Quietly Alive

Piano, as a word, comes from Italian, meaning “quiet” or “softly”. The beautiful instrument is actually called the pianoforte, meaning “soft loud”. It was the first of the keyed instruments to respond to touch.

Touch is something I treasure about pianos. They swell and demand, they suckle and carress, they scream and cry, they sigh and murmur, they hum and vibrate; the playing of them is so closely tied to happiness for me that I have no words for the feeling I get playing piano.

A piano is a a tender lover and an open hearted friend.

What would I do without it? How would I release the tension, the happiness, the grief, the passion that I feel when I sit at the piano and play? What could possibly bring me to those same heights?

Today I played Schumann’s ‘Phantasietanz’ better than I ever have. Now, I play this piece at about half its intended tempo (speed). I played up the dynamics of it, in order to best wrench every drop of feeling from the piece. And when I play it that way, I discover as it is being wrung from me that it feels like a child, standing in an open airy white ballroom, swaying with an overpowering urge to dance with the adults. Not quite like a full-on wild heathen dance the way it does a tempo.

I reserve the right to shift the pieces I play so they most harmonize with my soul.

The great composers are closer to me than any man ever has been. Schumann for grief, Beethoven for loss, Bach for tempestuous feeling, Chopin for beautiful elation, Mozart for vibrant happiness. The list of my “favorite” pieces goes on, constantly shifting, depending on where I’m at as a person and what my mood is.

I quietly feel all that I express, all that I play. I am driven to tears, to laughter, to stormy-skied eyes, to bliss, all because I sit at the piano and I allow my emotions to gain the upper hand.

Nothing else in my life has ever come close to creating as powerful a resonance within my core as the last fading bars of a well-wrought piece of music. It makes me feel more alive than anything else I do.