Kathleen Ryan

Yes, it’s been a dry spell for Rough Cuts* (had some technical issues) but, hey, here’s a new one, a true Kathleenie arrangement. Listen to it before storytime:

Now that you’ve heard it, storytime. 

You may recall that a few years ago I broke my left wrist. (I think I moaned about it here, more than once.)

One of the first things that cheered me up, after the break & before the surgical repair, was unexpectedly receiving in the mail a copy of Consolation in Db major for right hand alone, by Albuquerque-based composer and clinician Dennis Alexander. At that point I still worried that my surgeon was just being very encouraging when he said my left hand would be absolutely fine, post-rehab, and thinking to myself “maybe I would never be able to play as well again,” and …. !!!

In short, my monkey mind was having a field day with fear.

The Consolation is beautiful, by the way; if you play & want to develop your right hand technique, I recommend it.

So I had the Consolation to practice, and that inspired me to create some right hand alone music of my own for during my convalescence. I started with an arrangement of Shenandoah.