Dissonance

I took piano lessons for three years in college. Once credit hour each semester brought me great joy and a reason to retreat to the rooms filled with baby grand pianos in Ewell Hall. During this time I fell in love with the compositions and finger plays of Bela Bartok (a Hungarian composer known for folk music).

His music had this wonderful way of weaving sound that went together with surprising notes that didn't seem like they fit. The finger plays exemplified dissonance. The sounds were creepy but beautiful and always interesting.

Between these collegiate lessons and childhood piano lessons I never mastered the piano. Most likely because I never really managed to master reading music. I figured out that I knew enough to play a little bit, the rest I figured out the patterns, copied them, and applied them. I knew that the note C was a certain place and if the next note was a line above it then it was 2 keys up on the keyboard, not that it was an E. (Ummm, and I never practiced enough.)

So back to Bartok. I loved him because none of the the pieces sounded like they were supposed to sound. My ear liked the sound of this, but it also gave me a greater allowance to miss notes and mix up notes without compromising the piece. I could screw up and the mistakes weren't as obvious (though I'm sure he would differ on that point).

The dissonance and the room for error appealed to me. Lately though in my own life I am feeling more and more of this dissonance between the life I want to lead and the life I currently lead. My journal pages continue to fill with ideas about what is important to me individually and as part of a marriage. Each night Mario and I spend time talking about what matters to us, what wants are changing, and where we think we are going.

Figuring out what we want is just part of the puzzle. Implementing those plans may take a bit more time. Meanwhile, we are both considering changes to decrease the dissonance between our ideal and our reality. What small things can we do to our present lives to bring them in alignment? Why does the dissonance feel uncomfortable? What do we do about dissonance between our own ideal goals?

The differences here are serving to clarify our current dreams. The dissonance provides room to try and attempt many different things but we are both excited about focusing in a bit. And to be totally cheesy, finally learning how to read our own music.