There was a long period where everything revolved around preparation.
The music for what became The Planned Child didn’t appear overnight. It grew slowly over years - through sketches, revisions, second guesses, and small breakthroughs. I carried it with me everywhere. At the piano, away from the piano, in my head while walking or jogging. I played it for friends, for students, for anyone who would listen online and offline. Each time, it changed a little. Each time, it became more “fixed.”
By the time I entered the studio, I knew the music inside out. Not just the notes, but the intention behind them. Still, that didn’t make it easy. There’s always a difference between what you imagine and what actually comes out when you know the tape is rolling. In those moments, you’re negotiating in real time—between control and letting go, between precision and flow.
The days in the studio had a rhythm of their own. At first, everything felt slightly unfamiliar: the piano, the room, even the silence between takes. But gradually, something settled. By the final day, there was a sense of ease, even a quiet joy. The kind that comes after you’ve carried something for a long time and finally set it down. I left that session knowing exactly what it was. A record built with care, patience, and a deep sense of responsible vulnerability.
And then, a few months after, something entirely different happened.
Brendon called me with a simple idea: there was a free day in the studio. A beautiful Steinway was available. If I wanted, I could come in and record. No pressure. No expectations. Maybe something would come out of it, maybe not.
I almost didn’t make it. The session itself depended on something as ordinary as finding a babysitter. But in the end, I arrived, with nothing prepared. No sketches. No concepts. No plan. I remember thinking: whatever happens today is fine. At best, I’ll leave with something usable. At worst, I’ll leave with… something usable. And that was the feeling throughout the entire session. Light, open, slightly uncertain, but never heavy.
I just played.
Of course, there were moments of doubt. That familiar voice that says you should have practiced more, prepared more, done more. That voice doesn’t really go away. But alongside it, there was something else - a kind of quiet trust. Not in any specific idea, but in the fact that after decades of playing, something would come out.
And it did.
What surprised me most wasn’t the music itself, but the absence of everything around it. There was no overthinking, because there was nothing to overthink. No attachment, because nothing had time to become precious. No pressure for it to “be” anything.
With The Planned Child, everything around the music mattered: the process, the shaping, the intention. Here, all of that had already been spent. What remained was just the act of playing, moment to moment.
Looking back now, the two experiences feel like they belong together.
One is careful, built over time, still revealing new details with each listen and practice session. The other arrived almost fully formed, with a kind of directness that’s hard to recreate on purpose.
I’m not sure there’s a clear lesson in it. But I do recognise the feeling.
Sometimes what felt like uncertainty was, in fact, me organizing a kind of prepared chaos.
