Play it Again

I've been playing the piano since I was four years old. When I went to college at the age of eighteen, I thought that I would major in music or become a music therapist. And then I thought I'd be a theater major. And finally, several years later I realized that I liked music too much to make it be part of my career. But writing... writing was something I could do. I thought.

I could have been much better than I am if I had stayed with the piano. But I'm a perfectionist. I enjoy notes coming together and I love the feeling when my fingers know what they are doing and I'm not even thinking about it. I hate practicing. Hate the process of mess before the feeling of things coming together. I hate practicing so much that I barely remember the journey from when my Bach Inventions were crap to when my inventions became impressive -- as if by magic. But it wasn't magic.

Practicing the piano takes extreme patience and stick-to-it-ness. I would practice measures over and over again, like I was burning the pattern into my fingertips. Suddenly, after maybe the eleventh hundred time, I would get it.

And never forget it.

Repetition imprints passages into your brain when you're a pianist. I could sit down at any piano right now and play Invention #8 and never have recalled the exact moment when I memorized it. As long as my fingers are on the right keys, I can get through the piece. As long as my third finger is on the a during that passage, I will find my way home. If it's any other finger, I will struggle, panic, stop and give up. Being precise matters when you're playing the piano.

I recently started to take piano lessons again. My teacher, a pianist for the LA Opera and an accomplished pianist herself (hello, Julliard school of music!) knows to look ahead in a piece and write in the fingerings, circling where the thumb is suppose to go in red color pencil. She knows if I start "here" I will soon get "there" if I start this way. She even knows how fingers naturally move, so knows what will come easiest. She points out patterns and orders. When she points these things out to me, I am so impressed. I'd wonder how I hadn't been able to see what she had. 

I dunno -- in life we're always told to look at our present and live in the moment, but as a pianist I am not looking ahead at notes that are coming at me, I play each note like it's suspended in the air and when I press down on the ivory I'm "singing" it into existence for other people to hear and feel. Preparing the piece, however, is all about looking forward, spotting patterns, looking for sequences that have been there before and will show up again depending on what type of piece you're playing.

I guess what I'm saying is -- you can really only live in the moment if you know patterns and recognize them so you can relax in the moment and enjoy the music. It's okay to spot patterns in your life, circle the hard times and make notes of how those difficulties will be played. It's necessary. In time your words and actions will fall into a pattern of familiarity. You'll know when you're on the wrong foot, when you've placed your hands in the wrong position and when you need to start over again.

But only after many, many hours of practice.

Having someone who can provide you with insight doesn't hurt either.