Wednesday 11 December 2013

Over the rainbow

At the moment I play ‘Somewhere over the rainbow’ daily during my piano practice. For years I really did not like this song. I thought it was too emotional, too over the top, too much of a gay icon.

But playing this on the piano has changed how I feel about it. For a start I am focusing on the music and not the lyrics. And the music is moving me; it affects me. And I find that I am bringing different feelings in into playing the music.

There’s a poignancy that comes out of me in response tot eh music around the lyrics ‘way up high’. Sometimes I play most of the song with a passionate anger especially around ‘why can’t I?’ Sometimes the music invokes a real gentleness in me that infuses how I play the whole piece.

It’s a song then for many seasons. Of course it sin to just me. Listen to how Eva Cassidy does it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ce-5OWBNGNw or how Rufus Wainwright does it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nkNA4vO8FfI