To memorise or not to memorise my attempts at the Goldberg. This is still undecided. As a rule, I make myself memorise what I learn because it would be too pretentious for words to carry a load of music about, and ‘I can’t play without the music’ sounds pretty feeble. But since I’m never likely to attempt to play the Goldberg anywhere but home and with the silencer on, perhaps memorising doesn’t matter so much. I’m also investigating investing in another edition – one with suggested fingering printed. It takes me absolutely hours to work out any kind of fingering. Who said maths and music went together? Sometimes I can barely count how many fingers I’ve got. Not enough is the only certainty. Today I crept onto Variation 2. I thought I might take it by surprise. It was certainly surprised, but possibly not in a good way.

Well, whadayaknow. Somebody’s just given me a 2001 copy of Granta, and inside I find an essay by Alan Rusbridger, the editor of the Guardian, all about playing the piano. Called ‘Mozart, Not’ he reveals an obsession that led him to purchase a 9 foot Fazioli grand costing ‘roughly one and a half Volvo estates’. That’s a lot of piano. Indeed, that’s one hell of a lot of piano. If he was worried about the neighbours being upset by his practice on his old Challen upright, what on earth can they have made of this monster? When the essay was written, he had not (and may still have not) discovered the neat little gadget that is the silencer.

Oh, glorious silencer. What would I do without you? I’d be paralysed, that’s what. Mr. Rusbridger wonders what his neighbours make of his practice. I don’t wonder what mine make of mine: the thought of them hearing any part of it is really quite horrible. But if I don’t want anybody to hear me, why do I play? I don’t know, is the answer, except that, just like Mr. Rusbridger, a day spent without practising, even for ten minutes, is a bad day. And then there’s this. The work banks up. At the end of every week, I know for certain that whatever else has gone awry I’ve achieved something. For a writer who’s best friends with the delete button, that’s a bit of a life-saver.

Memory is a funny old thing. There are two types for musicians: muscle memory and brain memory – probably not the right terms but who cares. I train my fingers like performing ants, repeating and repeating and repeating. It’s alarming how long they take to remember a phrase, and then suddenly they go all peculiar and try to usurp each other’s place all of their own accord. As for the brain memory, all I can say is that I see no evidence that all this practice is staving off Alzheimer’s. Luckily, if it doesn’t, I suppose I won’t remember.

Fingering is all important. It should be easy to work out in Bach, since so much is patterned, but I still have trouble. In the Goldberg Aria, I’m always running out of fingers, and sometimes in Variation One – whisper it – I don’t end up with both thumbs on G. That would be enough to get my wrists smacked if I had a piano teacher, but though I could certainly use one, I’m not sure anybody would really want the job. This is not false modesty. I have much to be modest about. Perhaps it’s an age thing. Though in these straitened times, there would, I dare say, be many people willing to teach me, nobody could really enjoy it and I dread being dreaded so I shall carry on using YouTube to see how things should be done. So far, I’ve lowered my hands and flattened my fingers slightly. I’ve tried it with the Bach, then I had a small shot at the third of Shostakovich’s Fantastic Dances. Can’t say it sounded like a dance, but at least two bars sounded like Shostakovich. I call that a victory.

Drink and the piano don’t go well together. I know this, yet I’m always testing it out, just to make sure it hasn’t changed. That’s the definition of madness: doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. Still, lots of musicians have been a bit crazy and I can be crazy too. Learning these variations is crazy so I’m already half way there. The wine makes me bold. I sit, open the music, think for a moment, then begin. All will be well. I will play Variation 1 in all its glory. Right hand second finger G, F sharp, G, an octave run of semiquavers. Left hand fifth finger bottom G, semi-quavers octave B A B quaver G octave G. Repeat pattern. How hard can it be? Answer: hard without wine, impossible with. I retreat, humbled again. No wine tomorrow, but then a thought: perhaps I’m just not drinking enough of the stuff. A whole bottle tomorrow. Then we’ll see.

Today was Friday 13th. I’m not superstitious but I’ve been trying not to think about the day/date since I got up. Still on Goldberg Variation 1, which if I was any kind of pianist at all, I’d have got under my belt in a couple of days. I wish there were two of me, one to practise all day long and the other to do other stuff. Hard to concentrate when all I can think about is our need for more loo paper and tinned tomatoes. Don’t think Bach bothered much with either.

I love inscription with which Bach prefaced the Goldberg, ‘Composed for Music Lovers, to Refresh their Spirits’. He succeeded in refreshing my spirits today, not because I’ve suddenly roared through the variations – a very slow and halting Variation 1 and the Aria hands apart was what I managed. He succeeded because I started the day listening to Murray Perahia, then slunk onto YouTube and, inevitably, Glen Gould. I didn’t just listen to him play, I listened to a couple of interviews. By his own admission, Mr. Gould was a bit of a nutcase, and in older life he shrank so near the keys it’s a wonder he didn’t clunk his nose. I watched his hands for the cross-overs that will play an important part in my book. Crossing hands, if you’re playing a variation as a duet with a music master such as my Monsieur Belladroit, can have all manner of seductive results. And I also spotted a book by Gabriel Josipovici, published by Carcanet, which plays with the legend that the Variations were composed to soothe a sleepless count. My girls certainly don’t want anybody to go to sleep, and neither do I, but the book will be be good for procrastination purposes. And now my ‘refreshed spirits’ must do something about dinner. Why can’t husbands eat once a week and be done with it?