Newsletter: October 2025
Greeting again, and as leaves fall and storms return to soak and batter, we start with a riddle:
Question: ‘What has keys but can’t listen to the beauty it unlocks?’
Answer? ‘A piano.’
Maybe that’s a doorway into why the piano is a holy place for me. The keys may be black and white, but there isn’t a colour under the sun they cannot create.
Not that I always thought so. A piano teacher in my childhood, who focused more on error than joy, made the keyboards a place of terror rather than creation. And aged 11, I had enough fear of failure in my being; I really didn’t need any more. If I’d had the courage, I would have gone full col pugno, which means ‘to bang the piano with a fist.’ It was goodbye and good riddance.
Then a friend of mine at school, Martin, was a wonderful piano player. We wrote songs together. I did the words, he did the music, and these creations gave me pleasure – they’re even on iTunes. Yet I never imagined the piano might be something I could do as well. I’d left the arpeggios behind, hadn’t I?
And then years later, in my first curacy as a priest – an era of my life for which nothing had prepared me – the piano came to find me, insisting on reconciliation. ‘No teachers,’ it said, ‘just you and me. How about it?’
And so it was that I sat at the keyboard, began playing chord sequences. I couldn’t read music and didn’t wish to. And it was nothing really, just moods of my life in sound, from hope and harmony to dissonance seeking resolution; and with no judgment.
Thirty five years on, I’m still doing the same thing. It’s akin to having a second language to inhabit. I speak English and I also speak piano, though not as fluent as I might be. But here I can say different things. I’m reminded of Chopin’s words as a relationship failed: ‘I say to the piano what I used to say to you.’ Another language.
Meanwhile, Martin continued his remarkable musical journey. When it comes to the piano, he is Frederic Chopin to my Les Dawson, and that’s OK. We are fellow travellers, literally swapping notes along the way.
I am indebted to my cousin, a piano teacher. At a family gathering, I asked her how often and for how long I should practice. She said, ‘Ten minutes a day’.
‘That’s not very much!’ I declared.
‘No it isn’t,’ she said, ‘but it means you’ll do it.’
She was right; I did do it, until such time I was able to do more. The piano is a glory, but it’s also a piece of work. Hard work. We do what we can; and then something beyond our doing takes over.
The piano is at the heart of possibly the funniest sketch ever shown on TV, involving Morecambe and Wise, André Previn – and Grieg’s piano concerto. It includes Eric’s classic line, ‘I’m playing all the right notes, but not necessarily in the right order.’ The laughter makes the piano a great deal holier for me.
With those black and white notes, every colour under the sun.
And if curious, you’ll find some of my songs here. This isn’t self-advertisement; more akin to self-immolation:
Meanwhile, a quick tip-off about a retreat I’m leading at Sheldon in August 2026. It’s called ‘Garden Gospel’, and the details are here if you’re interested.
And finally, my book of the month (a new feature) is my Abbot Peter story, Another Bloody Retreat, which someone reminded me of recently with some very kind words. And other reviews have been favourable. It is a prequel to the murder mysteries, set in the desert in Egypt, so you might enjoy the sun as the darkness deepens. Details here:
And remember, as one day becomes another, there are no wrong notes in your life. So no looking back in frustration or self-punishment… just stay present to the melody today.
Simon x
