Fully confronting my hearing loss meant recognizing and admitting what I heard when playing. Sounds were distant and vague -- almost a dream with little pitch recognition. Overcoming this meant being fully, almost painfully, engaged in hearing and recognizing what was in front of me and recreating it with my fingers and all of my body. I was no longer rushing to rehearsals, so I had time at my disposal to slowly walk up this staircase to mastery. I experienced the following: (Ex. 1) I could hear the right hand in ms. 1 and 2. I could NOT hear the full atonal chords of ms. 3 and could barely hear the top notes. In ms. 13, I could hear the right hand’s pitches when playing slowly. I could NOT hear the left hand pitches unless practicing slow and hands separate with tenuto (to let the sounds reach mental awareness). Playing hands together, I heard few pitches, none easily.

The volatility of the rhythmic patterns is extreme, demanding great mental quickness. The left hand in ms. 13-14 is a bit relaxed, (Ex. 2) like a plucked bass. But by ms. 15, it is suddenly an eighth sooner and then yet another eight sooner. It is a jolt to the brain unless the left hand is utterly autonomous in rhythm (I noticed a minute head-snap when it starts speeding up). Autonomy in touch and keyboard awareness is also a must. These six bars alone took countless hours of slow work. (Ex. 3) From bar 59 through the rest of the page, I could with effort, hear melody notes (whether in top or middle stave) and the bass chords as they were close to tonal. I could NOT make out any other pitches, especially the top chords.

To avoid mental confusion, my eyes had to largely stay relaxed and in one place, though a nuance of eyeball motion was possible -- as long as my head stayed put!

What had seemed almost unplayable and unhearable was slowly learned and, after many performances, made my own. What I had ignored or half-recognized was now a tool of necessity for all music.

There was an ideal hand position and fingering to be found and memorized to make every gesture as natural as possible.

I needed to feel a full chord in my hands even while only hearing top note. Thus, I needed intense awareness of inner fingers as they will play notes I do not hear. Breaking chords is a valuable learning technique for me.

I needed to be in a constant state of 'becoming' mentally and physically ie; thinking and hearing ahead. I have no time to stand around in such complex passages. I achieved this, in part, with a medical compromise. I reduced the dosage of lamictal with the acquiescence of my neurologist. It allowed my brain to move a bit faster. It also led to more seizures, but that is the lamentable balancing act which never leaves my life.

Practicing became consciousness of finger and hand. If I felt a finger hitting two notes rather than one, I stopped to go over it. Discomfort was a sign of trouble -- if I did not get to new position quickly and easily, I stopped.

If my mind was uncertain, I stopped.

Thus, practicing was a long and arduous task. Strangely, it became satisfying as I felt the slow-motion wheels of progress.

The Wolpe CD was a success, winning several awards. It was the first of five on the Bridge label, all involving challenging masterpieces of the recent past. All were learned and recorded with varying issues of hearing challenges and all required an enormous and frustrating effort to reach mastery. Here are a few examples.

The Finale of Roger Sessions' Sonata #1 was a grueling task for me, as for any pianist (Ex. 4). It combined a jaunty melody with a brilliant and jazzy counterpoint in 16th notes where the accents between hands seldom met. While I could easily hear the melody, the left hand was just a whirr of darts with no pitch clarity. This meant that, as stated above, fingering was the basic first step with slow hands-separate work and a pencil in my hand. Quick registral leaps and crowded passagework (where one hand plays and crowded passagework (where one hand plays basically on top of the other) made virtually everything an awkward execution -- something that had to be totally overcome to allow the carefree joy of the piece to come forth.

Fingers did the basic work, but accents all required attacks from the elbow (it was too fast for wrist attacks and any attempt to 'tell' a finger to hit the key harder would create effort, self-consciousness and confusion. In addition, fingers needed different degrees of curve (the fifth was utterly flat for jazz syncopations). The hand position (direction and height of wrist) needed to be flexible so that far-away notes could be reached with no sudden jerks or drastic changes. I often put words or symbols such as slanted arrows in the score to be sure that it was always done the same way.

All of the above took months of hands separate work, and eventually the most important pitches stayed in my head so that I had sign-posts to guide me towards finger memory. I also learned to hear the pitches in relation to the melody above -- they were usually jazz-like altercations which fell between the eighth notes of the right- hand melody.

The right hand itself is a jocular tune of largely wrist bounces. Whenever there are quarters, the arm gives added weight and, as the complexities slowly are mastered, one is left with a dizzying two-part invention.

As I learned early, balance was crucial. Especially with my hearing problem, the right hand would be utterly submerged by the left hand unless I not only leaned towards the top of the keyboard (added weight), but also felt that my left hand was playing utterly on the edges of my fingertips and only half-way down--playing on the surface of the keys.

Thus the complexities of this movement. It is, like so much of this virtuoso repertoire, a choreography. My hands are dancers and I am, perhaps literally, certainly mentally, holding my breath for a long stretch, perhaps even a full page, to allow my body to create this interaction with as little mental intrusion as possible.

Another reason one feels the need to hold one’s breath is that there are no real traffic signs -- ie no clear harmonic background and, more important, no real way to hear beats. Chopin's G Major Prelude is pianistically similar but meter and harmonic motion are tangible.

Here, one feels that one is dancing on the edge of the universe, with a void lurking behind -- a feeling of intensity. Fear but also electric joy -- just the sensation of an aura preceding a seizure.

The opening of his Sonata #3, a memorial to JFK, has an even vaster emptiness as a backdrop and again one's breath must somehow be held. It slowly comes to life, but each note is a sigh of a different touch and weight. One's fingers, wrist and arm are here combined to find deathlike sorrow. The notes died too soon due to my hearing loss and thus my eyes can ONLY be shut if I am to commune with the keys and make each vanishing sound follow the next and lead to the tender song which emerges.

Again, there are no beats and yet one must hear a pulse somewhere deep inside oneself in order to evoke the meaning of upbeats and syncopations. The deeper inside oneself one hears the pulse, the better for the sake of the interpretation. For me, such submerging of beats in slow, deeply expressive music always shows on my face. Interestingly, in this almost motionless movement, my whole upper body partakes of the choreography.

The second movement of Ralph Shapey's Mutations II is similar to the Sessions Finale in its challenges. Ex.5. The two hands are in different sound worlds and must become autonomous before being able to work together. The right hand consists of severely dissonant two-note chords which jump all over the keyboard. Hearing them accurately was the final gift, as was feeling the warring and unwavering phrases between the hands.

Reviewers praised my recording, describing this passage as "sounding like twenty fingers". It would have been more accurate to have said "four hands" as fingers had the least to do with the technique needed for mastery. It was arm, hand position, gestures and -- crucially -- intense awareness of patterns, both pianistic and rhythmic. The violent left hand ostinato was essentially a heavy arm attack on the low C; a smaller one to get to the third note (G) and another heavy arm attack on F with the remaining notes finger touches. The pattern is endlessly repeated and the violence can only be presented nakedly with these two heavy attacks. My debate over whether my hands should be outside keys for comfort or inside for purity of touch was won by INSIDE to create an autonomous and violent machine. This meant that fifth finger on F could only be very curved -- the opposite of fifth finger accents in Sessions. Thus, all I thought about and heard were C and F and the choreography was the final F sharp of the pattern, rising and then landing four octaves lower on the next C. This attack on the low C required courage as well. Many pianists will fear that a violent attack on a curved fifth finger could perhaps break a bone. But the music came first! Here, interestingly, the black note-white note patterns of the left hand are comfortable (when the best fingering is found) and make digital memory easy and hearing pitches a non-factor after first note of pattern is swooped down upon.

The rhythms would be daunting to an inexperienced performer, as triplets within triplets need to be learned. They become part of one's repertoire early as one learns subdivision and uses it in more complex ways. Here, Shapey's basically nine against eight with starts on unusual parts of the beat made subdividing an impossibility. All one could and should do is know where phrases start vis a vis the left hand and, if needed, put a few numbers (divisions of 72) in the score. But, as always, one must learn hands separately for as long as needed and struggle hands together in a machine-like way for a short while. Ultimately, as with Sessions and virtually all such perpetual motion music, the apotheosis is two utterly independent entities, with the mind left to feel long-range motions and dynamic climaxes.

I started learning Melinda Wagner's Noggin in 2014 for a performance at Spectrum in New York. It was a difficult time for me as my hearing was at its worst (Cochlear Implant was a few months ahead) and I was still adjusting to a new medication for seizures (which meant taking too much and slowly weaning myself on to lower dosages to see where the threshold of safety lay). Hence, the fast and rhythmically chaotic chords of mvt. 4 (Ex. 6) were even harder to master than usual.

The chords were slightly thicker than Shapey's. In addition, the right hand is neither a melody to whistle as in Sessions nor a pattern which gains familiarity due to repetition. This line was, as she wrote, "fractured and eccentric". When I return to the piece in the future, I might well wonder: "What was the fuss about?" But, given my condition, I spent a great deal of time on the most painfully slow fundamentals -- what an early teacher called 'preparation of chords'.

While at first done hands apart, it was, as soon as possible, a hands- together issue as was true in Martino's PPP. Single hand work is largely meaningless without the metric context of the whole; in addition, the physical recognition of which hand is above the other in the often-awkward execution needed to be known from the start.

Hearing pitches clearly combined with muscle memory required a multi-step process which could be notated fairly well as follows:
   Putting hand or hands in place (muscle memory)
   Hearing chord in head (inner hearing of pitches)
   Playing chord
   Signal from (or perhaps to) brain that sounds are heard
   Then: What is next? Hear in head, put hands in place and play (preparation)

This process, especially step two, was grueling and reminiscent of acupuncture treatment from a few years earlier. David Mainenti, the acupuncturist, had an extremely intense, almost pained, look on his face when summoning the outer force to travel from his brain to my body. My expression, when demanding that my brain hear the chord, was just like his.

Rhythmic memory is, again, a crucial part of my technical repertoire. Interestingly, during the months of arduous work, there was also a steady, if slight, reduction in vimpat, the new medication. I could feel that these dual brain signals of awareness were quickening as I reduced the medicine. Instantaneous is what one thinks of as 'natural' or 'effortless'. I will probably reach that point, or close to it, in a future performance. But I did not reach it at Spectrum. I felt the mental effort and physical difficulty and it clearly detracted from the performance in terms of momentum and personal communication, not to mention clarity.

Perhaps the greatest challenge was the bombastic chord progressions in movement II of the A minor Sonata (Ex. 7). Unlike Shapey or Wagner, the chords are largely familiar tonal patterns -- major, minor or augmented. Ricci and McDonald do what is common now which is to put accidentals on every note for clarity. Bland uses the tradition method of one accidental until cancelled by a natural. This left me looking backwards constantly to check if a sharp or flat were written in four or five chords earlier. Either method of notation is tough on the eyes or brain in such thick music.

With my limited ability to discern half-tones, learning, let alone memorizing, was terribly slow and I needed to look for patterns to find a road-map. The best I could do for starters was to recognize the many augmented triads and, since I could hear them in my head and feel them in my fingers, label every such chord in the score, ie. AUG. This was, again, hands separate work which took months to provide comfortable progressions from one thick chord to the next.

I slowly began to feel the melodic pattern of each hand and realized that the hands were in a kind of two-part counterpoint in contrary motion, strangely like a thick version of the Bach E Major Two-Part Invention. Thus, I felt and soon memorized the left hand lines with the right hand as a chromatic mirror. Ultimately, I memorized the inner notes which gave the triad its type. This led to my inner fingers automatically going to the right notes -- whether up a half-step or a whole-step or staying in place. By November of 2016 I began to hear each hand’s chord out of a different ear and it led to mastery of a stereophonic type that was new to me. I could finally make the passage virtuoso and communicative music.

Yet another case of mind preceding hearing or notation was found in his cadenzas (Ex. 8). Simply looking at an endless stream of fast sixteenths was disheartening as one saw pure chaos. I had experience with 'chaos' before and realized that it was up to me to give it street signs. I eventually realized that I had to feel it largely as groups of 4+4 with numerous exceptions. For the sake of hearing a pattern, I mentally added a sixteenth rest to the very beginning and thus could hear groups of four. Soon enough, I had to add one note (five) and then two more before returning to the basic four. Even this degree of intellectual rebuilding was enough. Re fingering, I found that I would use a basic fingering and somewhere in the middle a strange interval would appear. That would tell me that now I must change the general pattern from 1-2-3 to 1-2-3-4. Months later, I suddenly found myself playing the page super-fast and from memory, with only a degree of uncertainty towards the end. This happened with all of his 'unplayable' cadenzas and each time I mastered a new one I found that I would stop playing with my mouth open and my eyes wide with disbelief that I had reached this point.

John McDonald has been a musical colleague for two decades and has become a close friend as well. While most of the character pieces I recorded were based on his own life experiences, several were inspired by my own life, including works capturing my sensations of hearing both with and without mechanical help. He wrote African Allegro for a concert I gave in the African Museum of New Jersey. The physical, emotional and spiritual experience of a few day’s work on it was an indelible memory. I take a page from my diary which describes the experience with prelude and aftermath first-hand.

2/24/16

One Dimension (weightless) -- A Portent..

I have been practicing furiously for a few weeks in preparation for a concert at school. All the music was new and I would be recording it in the future. All was intense. Thick chords, violent dynamics, and complex counterpoint.

I had been hearing poorly for my evening class and was learning that I was still not ready for a full day’s work at piano or even a full day’s hearing. Volume would suddenly be muffled in class though hearing voices was still easier than hearing piano.

During my long and deep sleep (thanks to the new medicine Onfi) I had been having numerous violent and surreal nightmares -- usually inspired by daily events. One involved my dear friends Joelle and George. I went to visit unannounced but they were too busy to see me. A Frenchman was there, clearly taken from the movie ‘Sabrina’. I was the shy Sabrina. I found a stairway which I hoped would lead to the street (it was the same stairway that I used at NYU Cochlear Center). Despite a locked door, I found myself walking up 2nd Avenue. It was surreal as there were no cars, no pedestrians and all buildings were pure glass. When I tried crossing a diagonal street, the cars came rushing back and I reared for my life as my balance was poor... the violent world returned. I woke up soon after.

As noted, my practicing was intense. One piece on the program was 'African Allegro' by John McDonald. It began with violent octaves on D and B in the treble. They quickly led to a chord two octaves below and I had to work long and hard to make the connection quickly. Those two treble pitches seemed to directly stimulate two of the electrodes in my CI and after twenty minutes work, my head was swimming. William Bland’s 'Sonata' included similar such music and by 2/20 I found that by evening I heard virtually nothing at the piano. It was indeed frightening -- the worst apex of the cycle which kept coming around every month or so. This was the first time it had led to virtual deafness at piano and with TV and radio. My right ear seems virtually without hearing. I tried using Common Sense, as always, to tell myself that it would pass, but, as always, my emotions, ie fear and pessimism, were dominant.

blamed batteries of CI; I blamed the loose fit of HA and its age; I thought I was going even deafer and was tempted to set up an emergency appointment with my audiologist. I wrote her the following: 'I have been thru it before so will be patient... just confirm that I cannot damage my hearing by too much piano'. She wrote back saying it was ok. I checked out HA with Constance and it was ok.

That evening it happened again. I was quite rational and calm and, despite fears, realized that the worst that could happen was that I would go back to playing with one or perhaps no devices.

On Tuesday, I did so. I practiced first with only HA and then with nothing. Sound was pathetically small with no nuance -- I recognized that I was indeed learning and hearing with my fingers and hand. Remarkably, it was in some ways the most productive sixty minutes of practicing I had had for a long time. I was in my own world -- undisturbed by any noises and time was standing still -- JUST LIKE 2ND AVE IN THE DREAM.

I got up and stayed without devices for a while and an eerie, surreal feeling again, as in the dream, came to me. I could not hear myself walking on the wooden floor; the radiators were silent; opening a refrigerator door was noticeable, but not enough to remark upon. I felt weightless, with everything in my house immoveable and one-dimensional.

There seemed no gravity -- I was not solid enough to resist an aura -- ie I did not weigh enough nor have a deep enough sense of self to resist a seizure or floating on a cloud. Nothing occurred and I soon put devices back in and felt the world again.

I finally recognized my state of being during even partial deafness. I was to a degree floating above a solid, coarse planet. NOW, I hear coarse sounds -- planes, heaters, cars passing, people coughing. I feel the simple facts of life around me.

The next night, I returned from school during wind and rain and gave up finding a taxi. I took devices out for safety and walked home. The walk was pretty easy... balance pretty good, even in dark. It was a stunningly peaceful trip -- again like a small-town 2nd Avenue. TOO PEACEFUL! I felt how easy it was to ignore the world (though I was not ignoring anything on this dangerous journey). Deafness is indeed another world -- fewer dimensions and, for me, fewer people, events and ultimately emotions.

Republican Debate METAPHOR: CI is Trump yelling over powerless Wolf Blitzer (HA)

2/27 After much debate, I think I will give brain and ear a chance to adjust -- ie, I will keep both in as long as possible. LET’S SEE!

10/3/17 It is hard to write a closing paragraph as my hearing is still a work in progress. It changes constantly, depending on where I am, what I am doing and other unknowable factors. It is perhaps only a bit of imagination which allows me to see a slow but gradual path of progress which is taking me, without knowing it, forward -- musically and personally.

As I write, I am in a #7 train going to Mt. Sinai Hospital where I will play piano for patients, doctors and others. I hope to give them comfort with uncomplicated and beautiful music. I hope it will give me comfort as well -- both the music and the giving. Tomorrow I go back to practicing intense Wolpe in preparation for a concert. I live my 2nd Avenue dream and am learning to accept it by finding meaning and satisfaction, whether in the clouds or the traffic.