The Practice of Simplicity

Yesterday, I watched a young pianist shadowing a Charlie Parker solo—Bird, they called him. Parker’s horn ignited bebop bursts with barely a breath between flares. She played him by ear, every note, every flicker of fire. Her two hands dancing as if she was playing scales.

Had I sat with the transcription, black ink on white silence, I would have slowed the notation down to an Andante pace — a walking tempo. I would have studiously worked through the maze of chromatic and syncopated thickets. It would have taken a long stretch of time to just read let alone memorize it. In the end, some of us are simply wired for simplicity. We hold a fondness for the stillness between sounds.

Yes, my spirit leans Zenward now. In this season of ripening, I treasure slow time, the uncarved block, the lyricism of a shapely line. Silence has moved in for good as a gentle tenant in the house of my being. Cleverness only makes a guest appearance, now and then, usually for short visits.

I marvel at the likes of Jacob Collier, whose harmonies bend light, whose music builds cities in the span of a phrase. My awe meets them first—these gifted ones. A quiet knowing comes next. I am made of other stuff.

Simplicity, I’ve learned, is not handed out freely. The gift must be earned. Yesterday I asked: how might I apply this principle? Could I pare down my collection of instruments, untangle the nests of wires, loosen my grip on gear I no longer need? And what of language—might I learn to speak as Mary Oliver writes, sending small boats of meaning downstream in rippling water? Could I tame the clutter of receipts and taxes so as to turn chaos into manageable elegance?

Perhaps simplicity is the shadow twin of complexity—each a discipline, each a devotion. Both ask us to attend to the moment and to live out the practice as consistently as Bird worked at all things musical.

There’s more to say. But...silence says it better and simply.