It's hard to deny I have raw talent at music. I'm not a child prodigy, and I'm far from terrible, but I was the kid who didn't practice very hard and still did fairly well. I got to ride this wave for about 8-9 years until I was a teenager. Then there were advanced placement classes, my social life, dating, and everything else which I placed a higher priority than music. The thing was, I didn't love music. My teacher didn't teach me to love it. He taught me how to compete. How to play notes and rhythms on paper. And by the time high school reached its peak, competing lost its gleam.
Instead of shifting paths to maintain the ability and talent I had already achieved, he pushed me to compete more and learn more challenging pieces. Around 10th grade, he was asking me what I wanted to major in college. I mentioned something about psychology, and he would always come back with a comment about majoring in music, or minoring at least. I had no interest. By the end of it all, I didn't even care. One of my very last competitions, I completely bombed the performance and skipped the middle of the piece. My teacher missed all the signs and kept pushing and pushing.
And then I quit.
He sent me a very nasty email, one that still makes me cry to even think about the words he wrote. And that was it. I told myself from then on I never wanted to play piano again.
***
I didn't touch a piano for about six months. But then solo and ensemble was coming up and my friends asked if I would accompany them again. And I did because I wanted to. So I played again. This was fun for me. I liked making music with my friends. (And I liked earning money.) And that's how I played for the next five years. I liked accompanying so much that I would drive the 3.5 hours back on weekends during college, multiple weekends consecutively, to rehearse and perform. Between paying for gas and the money I earned, I probably netted half what I was actually making.
Occasionally when I was back at my dad's house with my piano, I would sit down and just play random pieces from my past. I'd pick a sonata here, or a piece there, and just sit and play. Most of it was rough sight-reading at best. It wasn't good playing, but I liked it. I found it fun. And when I was done, I stopped and resumed the rest of my day.
That's when I started to fall in love with music.
There was one student I accompanied who had amazing talent. Playing with him was like getting to relax and enjoy the music. I'd never played with someone so talented that I myself could begin to listen to the music instead of listening to follow. You have to understand, as an accompanist, you have to follow the soloist no matter how much they're crashing and burning. You crash and burn with them. If they're counting and suddenly skip 3 beats, you skip 3 beats with them. It's a very thankless and under appreciated job actually. The easiest jobs are the ones for the talented kids who play flawlessly. That's about less than 10% of the kids I've played for. The other 90%, I'm constantly on edge waiting to see if they make a mistake and then improvising on the spot to follow them. You can't enjoy the music when your mind is on tenterhooks to be prepared for anything.
I could enjoy the music when I played with him.
Accompanying was my side job for 16 years. I accompanied all the way until 2020 when the pandemic hit and I had a newborn.
***
When I think back, I'm quite thankful I didn't major in music. (I didn't major in psychology either, haha.) If I did, I would have realized how ill-prepared I actually was. My teacher taught me virtually nothing besides reading music and playing piano. My senior year in high school, I took AP Music Theory. After the first few days in class, I was so intimidated because I felt like I knew nothing despite my 12 years of piano studies. I had one friend in the class who helped me through the entire year. The problem was, although I had played all of the concepts we were learning in music theory in my various piano experiences, I didn't know what they were called in music theory. I knew CEG and EGC and GCE chords, but I couldn't explain to you what a root chord, first inversion, or second inversion was. My friend would patiently explain these things to me and demonstrate on the piano keys during class to help me understand everything from a theory perspective.
Before the real AP exam, we had a practice test in Irving. The night before, I stupidly stayed awake on the phone talking to a friend until 4 a.m.. I woke up at 6 a.m. to get ready and drive to the school by 7 a.m. for the test. A four hour test. I took that test on two hours of sleep and still somehow managed to get a 5. (Yes, I got a 5 on the real test as well and did not stupidly stay awake all night talking on the phone the night before.)
***
The piano ability I have now as an adult is only about 70-80% of what it used to be. But my musical ability and appreciation is 150% of what it used to be. A lot of it can be attributed to age. I understand and know things now which I could not with the maturity of a 17-year-old. I understand what it means to listen and hear nuances in touch, tone, articulation, which I could not as a talented teenager. Looking back, I wish someone could have spoken some real truth to me before I decided to quit. I wish someone could have told me how talented I was and how gifted I was and how well I played. I wish they could have explained to me ways I could have maintained my talent and pursued things I wanted to do with it instead of pushing me to keep competing. I wish someone had encouraged me to record myself playing more at my peak because those audios would be invaluable for the future. And I wish they would have told me to record it anyway even if it wasn't perfect. Because there was no guarantee I would be able to play it again.
When I passed my music teacher certification exam, I could finally tell myself despite what my teacher did not develop within me, and perhaps even ruined a desire for, I was able to find it myself.
I had a piano teacher in my adult life for a very brief amount of time. In our conversation, I implied I felt I didn't learn very much from my teacher. He told me, "[Your teacher] taught you everything you know." I just gave him a sad smile and didn't respond.
My teacher passed on a lot of information to me. I won't deny that. However, I don't give him credit for everything I know today. What I know today is how to listen to sound, how to create it, and how to fall in love with it.
I didn't learn that from him.
:-)
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