Hi H peeps,

I'll be giving a concert June 10, in Berkeley, CA, one of the Fringe
events of the Berkeley Festival & Exhibition --
http://www.berkeleyfestival.org/gesine-lohr-harpsichord/
3-4 pm, free, donations happily accepted but utterly not necessary

Please cheer me on!  this is a big deal for me, my hands are
significantly disabled, so it's quite a scary process.....
I've played continuo (Alameda Sing-it-yourself Messiah) for 14 years,
it's not like my hands don't have trouble with that, but to me at
least, that's a galaxy away from solo harpsichord stuff.

I did a little practice-gig April 24, at the home of the friend, where
this harpsichord is fostering (through the kindness of Gilbert
Martinez) -- to my housemates and the house person, and 12 guests.  It
was well received, though the guests were very inexperienced around
harpsichord, early music.  Part of my intent was to calibrate, how
much would I lose, hand-wise, in performance -- everyone loses
something and gains something in performance, but when you have
impairments, this becomes more of an issue.  So, I lost more than I'd
estimated/guessed -- I was slithering around a lot on the keys.  (And
I do know this calibration, for playing Hammond B3 organ, from our
annual many-hour reunion gigs, and that's also very different than
solo harpsichord).

One of my housemates, Jean, learned to tune several years ago (I can't
do tuning any more due to hand impairments).  Last night was one of
*those* practices -- it had been suddenly hot, this harpsichord is
pretty sensitive and so went way out, Jean tuned her, but she was
slipping rapidly.....I wasn't dealing as well as sometimes, with
physical problems.  At those moments, I think, what the heck am I
doing?!  But then part of a Cabezon piece did dance out, and reminded
me....

I know that musicians often don't talk at all about impairments,
injuries, repetitive strain problems, neurological problems, etc., as
if it's some kind of shame or secret.  In this forum, I think we talk
about a lot of nitty-gritty H stuff.  I'm not exactly asking for
advice on how to proceed (though would be interesting to hear people's
thoughts), I'm trying to

-- go into the music, really hear the music, focus in, remember why I
love this music and love harpsichords
-- begin again, every time I sit down at the harpsichord
-- resolve to enjoy the process
-- sing the song ones in my head as I play

I guess what I'm asking for, is some "we'll cheer you on!"

Gesine

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