Reading Music
First: Sit up straight, right hand at middle C, while the left hand is an octave below. Fingers are on the correct keys.
Play the C major scale for 2 octaves, then play the A minor, D major scales.
Open your book of sheet music. Notes are meticulously written on the sides of the sheet with highlights of yellow, pink and green on the bars to tell yourself where the sharps, flats and your incorrect finger placements occur.
After playing the piano for more than a decade, it’s become more of a habit than a hobby. If I’ve reached a point in my studying on whatever biological concept I’m trying to understand, I head to the piano.
Sometimes I rather not read words, but music instead. The melody my fingers play drifts my thoughts away from “gastrulation represents the first phase where dramatic changes occur in the developing fetus”.
Depending on the difficulty of the concept I’m trying to study, I pick an “easier” piece to play, like Clementi’s Sonatina in C Major. If I want to completely block my scrambled thoughts, I tackle Chopin’s Nocturne Op. 55 No.1 in F Minor. If I really need to distance my thoughts, adding a metronome numbs my brain.
In the end, whatever piece I choose to play for that hour, I’m pulled into a dreamlike state. My eyes drift from page to page of sheet music, my foot occasionally stepping on the pedal to slur the notes and my mind into state of only sound.
Then my right fourth finger plays a high D. Just like an alarm clock, the dam of the real world opens and I close the piano and leave the room. My laptop, diagrams and embryo schematics cover the dining table. I focus on the chapter: Neurulation and the formation of the neural tube.
A post-it with “TUNE THE PIANO” sticks to my notebook, and I drown myself in embryonic development once again.
Frédéric Chopin — Nocturne Op. 55 No.1 in F Minor
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