J. L. Schellenberg
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​I am by no means a trained and accomplished musician. I gave up that prospect nearly 40 years ago when I decided to pursue philosophy, in which I felt I might have more to offer.  A short life demands choices.  But in the room next to this one sits a lovely Yamaha digital piano which my wife Regina recently got me for a significant birthday. An immediate result? During this tumultuous past year I have been rediscovering the music in me. Moreover I’ve been led in a new direction. Some of the pieces of this year I still think of as songs like those I once wrote since they have (or could be provided with) lyrics, and the played melody could easily be converted into an accompaniment for singing. But others are stand-alone piano compositions, which seem to have no desire other than to be played. Each represents an intuitive experience of relatively short duration in which I respond to the sounds in my head or what’s happening on the keyboard, guided by a sense of what’s ‘right’ or what sounds ‘good.’ Of course once the basic piece is roughed out, refinement begins, but here too I never deliberately think very much. This is all both similar to, and quite different from, the creative work of philosophy in ways I have only begun to explore. 
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The pandemic has been challenging for pretty much everyone, and this amid the usual troubles of life, such as mass shootings and deaths in the family. When I decided to share some of this new work, I thought one aspect of what I was doing might involve an emphasis on the positive -- something like what I saw others doing who spoke of good things that have managed to find their way through even during a difficult time. But music is of course a friend to all the emotions. And another aspect involves a nod to melancholy and sadness. I have had more than one reason to apply the label 'Pandemic Piano.' 

Precisely because of the intuitive nature of my work at the piano so far, I expect that I may still largely be moving to the beat of an assortment of influences (hymns, gospel music, and '70s popular music among them). If I want to do anything of my own, I will need to build on this first layer of effort. But here is a representative sample from that first layer, such as it is!



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Pandemic Piano -- 10 Short Pieces

For Regina (like everything else)


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