J- is also learning how to play the piano. She’s starting in grade 1 so that she can practise reading the notes. J- plays the piano like I type QWERTY: untutored, we hit the keys with whichever finger is closest, which is fine for pecking things out, but which can be limiting. I fixed that on the computer keyboard by switching to Dvorak and going through self-paced training exercises. Since you can’t exactly re-layout a piano keyboard to rejig your mental connections, there’s nothing to do but to unlearn those habits and then learn new ones.

I’m working on dynamics, tempo, and getting the hang of thinking in these different keys. I play the piano like I program. I get carried away by the fun and easy bits, and then I slow down for the parts I have to think about some more. One of the tricks with piano is to slow down even for the parts that you’ve figured out so that you can play at a sustainable pace throughout. Hmm. Maybe that’s like life, too.

Good mental exercise. Glad I’m doing it. Going for lessons (actual paid-for lessons that take up a chunk of my day, with exercises and homework I’m accountable for!) looks like it’s helping.

You can view 1 comment or e-mail me at sacha@sachachua.com.

I was nervous. It was hard to remember to hit the keys and breathe. I’m sure I’ll get the hang of both over time.

My homework: the first part of the overture from the opera “Raymond”. This is the part that sounds like this:

… except I sound more like clompclompclomp-“How do I get my right hand to play a slur while my left hand is playing staccato!?”-clompclompslurclomp-WHEEZE-“Right, must remember to breathe”-clompclompclomp-“Oops!”–clompclompclompclomp.

Well, everyone’s gotta start somewhere. =)

You can view 1 comment or e-mail me at sacha@sachachua.com.

Music is like math or programming or language: a game of practising seemingly disjointed pieces that slowly come together into fluency. She practises on her own, running through the melodies of computer games and classical music. She’s starting to get those experiences of flow, I think. Sometimes I take a break to help her through a difficult chord or play a sequence for her, and then she’s off again.

Maybe that’s one of the reasons why people encourage kids to get into music – those early experiences of being good at something, being able to turn imagination into experience. 

Me, I wouldn’t mind brushing up on lessons and getting better at playing. I sometimes help J- with the tougher parts of music, and I do enjoy being able to play some of my favourites. Looking forward to sharing stories!

You can view 3 comments or e-mail me at sacha@sachachua.com.

My parents arranged piano lessons for us when we were kids. I didn’t enjoy that nearly as much. The pieces were unfamiliar, and the rules of piano-playing seemed so strange. Read the notes, play the drills, curve the fingers. One piano teacher kept scolding me because I didn’t read the notes–but that was because I had figured out the pattern of the simple exercises we were doing, and my restless eyes couldn’t keep still.

Fast forward a decade or two, and now it’s one of the things that makes me smile. I like being able to play simple arrangements of Moonlight Sonata and The Entertainer from memory. I’m currently working on learning Prelude: Op. 28 No. 6 by Chopin (PDF, Mutopia link). It’s one of W-‘s favorites. I’ve been looping over his CD of Vladimir Horowitz (A Reminiscence) playing that and other beautiful pieces, and I’ve been slowly making progress on learning the piece. I can do the left hand with a few pauses, and I’m learning the right hand chords. The timing reminds me of The Entertainer, although the prelude is more complex and it’ll be a while before I can do the proper dynamics.

What I enjoy the most about learning how to play the piano is being able to chunk more and more complex segments: first notes, then chords, then phrases, and then eventually even the pattern of a piece. I love the instant feedback of knowing how close you are to doing things right, and the gradual improvement of playing a piece very slowly and then speeding up as I become more familiar with the way my hands must move. It is a welcome break after work, or even sometimes during the work day if I need to perk myself up. Playing the pieces that I’ve learned reinforces that feeling of competence, while working on the piece that I’m learning reinforces the joy of experimentation and growth.

Another reason why I enjoy playing the piano is that I also end up inspiring J- to experiment with it, to play music and to play with music. When I sit down at the piano, she invariably comes to listen. I move to the left so that she can sit on the piano bench, and I help her practice a few pieces she wants to learn. I mostly just point to the notes on the sheet to help her keep track of where she is, and sometimes I’ll play passages for her. This turns it into a bit of a memory game, too.

She told me I’m a better music teacher than the last one she had. Me, I just want to help her get even deeper into the joy of learning. =) And it pays off. Sometimes, when W- and I are working in the kitchen, we hear the faint strains of someone figuring out a new piece of music–from one of the piano books lying around, or from her memory.

These experiences would be much more difficult to have if we didn’t have a piano in the house. Now that I’m starting to get the hang of it, I wish I’d opened up and let myself try it sooner, on the piano in my parents’ house. But maybe I needed to listen to a lot more music in order to enjoy playing it, and now that I can play a little bit, I’ll enjoy listening to music even more.

You can view 1 comment or e-mail me at sacha@sachachua.com.