Scott Joplin

Posted on June 20, 2003 in Book of Days College Culture

Note: This is part of a series based on exercises from A Writer’s Book of Days. It’s something of a rebellion against the Friday Five and similar tupperware content memes.

Today’s topic: Someone’s playing the piano.

Joshua Rifkin. The Complete Piano Works of Scott Joplin. A three record set. One cover was gold, another red intimating maroon, and the last was green.

I never knew how to
move my fingers over a keyboard to make those melodies but I worked out a system of pressing the flesh of my upper arm as I lay on my dormitory bed listening to the Maple Leaf Rag and other syncopations of the American Chopin. Listening to Scott Joplin, my fingers became golden keys that precisely excited a dance of points of sound, blue pops of light.

Music students, trained to read notes and plunk them out on a piano, scoffed at my naive method. I ignored them, learning the melodies truly and reinventing them to suit the pulse in my fingertips and lips.

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Tomorrow’ topic/prompt: Write about a pair of shoes.