We take a deep breath together and I play the first notes as I sit at the piano. Moments later my friend coaxes the beginning of a haunting melody from the strings of his sarangi. We're showcasing this beautiful Indian instrument tonight, weaving two different musical traditions together as we improvise. We've done this many times before, but it's different every time, and I don't know what shape it will take tonight. Sometimes he hears a new direction for the melody to turn; sometimes I nudge the harmony towards different colours. Time stands still as we focus intently on what we're creating, and yet it somehow seems to pass far too quickly, too; so many moments pass by before I can finish savouring them.
I entered my thirties playing from sheet music. Things were going well, I had a plan, and I was pretty sure I knew what the next few years would bring. A month after I entered my forties, I became a widower and a single dad—the music fell off the music stand, and it was up to me to improvise and keep the music going. Throw in a career change and a pandemic, and life became very different from a decade earlier.
dAdlib is what happened when in the middle of all this my thoughts overflowed and landed on the Internet. I’m at the earliest beginnings of this journey, but I know that I’m not the only one ad-libbing as I deal with what life throws in my direction. I hope that my experiences will resonate with you as you improvise and as we all put together this grand performance on the spot, day by day.
I arrive home from the hospital for the very last time. My son is up past his bedtime and he's bouncing off the walls, old enough to understand what today means but too young to understand how he feels about it. We've never had a bedtime like this, so full of questions that I can't answer to either of our satisfaction. We move slowly through our bedtime routine, every step of the dance stinging with memories. I don't know if I can make it through tonight's lullabies — will he hear the waver in my voice? I can only do the best with what I have, and so we take a deep breath together and I sing the first notes as I sit beside him.