When I was 5 years old, I started taking piano lessons. Though that might seem like a young age, my grandmother was a professional music teacher, and so she knew exactly what she was dealing with when she added me on as her newest (and youngest) student. While other kids were busy playing soccer or learning gymnastics, I was inside, busy learning music theory from workbooks and attempting to play “Mary Had a Little Lamb.” Piano lessons weren’t exactly something that I had asked for, though I shouldn’t have been surprised that they were coming, since the musical gene seems to run in both sides of my family. I guess my parents thought a little push towards something else musical couldn’t hurt. After 11 years of lessons, I can genuinely say that while I absolutely hated them at multiple times throughout those years, I’ll never regret sticking with them as long as I did. Playing the piano taught me so many lessons that I might not have learned otherwise.
Playing the piano taught me to have confidence in myself. For example, recitals and festivals were always my biggest nightmares. It’s actually hard to tell which one I disliked more. In a festival, only one person was listening, but that one person had a scorecard, and would rate you on your performance. On the other hand, in recitals you had to play in front of anyone in the room, and I dreaded playing in front of people. My palms and feet would get sweaty, and as soon as I would walk up to the piano, I’d instantly forget the piece that I had worked on for months. Once I would start to play, I’d be so nervous that I would rush through the music, forgoing dynamics and style in favor of getting my time in the spotlight over with as quickly as I could. I’d hastily bow at the end and then rush back to my seat before anyone could see how relieved I was that it was done. Throughout the years, I became more and more comfortable (though never completely at ease) with performing and being in the spotlight, and though I’ve come to realize that I’ll probably never be fully at ease when I’m doing anything in front of others, I have learned to have confidence and rely on the practice and hard work that I have already put forth, which has been a skill that has lent itself well to every area of my life.
Taking piano lessons also taught me a lot about working with other people. For example, every spring recital, two other students and my instructor and I would play a song together. That meant four sets of hands on two pianos. You can only imagine the amount of time and patience took from my piano teacher to help instruct all of three of us at the same time (Seriously, though, my grandmother is a saint.) You can be playing the right note at the right time, but if you aren’t listening and in tune with what the other people are doing, then the entire piece just doesn’t sound right. This is far from easy. In order for the piece to sound the way it is supposed to, it requires that everyone be in sync -- not just rhythmically, but also with the style and dynamics of the piece. For a piece to sound cohesive, it required all of us to listen to far more than just the notes being played, and it also required us to be willing to change and adapt how we played in order for those eight hands to play something that sounded whole.
Though piano lessons were never something that I would say I overly enjoyed, the skills and values that I learned through my eleven years of lessons were things that I might not have learned otherwise. Honestly, I could go on and on about the things that being a piano student taught me. End the end, I realizes that music is something that I really do enjoy, and so learning the music theory behind it and being able to actually play this magnificent instrument is something that I’m very proud of. I loved having those skills at the end of my time as a piano student; I just didn’t always like the process it took to get me there. But hey, if anyone could do it, then I wouldn’t be where I am today.
