Philosophical thoughts about the piano, rhythm, and C Major

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Sometimes when I’m staring down the barrel of various impending performances, I find myself rhetorically thinking, “Why do I do this?” And because it’s me and I get philosophical and existential about everything, I actually start thinking non-rhetorically, “Yeah, why do I do this?”

As a high schooler I decided to just go for it and go to music school because I couldn’t see myself ever not playing music, but also for so many other reasons that have changed over time. I loved the adrenaline and endorphin rush of banging away at the piano with all the fury and passion that only a teenager has (multiple teachers later, very patiently, worked me down and taught me to care about things like “tone” and “not hurting people’s ears,” and then I left my early 20s and realized that my body no longer supports activities like pounding indiscriminately away at the piano for hours without any regard for my wrists). I loved that playing the piano, particularly playing the piano well, got me attention. I loved being high on the snobbish superiority of making capital-A Art. I loved that, at an age when Expressing Yourself is of utmost importance, music gave me an outlet to do just that.

My reasons for playing the piano—and maintaining priorities in my life to continue playing the piano, now that I am an adult [citation needed] and have responsibilities—are very different now. I don’t love getting attention the same way I used to, but I do love how playing music gives me a chance to be known without necessarily being seen (or is it the other way around? I’m still figuring that out). I love that the piano is a refuge from the chaos and cruelty and violence of the world and that in my little kingdom of the keyboard, I am able to have control—of sound, of time*—and that painstakingly shading the voicing of a chord or evening out a run gives me the satisfaction of temporarily bringing a moment of balance into the universe. I love that making music gives me a routine, stretches my abilities of focus and memory, and forces me to learn to have faith in myself.