Make Music Madison

Beth Racette

In my teens, inspired by Keith Jarrett’s Koln Concert, I started teaching myself to play piano. I’ve now played piano for 50 years. My piano playing is always improvised. I can’t read music, I can’t play the same thing twice. My playing is untrained, uneven, naive, sometimes chaotic. It’s probably the most direct, deepest expression of the flow of my heart. I aim for honesty and presence in playing. My playing parallels life in a raw way—inconsistent time signatures and scales; sometimes flipping between dissonance and harmony. But like my life, I want it to be generous, full of love, fun, and stimulating in a pleasing and truthful way.