What Studying Classical Piano Taught Me (Thus Far)
Every Thursday I have a lesson. I’ve had three main piano teachers over my “career,” for lack of a better word, as a classical pianist. Over the best decade and half — the time since I first started fastidiously writing out quarter- and half-notes on scratch paper and was introduced to my first few phrases of Italian — I have had other teachers (voice, trumpet, percussion, jazz, theory, composition, history, counterpoint, analysis, even one for studying the tabla) and other days of the week for my lessons, but piano has been the mainstay. Every Thursday I have somewhere to be and something to do.
The thing with piano lessons is that they force certain paradigms to calcify in you, ones of self-direction, humility, and perseverance. Some of the most modest, diligent people I know are classical musicians, because they know that no matter how good they might think they’ve done, there’s always minutia to critique, and miles to improve. This is what makes studying classical music so exciting (and at times maddening): the goal can be so nebulous.
Taking piano lessons forces children to understand the nature of deliverables and of accountability. When your teacher asks you if you’re practised this week, he’ll know if you’re lying to him. When she writes in your workbook “learn the left hand for next week,” you know you’ve got at least ten hours of work in front of you.
Studying piano also forces you to be methodical in your practice. As Liszt once said, “think ten times, play once.” My own teacher has a maxim: practice smart, not hard. Often, at the conservatory, I’d hear kids boast about how they’d practised fifteen hours and until their hands had bled (full discretion, this once happened to me when trying to practise an extra tricky passage — maybe Bartok or Rachmaninov — and when I told my teacher she scolded me for it). These stories — including ones as horrific as my friend telling me that her first teacher had forced her as a kid to cut the webbing of her hands in order to reach larger intervals — are saddening to me, and are representative only of the most masochistic stereotypes belonging to classical music. In truth, studying piano helps students understand how to think through problems — like, “how am I going to play this?” — as algorithms, and to time-manage. I know that if I have fifteen minutes and one passage to practise, I better get to work, and do it thoughtfully.
Another thing that musicians gain is listening-skills. We are forced to work in different groups, with different organizations structures — some clearly hierarchical, like the orchestra, some flatter and holocratic, like the string quartet and the piano trio — and with different goals. I worked with a friend of mine on two pieces: a double concerto for violin and piano with a string orchestra and conductor, and the more intimate, more collaboratively egalitarian Franck sonata.
Both of us understood implicitly that our roles were different in the different contexts. As soloists, we had to lead an orchestra, listen to one another, and engender a conversation between each other and the conductor. In the latter, we had to listen and collaborate through a much more intimate vocabulary, and to synchronize even each breath. I liken this to the time when students become leaders in future industries, and they will have opportunities when they are leading companies and boardrooms, and times when they will have to work in a small, intimate team. Just because the deliverables aren’t on stage in concert doesn’t mean that the soft skills aren’t transferable; they are.
In fact, a friend of mine just recently competed in the International Chopin Piano Competition. This competition is for young professionals — the best in the business concerning the fiery pyrotechnics of concert pianism. This competition has a sister competition: The Chopin Piano Competition for Amateurs. These amateurs are in many cases as skilled as professional performers; only, they also hold day jobs, usually serious professions like lawyers, mathematicians, and computer scientists. I’m sure the two endeavours complement one another. Law schools and medical schools often smile upon applicants who boast diplomas from music conservatories and years of music lessons and other similar activities, like ballet, karate, and sport. All of these things require mental, physical, and emotional focus and effort, and make for more rounded, more sensitive students.
My advice to young children is to take up an instrument, not just for the aforementioned benefits, but because playing an instrument is a lot of fun. Through music, I have gotten a leg up on my foreign language learning, made some amazing friends, been able to travel and meet interesting people, and become a better listener to my colleagues. But I have also had the chance to rock out to the most incendiary metal music 1950s Soviet-era Russia has ever seen, and for that I am grateful. Most of all, I have had, for over a decade now, a place to be every Thursday.
If you’re a parent, not only will enrolling your child in music lessons be good for their development and acumen, but, if nothing else comes of your child’s music lessons, they’ll free up your Thursdays.
