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I sucked. I had played for over a decade, but my fingers still plunked
piano keys with the precision of bratwursts. And Ive never taken a
lesson! I would brag.
I started messing around on piano in junior high under the guidance of
my dad, who introduced me to scales and chords on our familys piano.
I developed an ear for melodies by obsessively deconstructing songs
by Linkin Park. My techniquewhat little I hadwas derived from
YouTube tutorials and the muse of Mike Shinoda.
When I graduated from college, my gift was a beautiful Yamaha
keyboard. Between long hours at work and a barrage of personal
experiments, its beauty was mostly ornamental; its keys covered in
dust.
I was stuck. When I did sit down to play, the adolescent joy flowed,
only to be stymied by mid-twenties cynicism. Id hear myself hit wrong
note after wrong note, and think, Dude, for as long as youve been
playing, youre still terrible.
If theres one thing I suck at, its accepting my suckiness. At the start
of 2015, I made a New Years Resolution: Give a piano recital.
I initially attempted to learn my own way. In university, I taught myself
entire math courses from the textbook. Piano would be no different
just another lesson from Professor Alex Korchinski.
I decided that Id ease back into piano by learning Blank Space by
Taylor Swift (how my musical taste has grown since junior high). I
figured out the song by ear and memorized it. When I played it for
friends, they all had the same reaction: Not bad.
The implication? Not bad for someone who did it all on their own. Not
bad for someone with no formal training. Not bad for an amateur.
But it certainly wasnt good. No matter how much I practiced, my
performances still stunk of mediocrity. My technique was abysmal; my
hands moved at the speed of an arthritic octogenarians.
If I wanted to do thisto not just play piano, but to perform pianoI
had to swallow my pride and learn from someone other than myself.
At the age of 26, I decided to take my first lesson. I chose McCallister
Music Studio, which seemed nearly perfect: they had a 5-star Yelp
To realize that people remember the right notes, not the wrong ones.