(credits to Yuumei for header image)
The piano has always been my favorite instrument ever since I was young. There was always something magical about how the piano plays. It’s perhaps one of the few instruments that works best as a solo.
As I often like to point out, sometimes words alone are not enough to express our thoughts. Art has always been a great medium to not only transcend this limitation, but to also go beyond and do more than to just express our thoughts but to literally show our thoughts.
Ever since I was little, I always had trouble being able to express myself properly. I had to attend “speech” classes when I was in elementary school in order for me to learn how to speak properly. I have to attribute my inability to my ADHD. Due to this disability, I was unable to properly focus and often lost priority of what needed attention. Fast forward to when I was around 14 years old. I still loved the piano and was finally taking lessons for it. However, as time progressed, it felt more as though I was being simply told to follow a book rather than actually being taught. To be fair, it did help and the teacher gave a lot of useful tips for playing the piano. Unfortunately, it felt as though I wasn’t really learning anything but instead, getting more skilled through the simple act of practicing. Perhaps that was the point. If it was, then I probably should practice
In the end, I stopped going to the lessons and played any song that interested me. I had a lot of fun trying to learn a variety of songs, but I was never devoted enough to really learn many. I do have to blame my impatience and my inability to focus long enough to learn a song.
Due to the lack of practice, I’ve lost memory on how to play a lot of songs now. I can still remember a few vaguely. There would be a few sections of a piece that I’d remember how to play while the rest is forgotten. It’s just a little saddening that one, the piano needs tuning and two, any time I really have any time to put effort into the piano is late at night when everyone is sleeping. I may invest in an electric piano but that would be in the very far distant future. It’s not something I would prioritize for now.
If there is one thing that I will always appreciate about the piano is that it sincerely brings me peace. When I finally can play a song that I know and love, there is a extreme sense of serenity and calmness. I used to scoff at how some people would play the piano but being someone who knows how to play a little, I can fully understand why some of them play the way they do. When you play the piano, you really do become one with the song and the piano. It’s almost as though the more emotion you put through your fingertips into the piano, the more dynamic and earnest the song ends up feeling.
Nevertheless, I believe the piano is one of the few instruments I will never really drop” and stop practicing. The ability to play music has such a phenomenal effect on a person. Even watching someone play the piano is enchanting. The emotions, the power, the sincerity that you feel is what I have loved and will always love about the piano.
“Individuals . . . frequently appear to have deficits in paying attention to auditory information. They frequently have to be trained to pay attention to sounds. Even when they are paying attention, many [such] individuals . . . seem to have difficulty in decoding what sounds mean and in matching them to words or thoughts.”
This article is great regarding the stuff you talked about … hope it helps! http://www.iancommunity.org/cs/articles/speech_and_language_problems