My life lessons from practicing the piano

The beginning of a new year involves reflecting and questioning small and bigger decisions on how our limited time on earth should be spent.

I devote daily as an amateur quite some time to the piano. Is it worth it? Should I continue in 2019?

I hope the answers will motivate you to take up (or remove the dust of ) a musical instrument!

1] Problem Solving - Perseverance is necessary but not sufficient

Starting a new piece is always big trouble, a new challenge to be mastered. All sorts of technical and expressive problems get encountered for the first time. Once I put tremendous efforts over years into a piece but a feeling of abstract dissatisfaction didn't want to go away. I learnt that perseverance/ keep trying is often not enough. I was thinking that by keeping practicing the piece as a whole an "invisible hand" would come with time and fix stuff. But no, it never came. Then for a long period I was thinking I am untalented and incapable of accomplishing the piece. In hindsight I can tell talent is overrated for the 80% of the learning curve, which is more than enough except you wanna become Roger Federer or similar.

There were no aha-moments but gradually I stopped practicing the piece as a whole, identified the source of dissatisfaction in certain places and tried only on them with all possible ways i could think of. Exhausting. Mentally. I think i played some places 10,000 times. This number was necessary but not enough: Variations on where should my eyes focus on a given split second, how many millimeters my right hand should jump from one accord to another and so on, did the job. Explorative / reinforcement learning kind of. But exhausting.

Long story short: Practicing the piano helps to make problems concrete - of course everybody knows in theory that "to solve a problem the first step is to identify it" but often the value of this and other clishees or wisdoms do not get exploited due to lack of personal experiences and reinforcement of the process. Also it forces you to try different solutions until you make it.

2] No pain no gain, but dreams do come true

The good thing is that in the course of all the years needed to realize a dream, what you are practicing sounds decent, at least at your own ears. You may find the realization of my dream here

It may sound not “good enough” in general, but sounds perfect for my expectations in 2016. And the good thing is, dreams are only yours to define. Related to this, you learn that success and satisfaction is not only defined as you being better than others, but as you being better than your previous self. You feel it with the progress at the piano. This is a life lesson. Also comparing against yourself, you should never allow yourself to be too happy for a long period, because your previous self will surpass you...

3] Multiple layers to come in terms with

An average speaker speaks around 2.5 words per second. Map a note to a letter and a chord to a word; a pianist needs to be faster than that. She(he) needs to coordinate two hands and the right leg, to think about dynamics, tempo, small and superimposed phrases, timbre, articulation and many more. All this by heart. Try to write simultaneously two different sentences, one with each hand! I will not forget the first lessons I had recently when my teacher did five very critical remarks, all regarding a single measure i.e. four beats. I was trying to focus and implement one whereby forgetting the rest and so on.

4] Beauty lies in simplicity?

In our society, where simplicity, shallowness, fast food, easy to digest stuff dominate, piano and classical music teaches you to appreciate stuff that does not shine from the first glance and one needs to look behind the curtain, to put a substantial effort to become able to appreciate the beauty. Beauty lies in simplicity, but there is more than that.

5] Uncovering powers inside you

Isn't fascinating to discover that hands have their own memory and e.g. one cannot always write down on a piece of paper what hands have learnt to execute? Thought-provoking to have a closer look inside you. Besides, by properly (not only by hand which is prone to blackouts! ) memorizing, one discovers the great capacity of minds' memory. Is there a limit?

6] Confidence is overrated

Confidence comes from hard work and from the positive experiences resulting out of it. Period. Hard work and reinforcement and perception of success matters, not confidence as such.

7] Concentration and comfort zone

I never had at slightest underperformance at the moment when it ultimately mattered such as the written school leaving exams defining university entrance or at job interviews or conference talks. I cannot describe the stage fright and underperformance I have experienced in front of a handful of friendly parents and their kids listening to me. Although stage fright is generally recognized and usually people underperform on stage (that is why you have to learn the piece much better than you need to play it) I discovered a side of myself totally vulnerable, out of my comfort zone. And fighted. Also, the concentration you need at stage is a beast to conquer...

Now I can tell you, you will not bring me as easily as before out of control in all shorts of uncomfortable situations...

8] Time management and discipline

You need to practice smartly. What is more, every day practicing a bit is better than once in a while practicing a lot.

9] Emotional variety

Your emotional situation is not a straight line, develops more variety as the pieces you are practicing convey different emotions. I leave out the philosophical discussion whether this is desirable...