Every day it’s there. The first thing in the morning, the last thing at night. At times it’s exactly what I need; nothing else in the world comes close to it. It helps me to concentrate when I get frustrated. It allows me to refocus my thought, to regain my composure. At other times it is the polar opposite. Sometimes I want nothing more than to give it up, to be done with it. It is relentlessly unforgiving, either you get it right or you don’t. There is no in between. It demands that you give time to it, dedicate yourself to it. Yet in spite of all of this, I stick with it. I can’t simply walk away. I don’t plan on walking away either, it has become a part of who I am. Perseverance is the only path to success.
It all started on the first day of my final year in high school. It wasn’t even fourth period yet and I was already on my way to the councilor’s office to get a schedule change. Physics was sixth period and there was no way in hell I was going to that class. This left me with me an open period and a few options to play with. Something needed to be done. I rarely came all the way down to the far end of the North Building but I had some time to kill. My friend Jacob was walking with me when all of the sudden we came to a few small rooms that were empty. We glanced in and saw what we thought was old wooden furniture. We couldn’t have been more wrong. Inside was a dark, worn, wooden bench. No bigger than a couple feet long and no doubt designed for only one person. Before this bench, in all its glory, stood a five foot tall upright string instrument. I say it like this now because I can appreciate it. At the time I thought it looked like a piece of shit. I messed around on it for a little while attempting to play what I could remember from a YouTube clip of Apologize by OneRepublic. Next thing I knew I was enrolled in a class that would begin my journey of attempting to master a craft.
Every day for the rest of the year I would spend almost an hour of my day in the music wing. Practicing chord, rhythm, meter, and all the basic rudiments of music and its theory became a daily habit. It wasn’t until about half way through the year when I began to become fond of the playing. This is because quite frankly I sucked for a while. But once you start to hear the sounds, once you start to feel the beauty in the notes as they progress in one direction and then another, it all begins to change. I began to feel a connection with the keys.
Jump forward to June. I am officially no longer a high school student. Most people should be happy at this time in life, but I was not. My high school sweet heart and I called it off. I was distraught. I don’t know why, I wasn’t happy with her so it made no sense that I should be even more miserable after. But whatever.
In order to pass the days of summer I made the decision to invest a little bit more of my soul into the blacks and whites that had begun to take over my life. And so I went to the local music shop, dropping almost my entire pull of graduation money in a heartbeat. To this day I’m not sure if this was the best or worst decision I could have made at the time.
Jump forward another three months and it is almost time for classes to start. Over the summer I would sit in front of the 88 keys whenever I got the chance frantically moving my fingers across the hard plastic. My skills no doubt progressed, but so did my love-hate relationship with it.
Everyone who has played an instrument has come to that point in their life at one time or another. By no means do I claim to be a musician, I am merely a college kid with an addictive habit. I’m talking about when you reach your block. That point is when it is no longer fun to play the simple pieces, to play the shortened condensed version of the classics out of a book. There comes a time when you can make the choice of being mediocre without much devotion, or you can choose to create a talent. I went with the talent. At the time of this decision however, what you don’t know is that it comes at a price.
Move forward another year and six months to the present day. As I sit here now the piano I purchased two summers ago is behind me. It sits opposite my bed and is directly behind my desk so I can’t look at it when I work. This is no accident.
Whenever I go to play I begin to get a strange feeling. It is neither a feeling of happiness nor a feeling of calm. It is a feeling of anxiety. I become anxious because I love being able to play. It makes my heart race, my eyes zoom across the page before me, my hands seem to have a mind of their own as they move back and forth, and for a few short lived minutes it feels amazing. But then that feeling slowly starts to die, it starts to fade away as you realize you have heard that piece before. You have played it before. You remember why you sat down and begin to dread it.
Nothing is more frustrating than learning a new piece. It drives me crazy. I now know why every child wants nothing more than to quite practicing and go outside to play. Love-hate is the only way to describe it. I love being able to say I learned a new song, that I mastered something. I also hate learning it. Hit one note wrong and everything is ruined. You must spend countless hours reading the music, putting it to heart, trying to play the music in a way that it was meant to played. To hear the music the way the composer or artist meant for it to be heard. It is frustrating, infuriating to pursue perfection like this. Yet I keep at it. I don’t know why, but I do. It bothers me now that I can’t even begin to describe the feeling and put it in words. All I know is that I love piano, and I love the reward you get back from it for all of you time and effort. I also know that I hate it for the passion it demands and its endless mockery of perfection. If there one thing that we all strive for yet simultaneously hate, it is the idea of perfection.
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