I wrote a piano riff using my Master Piano app on my phone.  I can’t afford a piano at the moment. I’ve always wanted to learn.  I used to have a Casio about a million years (okay, 25 years) ago and I played it all the time, tinking out popular songs from books that I’d been given.  I still remember which keys correspond to which notes. I just never had any formal training. We couldn’t afford it when I was growing up.

I’ve forbidden myself from purchasing one until I get all my financial ducks in a row, but thanks to technology and for a mere zero dollars I was able to tinker out a riff that was pleasing to my ears using an app on my phone.  This tickles me more than you can imagine.

I’ve loved music all my life. Not a day has gone by since as far back as I can remember that I haven’t listened to something.  I even got busted once at daycare when I was four; I had this stuffed dog with a radio in its belly and I listened to it pressed up against my ear on the lowest volume possible laying down on my mat during naptime, but it got taken up by the daycare worker.

My mother grounded me once from the radio when I was 15.  I remembered that she had given me when I was 10 (and I still had) one of those 101-in-one electronic kits that you get at Radio Shack with the wires and springs on a circuit board…with instructions to make your own FM Radio. And I did. That lasted me until I ceased to be grounded and I got my tapedeck back.  A little sneaky and deceptive, but I was 15 and you do have to admire my ingenuity.

I’ve always admired musicians that have a seemingly overflowing cup of creativity when it comes to making music. I’ve always been drawn to piano music and have a soft spot in my heart for Beethoven, Freddie Mercury, Damien Rice, Tori Amos, Billy Joel and Elton John for this reason.  I support them for singing the feelings of my heart and for touching that dark recess where the light doesn’t shine, illuminating my life. For giving birth to feelings that before had no words.  I lack this talent in myself, but occasionally I get a trickle of creativity and I make note of it.

I learned to play guitar in my late teens and even wrote a wordless tune with the four notes that I knew by heart.  Later, I purchased on impulse one of those blank music journals with the intent of writing it down, but I never got around to it. It’s still in my head, though.  If I took a few minutes, I could pick it out again.

It’s rare that Euterpe blesses me with inspiration and as I was tinkering around with this piano app I fingered out a new tune.  This time I’m going to make an effort to put this one down in my blank music journal, as well as pick out that guitar lick and write that one down as well.  I was inspired this morning by an article I read about how Leonardo da Vinci kept a notebook with him at all times, scribbling down ideas and things to do and remember.  Nearly 500 years later, my phone has become an electronic version of that.

And while I never learned the piano when I was younger, that hasn’t stopped me from giving up on it.  I may be 38 before I finally fulfill my goal of buying one and teaching myself (or having someone teach me) how to play.  Maybe then Euterpe will stick around for a while and I can put more things down in that notebook.

Robert Browning says, “He who hears music, feels his solitude peopled at once.”  I wholeheartedly agree.  It has carried me through so much in my life.

So, 88-key electronic keyboard and stand, I will see you in a couple of years when all my loans and debts are paid off.  Until then, thank you, technology, for this handy little app on my phone.