Three years ago, I had the privilege of workshopping John McDaid's brilliant story "Keyboard Practice, Consisting of an Aria with Diverse Variations for the Harpsichord with Two Manuals" (see the all-too-short excerpt here). I have never read a story that was its like, before or since. Just thinking of it today can render me stuporous. Finally, years later, the story has been published in the January issue of the Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, which is on stands now. It's a little hard to find, but the publisher's website can give you some pointers. Stories like this are the reason that it's worth subscribing to the sf mags. Just getting to read a story like this once in a year, or in a decade, can make you a better person.
Aria
I'm an unreliable narrator. Everything I know about classical piano could be stored handily, uncompressed, in the lobotomized set-top box of an antique cathode television. Still, it falls to me to transcribe the events surrounding the Van Meegeren Piano Competition of 2023 and the alleged visitation by the late Stefan Janacek.
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Variation 1
Stassy intro, nep?
Yar, yar, copied; 'swhatcha get when I type not talk. Gomenasai. Not a storyspeaker — ich bin eine musicalische opster. I clip, I doop, I rap, I dub and shunt, pull leitmotifs from the noosphere 'n' singledoubletriple layer, pack and run the tuples, skiffy ins-n-outs wrapped moebial around sparse, selective, show-don't-tell syllables relevated from the subway and limousine earth. A hardwired hook sniffer: What edge will cut through the commodified wash of minute-15 Will-Have-Beens? Hafta lay down a tuff rhythm groove and scan for a tasty solo line; grimly practical, paratactical composition.
But a keyboard is needed to massage this medium. Got to force myself to sit down, sluice, educe the force that through these carpal tunnels drives the florid. Grep the keystroked sense of this, in at least a first approximation, before it evanesces.
Because I don't believe in ghosts. I never have. I never will. And yet, tonight…
And yet tonight, I saw one.
With my own eternally doubting fingers.
Update: Richard sez, "Thought I'd write and mention that 'Keyboard Practice' is available for download in unencrypted ebook formats for $3.99 as part of the aforementioned Fantasy & Sci Fi Jan 2005 on Fictionwise (no affiliation other than being a customer!)."
