Let the music be your guide
Give and take. Speaking and listening. Nothing replaces the magic of a good conversation between friends. We’re heard and we listen and because of the communication between us, both parties walk away with their worlds a little bigger and a little warmer.
Sadly, these kinds of conversations are becoming rare. We’re still talking but we’ve stopped listening. Armed with an insular sense of righteousness we broadcast our I-Me-Mine thoughts to the world, never taking the time to absorb others’ opinions or experiences. Potentially rich exchanges are cheapened and we find ourselves living in a combative world of transactional relationships.
The effects of our one-sidedness spills over into our relationship with the music we play. We filter what we find in the score through our personal understanding of the music and we approach the piece thinking we can mold it into a vehicle that showcases ourselves and our ideas. Rather than politely taking the time to get to know this new musical friend, we only ask what the music can do for us, not what we might learn from our encounter with it.This is discourteous to both the music and the composer who wrote it. Our self-centric thinking robs us of the riches the music can teach us as players and as human beings if we’d only learn to listen to it rather than ourselves. Conversely, when we approach the music with curiosity and humility, we find that surprises await us everywhere—even in pieces we’ve played for years.
Like any good friendship, becoming friends with a piece of music is a long conversation, not a one-way monologue. We don’t get to do all the communicating and neither does the composer. The magic happens in the dialogue that is established every time we play the piece. The notes are the language. The score decides the topics of conversation. In the most convivial situations, the music sparks new ideas in us, and we (conversely) tease out novel discoveries in the notes that perhaps others haven’t uncovered.
Hiding behind the notes of every composition is the composer. In the structure of the piece we find an imprint of who they are and how they perceived music and life. Part of becoming friends with a piece of music requires us to feel a sense of connection with the composer who wrote it. Getting to know a composer is much like making friends away from the piano; there are composers with whom we just “click” and others we can’t connect with in a meaningful way. A lifetime of playing the piano has convinced me that without a sense of connection to the composer we won’t play their compositions well—regardless of how highly we may esteem the music they wrote. Why? Because it’s nearly impossible to force communication without common ground.
The composers we do play well humble us with their brilliance. They push us to hone our thinking and playing. They open new avenues of thought and make our worlds deeper and richer. Some of them refuse to give up their riches until we’ve done our homework but with patience and diligent practice they always lead us home to a deeper understanding of the music and a deeper connection with ourselves.
It’s too easy to approach the piano with conquest as the goal. But when we do, we’re like tourists who breeze in, stomp around taking pictures, and then leave with no understanding of what we’ve seen or where we’ve been. When we play with patience and humility, we enter into the music in ways we never imagined. All that’s required is for us to stop pushing our ideas on the piece and start listening to what the music and the composer can teach us. When we do this, the music stops being I-Me-Mine and becomes universal in a way that invites everyone into the conversation.
Photo by Katie Hoehl, courtesy of UpSplash