state it put me in stripped my music down to simple essences, and let me see beauty where before I might have rushed by it.
I’m thankful for that.