I live my life in growing orbits
which move out over the things of the world.
Perhaps I can never achieve the last,
but that will be my attempt.

I am circling around God, around the ancient tower,
and I have been circling for a thousand years,
and I still don’t know if I am a falcon, or a storm,
or a great song.

—Rainer Maria Rilke, translated by Robert Bly

I spent a couple of hours twice this week on picking apart a new tune from the Real Book: All of You. I focused on Ella Fitzgerald’s rendition of this Cole Porter classic. I discovered that in a number of places, the chords in the book didn’t line up with what the band played, and in a couple places the melody in the book didn’t line up with what Ella sang. I deferred to Ella and her band. In at least one place, the chords in the book sounded “plausible” at best, but clearly lacking a “classic” sound that was present in the recording. The fact that Ella sang in a different key than was written in the book made my brain hurt once or twice, but did not prove to be a serious obstacle to the work.

For a ballad like this, especially playing it solo on the piano, I am reminded of the flowing left-hand patterns of romantic composers like Debussy and Chopin and Rachmaninoff, but particularly of Bill Evans’ use of this technique to add emotive force, tension, and movement. He would add it in a number of his arrangements sparingly throughout, but also consistently during climactic sections, or maybe during a third verse. It’s not easy to play a consistent arpeggiated left-hand accompaniment. I decided to focus on improving on this technique (all this means is to practice outlining the chords in the left hand, searching for the sonorous way to arrange the chord tones), and indeed, even with a little practice it proved to accomplish exactly what I had felt Bill Evans added with his use of it.

In just two evenings, I am able to play the piece all the way through, memorize the melody, and feel well on the way to having the piece “in my bones”. Years ago, perhaps 5, I had dreamt of someday being able to sit down and read through a tune from the Real Book and just be able to play the chords. I can clearly do that now. And yet I have also learned, truly learned, that the melody and the chords serve only as a skeleton, as a blueprint. It is said that the Hebrew alphabet didn’t contain vowels because it was felt that the word of G-d—written using consonants—the body—was incomplete until filled with the vowels—the breath—the spoken word—the soul. And so are these Real Book lead sheets incomplete until filled in with all the soul and craft that one can muster. And of course the journey of filling in that space is never-ending.

Indeed, when it is obvious that I am “playing the chords” from the book, I can hear this lack of soul. I can hear that I’m more imprisoned by the chords than inspired by them. As I was taught by the differences between the written chords and what Ella’s band performed, that is a signal that I should understand that part of the song more deeply and find the way to make it musical—to imbue it with the soul that it lacks—whether it means finding different voicings, omitting some chords or changing them altogether. For me, one such example, comes from the turnaround written at the end of the tune All of Me, appearing, incidentally, on the page adjacent to All of You. Due to the faster tempo of that tune, I always feel rushed during those chords when I tried to play them as written. It had not specifically occurred to me to just try other stuff out in that spot. In another recent experience, I observed the same phenomenon in someone else’s playing: in Autumn Leaves there is set of chords written out that briefly goes out of the key around the circle of fourths for two measures (mm. 27-28). Somehow I’ve always felt that this brief interlude out of the key is meant to be a “sketch”, because those chords in themselves don’t sound like they naturally belong there—the melody is what should be prominent, and these harmonic details ought to blend into the background, so it seems to me.

At any rate, riffing on that turnaround from All of Me—I was reminded of another love song—the love song for me—What Kind Of Fool Am I? One of many songs to which I was introduced by Bill Evans—or at least it had come alive before me in all its glory through his rendition. The lyrics begin with “What kind of fool am I, who never fell in love? It seems that I’m the only one that I have been thinking of.” I had learned it a couple years ago. I hadn’t played it in at least a year, but, nonetheless, it came easily and musically to my fingers. I briefly played through it. At the climax, “why can’t I fall in love, like any other man?” I marvelled at and luxuriated in the chord that Bill Evans had used over “man”—if in the key of C, an Eb minor 6, or a C half-diminished 7 in first inversion—well outside the key, adding a brief, subtle mysteriousness. The last line: “and maybe then I’ll know what kind of fool I am.” At least once Bill Evans had played this as Dmin7, Emin7, Fmin7, Gsus7, resolving to Cmaj7. And it was these chords that I focused on now. I looped them (without the resolution) and discovered a new and rich musicality among them that I had not felt when I had practiced this piece last.

And that is when I was reminded of Rilke’s poem, breathtaking even in the translation.

It conveys, in the first stanza, a humbleness and acceptance of human frailty, and, in the second stanza, the sense of mystery and awe that lies at the heart of our creativity and innovation and spirituality, if not of life itself. Re-reading it truly took my breath away. I’m not sure when I learned of this poem; it could have been by way of Stefan Zweig’s autobiography The World of Yesterday, in which he describes Vienna at the turn of the 20th century, with all its “main characters”, such as Rilke, who was the older poet always aloof and seemingly allergic to noise and commotion, and Mahler, who Zweig describes as “the great master” (or something similar)—by that point he was the leading conductor of his time, at the helm of the Vienna State Opera. The younger generation would see him walking the streets from time to time, with his long cape gliding impressively behind him. Rilke they knew personally. I am reminded also of my characterization of why I was drawn to the music of Mahler. Specifically, I used to often juxtapose his music with Wagner’s—Wagner’s is somehow “too perfect”. It is “untouchable”. Somehow cold. Formal. I cannot feel intimacy in his music. I feel “greatness” and I can appreciate it on that level, but I do not personally relate to it. In Mahler, on the other hand, I feel a human presence. I can empathize with what I hear. There is the very same frailty in it, the very same sense of awe at the profound mysteries that we are given to behold in our life. The same questioning, never-ending questioning.

Orbits.