What The Piano has Taught Me

As someone who's doing math every single day now, throughout my childhood, my most expensive education was not math, not science, not even English. It was my piano lessons. Being the typical Asian parent, my mom sent me to some music school when I was 3. According to her ( because I don't even remember going there at all ), I had to wait until I was a certain age before I could even start learning the piano in that school. Unable to see her child wasting money and time without making progress, at 5, I went to the piano teacher whom I stuck with for the next 11 years.

Her house was my 3rd home, the 1st and 2nd being my real home and the school. My siblings and I had lessons thrice weekly, each lasting for about 2 hours. As you can imagine, those years were decorated with lots, and lots, of tears and tantrums.

The piano taught me perseverance. Being too busy to practice? That's just an excuse. At the zenith of our piano journey, when the 3 of us had to take exams, my mother made us wake up early to practice scales, before morning sessions. I.e The 3 of us taking turns to play the piano in that 45 minutes before the buses came 1 by 1 at 6.45a.m. Every. Single. Morning. If you really want to do something, there shall be no excuse. Failing piano exams was not an option ( because the fees were so expensive, you'd be sinned if you did ). I almost gave up after grade 5, but purely because of the thought of not wanting to be stuck with a grade 5 cert after spending years playing the piano, I trudged on.

The piano taught me diligence. If even prodigies practice so hard, who are you not to? Whatever it is you want to achieve, you will have to commit Ling Ling 40 hours to it. Talent is a bonus, hard-work is a prerequisite.

Finally, it taught me anger management. I took my grade 8 exam when I was in form 4, and the months leading up to it were filled with tears. We had a "house concert" where my teacher's students play exam pieces in front of everybody else. It was so stressful, but also an effective way for us to improve because we didn't want to embarrass ourselves in front of our peers. I clearly remember I was asked to skip a piece during house concert because my fingers were too weak. In the end, I stormed out on the verge of tears. ( I didn't exactly storm, I sort of brisk walked with silent anger radiating in all directions.) As expected, I went to the toilet. It was the pinnacle of stress, I think NSC was sometime around there, with school exams coming up as well, along with the PCGHS Open preparation. I even broke down once or twice during piano classes. I was angry with myself, and my jelly-like fingers. But that taught me to keep my anger to myself, and analyse the problem instead of just getting pissed off at the world.

My piano teacher is the typical strict teacher. The highest compliment you can get from her is "not bad". If she says it's good, it's not. There are only 2 possibilities: one, she's totally given up on you, or secondly, your exam/performance is the next day and there's nothing she can do about it. So getting a "not bad" was like winning a lottery. Throughout the years, as I grew up into a more composed young lady, I saw children, 7 year-old kids, with their bags bigger than their bodies, shouting and whining with tears rolling down their cheeks, only to come out of the room to continue with their theory practice. I didn't know whether to laugh or commiserate with them because that was me, years ago.

My piano teacher was like another Asian parent. She was the stern, unyielding figure; the unique character who has things her way; the caress to kids, whip to children and mould to teenagers. As I observed her cats' growth, she witnessed mine. I never really thanked her enough, and never will, because this is real cheesy. She taught us music, not exam pieces. If not, the exams would've killed every inch of my interest in the piano.

On a side note, after 13 years of piano playing, I still can't play without a score. Ah well, it's a hobby after all.

~Carpe diem~