That Explains a Lot

I stumbled across this article from http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/achenblog/wp/2012/12/07/piano-lessons/


It explains in some small way how difficult being a serious pianist is.

Before I started taking piano, I had always imagined the Conservatory students to have it so good – I mean, for their homework, they get to play guitar, or jam on their saxophone, or sing songs! What fun! Compared to sitting in lab for four hours studying the optical properties of minerals, or discussing Lucretian theories of democracy and politics, I would play piano any day.



But after almost three years of piano at Oberlin, I understand just how naïve this is. Playing music for credit is not “easy” or “fun” or “magical” or “lucky.” Mostly, it’s really freakin’ hard. It requires you to pick apart your piece, play every little segment over and over, dissect it, tinker with it, cry over it, feel completely lame about it, then get over yourself and start practicing ...again. You have to be precise and diligent, creative and robotic. And then – after all of this – you have to re-discover the emotional beauty in the piece, and use it in your performance.



Yeah, good luck with that. There’s no way, right?



Except that so many people here can do that, and do it every semester. I swear, from just my 2-credit piano lessons, I’ve gained an entirely new respect for the musicians here at Oberlin. I honestly don’t know how they do it – how they play their music with such bravery and intensity, don’t buckle under the pressure. You have to be such a strong and confident individual to be successful in the Conservatory. Don’t get me wrong, you have to be strong and confident to be successful in just about anything you do – but with music, there’s a deeper emotional component to your failures and successes. If you fail a chemistry test, it’s because you either didn’t study enough, or just aren’t that good at chemistry (the latter of which is totally understandable). But if you fail at music, it can say something about your character. It could be because you didn’t practice enough – but, more terrifyingly, it could be because you aren’t resilient enough. Mastering chemistry requires diligence and smarts, but mastering a piano piece requires diligence and smarts, plus creativity, plus the immense capacity to both overcome emotional hurdles, and, simultaneously, to use that emotional component to bring the music alive.