I don't know if this is normal or not, but I go through life with a near-perpetual soundtrack playing in my head, with small rests along the way for particularly dramatic moments. When I was younger I used to imagine my life as a movie and tried to figure out what pop song would play during the credits; I usually came up with something pretty cheesy. Anyway, on to the point of this post: playing the piano.
Playing the piano has gone from being a chore while in school to an absolutely amazing form of stress relief. After a particularly trying day, I can sit at the piano for an hour or two just playing some of my favorite songs. Like today. I transitioned from the classical (Fur Elise) to the sappy pop (Kelly Clarkson's Because of You) to the angsty teen (Something Corporate's Konstantine has an amazing piano part) to the movie scores (Theme from Romeo and Juliet and the Theme from Jurassic Park). But a weird thing happened while playing the piano today. The Jurassic Park theme has always been one of my favorite songs, but I would always have to stop halfway through because the music got too difficult. Until today.
You see, I forgot to stop playing and just kept going, and I actually made it all the way through the song. There were a few hiccups here and there while my fingers learned chord progressions for the first time, but they figured it out and on my second run through the music (did I mention it was my favorite?) there was almost no break between the old parts I knew well and the new parts I just learned. By the third and fourth run-through, I was playing one complete song. I was shocked.
This isn't the first time I've noticed that I became a better piano player when it became an activity I did because I wanted to and not because I had a lesson coming up. I play a mean Moonlight Sonata (don't question my choice of adjective here...just roll with it) now too. I'm excited to see what other songs that used to flummox me will suddenly become easier.
The one thing that I can't yet do is just sit down and play, without seeing music first. I really wish I could just let my fingers fly and see what comes out, but it never works for me the way I imagine it in my head. I suppose the soundtrack to my life movie--since I obviously will have to play it myself--will be an eclectic selection of music capped by the Theme from Jurassic Park. I wonder what it would take to get John Williams to score my life movie....
For anyone NOT familiar with the Jurassic Park theme, I'm not sure how we can be friends, but here it is for you. This definitely makes me happy (the part beginning at 0:47 is perhaps the best few bars of music ever written, in my opinion):
Playing the piano has gone from being a chore while in school to an absolutely amazing form of stress relief. After a particularly trying day, I can sit at the piano for an hour or two just playing some of my favorite songs. Like today. I transitioned from the classical (Fur Elise) to the sappy pop (Kelly Clarkson's Because of You) to the angsty teen (Something Corporate's Konstantine has an amazing piano part) to the movie scores (Theme from Romeo and Juliet and the Theme from Jurassic Park). But a weird thing happened while playing the piano today. The Jurassic Park theme has always been one of my favorite songs, but I would always have to stop halfway through because the music got too difficult. Until today.
You see, I forgot to stop playing and just kept going, and I actually made it all the way through the song. There were a few hiccups here and there while my fingers learned chord progressions for the first time, but they figured it out and on my second run through the music (did I mention it was my favorite?) there was almost no break between the old parts I knew well and the new parts I just learned. By the third and fourth run-through, I was playing one complete song. I was shocked.
This isn't the first time I've noticed that I became a better piano player when it became an activity I did because I wanted to and not because I had a lesson coming up. I play a mean Moonlight Sonata (don't question my choice of adjective here...just roll with it) now too. I'm excited to see what other songs that used to flummox me will suddenly become easier.
The one thing that I can't yet do is just sit down and play, without seeing music first. I really wish I could just let my fingers fly and see what comes out, but it never works for me the way I imagine it in my head. I suppose the soundtrack to my life movie--since I obviously will have to play it myself--will be an eclectic selection of music capped by the Theme from Jurassic Park. I wonder what it would take to get John Williams to score my life movie....
For anyone NOT familiar with the Jurassic Park theme, I'm not sure how we can be friends, but here it is for you. This definitely makes me happy (the part beginning at 0:47 is perhaps the best few bars of music ever written, in my opinion):
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