My Confession

Here's my confession of the night:  I am better when I practice the piano consistently.  Now, you may say to yourself, "well duh."  Let me clarify myself.  Sure, I am a better pianist and musician when I practice every day - that's a well-known fact applicable to everyone.  I am talking about being a better human being.  I am kinder, more forgiving, have more patience, more focused, more determined, more hopeful.  It's taken me a long time to see this in myself.  The piano brings out the best in me.  I always thought that I'd rather be known for something else than playing the piano but really, it's such a big part of me that it's hard to separate at times.  From the time I was young, I was always picked on to play the piano.  Now, I realize what a special gift that is to have.  I still have a hard time not brushing off people who compliment me on my playing but I'm working on that.  Playing the piano has taught me how to work hard, set goals, be in control.  Would I go back and change that?  Never.  I would be changing a fundamental piece of me.  It may have taken me a long time to see it but the piano and the gravity I feel toward it and classical music is a big part of who I am and who I will be in the future.

I want to share with you a piece I am considering learning.  I fell in love with it not too long ago.  I've heard it many, many times but not until recently has it struck a chord with me.  This youtube video has no video but listen to the audio.  It's incredible - as is the pianist Claudio Arrau - one of my favorites.  Here's Liszt's Transcendental Etude No. 11:  Harmonies du soir.

“Music embodies feeling without forcing it to contend and combine with thought, as it is forced in most arts and especially in the art of words.  If music has one advantage over the other media through which a person can represent the impressions of the soul, it owes this to its supreme capacity to make each inner impulse without the assistance of reason... Music presents at once the intensity and the expression of feeling.  It is the embodied and intelligible essence of feeling, capable of being apprehended by our senses.  It permeates them like a dart, like a ray, like a mist, like a spirit, and fills our soul.” - Franz Liszt