Kate and Piano, A Complicated Relationship

Hello, Dear Reader.

It's been a long, long time, but this Irreverent Blonde Girl would like to share a story about herself and the piano. Why? Because I need to work through some stuff, ok??!!

I started taking piano lessons when I was 5 or 6. I took weekly lessons (excepting summers) until I was 18. By the time I was 10, I would wake regularly at 5AM to deliver the Boston Globe to my neighbors and then come home to practice for an hour before school. I'd play the Westminster Chimes to wake everyone up at 6AM.

My first lessons were with Ms. X, whose name I cannot remember. In my memory, she is very tall, with ethereal, orange-colored hair, piercing blue eyes and a calm, accented voice. She lived in what felt like an extremely cloistered house in Needham. On my birthday, she gave me a Princess Diana paper doll book.

Second was Ms. Gordon. She was very calm, very patient, very steady. We spent an hour each week in a room in a church in Wellesley. She's the one who taught me Fur Elise (seriously do not understand the hype around this piece.) I was awkward and quiet and had braces. I think we ended our relationship with a Mozart Sonata when my mom determined that I needed someone to help me "get to the next level".

Third and final was Ms. Cramer, who was, as my mother would say, "an artist." Ms. Cramer didn't expect me to participate in piano competitions (she knew I was too petrified), but she did expect me to be superb. She would sit next to me, eyes closed, gently moving with the music. If I made a mistake, she would "tsk" loudly and sigh frustratedly. "No no Katie, not good. Like this. From here." She was exacting, strict and eccentric, and she made me good at the piano. She made me EXCELLENT (that isn't me playing).

My senior year in high school, I came out of a needless, annoying web of shyness and started actually enjoying some normal "teen" things. I started playing the guitar because I had a crush on my dad's guitar teacher, and before long was strumming the simple chords and singing Indigo Girls and Toad the Wet Sprocket songs at the top of my lungs in the basement playroom. The guitar was easy; the singing sublime.

But then came the pivotal moment. When I was 18, realizing that I was a grown up and actually had free will, I called Ms. Cramer and told her I didn't want to perform in the senior recital. The truth was, I hated performing in recitals. I wanted to spend more time playing the guitar and hanging out with my friends.

I'll never forget how her voice cut as she snapped, "I thought you were a special girl - a GOOD girl, but I was horribly wrong. You have disappointed me. I can't believe how much you are disappointing me."

You might say that this experience would have put me off piano, but it didn't. I have always and will always love it. I played some in college and I return to it every now and then, playing remnants of pieces I once mastered. One cannot deny though, that after high school, the piano ceased to be part of my life the way it was before.

Ever since that day, and increasingly with time, I have felt troubled about how my musical life has been falling away. I feel shame at the sound of my deteriorating singing voice, and have a hard time sitting down at the piano, overwhelmed by feelings of inadequacy. When I play now, a 17-year old version of myself looks on and judges. She says, "YOU SHOULD BE BETTER THAN THIS."

I've looked to the internet, trying to find someone like me, who was once pretty good and has now "let themselves go", to see if this person wrote a blog about it. Alas, I can't find this person, so I figured I would write this and see if anyone else out there feels like I do. 

PS: Writing this has helped me think. Here is what I have discovered about myself today:

When I was young, I felt a need to be better than every other pianist in my circle because piano was one of my only "things". This label and its weight is still with me. I am SUPPOSED to be a great pianist. And now I have fallen so far behind that I'll never live up to this expectation.

 

I can reframe this. What if my goal was not to be perfect, but instead to simply love and enjoy my instrument? In this scenario, there is no need for shame. Of course I am not the best, and I can take it on the cheek and "start from a new beginning", like my brother has explained. I am not the pianist I was when I was 17 years old. But I am still a pianist. I am the pianist I am now, who is rusty, but whose neural pathways are still very much alive. I feel them in there. I can return to it. I can climb my way back up that mountain.

 

Looking forward to your thoughts, my friends.

-IBG