News

I do love coffee. It’s a brilliant start to the day. I leave the table smiling with a spring in my step, full of goodwill. But when the coffee is bad, the lingering taste affects me most grievously. I become morose and listless.

Take this morning. With a tingling sense of expectation I awaited the arrival of a caffè latte with its delicious aroma and velvety richness. Instead, the waiter deposited before me an overfilled glass, too hot to hold, containing little more than skimmed milk lightly stirred with a skimpy scattering of coffee granules. The result was the sort of tasteless beverage reputed to possess medicinal properties sometimes served with insistence while recovering from a minor ailment.

Good coffee may be one of the finest human achievements ever, but bad coffee is surely its most dispiriting failure.

How now to recover the enthusiasm to navigate the demands and challenges of the day? How to set aside this minor setback and see it for the passing thing it is? Where to find the determination required to resolve the technical and musical issues of practicing the guitar in the next hour or two?

Back home I held the guitar to me and tuned lethargically. A recall of disappointing granules flashed through my mind as I drew my first clutch of chords from the magic box. Curiously, although you might add predictably, they cast a shimmering spell.

Nothing changes the mood like music. Its effect is immediate and electrifying.
Gone was the memory of that dripping glass and anaemic liquid. Now the room resonated with the sound of sweet harmonies. Celestial melodies bounced from wall to wall. A cascade of modulations swept me along in its embrace. Before long, a Baroque sequence sprang spontaneously from my fingers.

My mood was transformed. Magnífico. Viva la música! And so the day is turning out rather well after all.

Yet, a new challenge awaits.

My second cup of coffee.

Thank you for reading this far.

Enjoy your coffee!
Carlos