Bach and Haydn and Mozart, Oh My!
Twelve years ago, if someone had told me that I would one day miss sitting down at the piano and paying my tribute to legends like Haydn and Gershwin, I would have probably laughed. Out loud. After all, commands like, "Even if the world collapses, you will continue to practice," only made me want to go running in the opposite direction. Key word: Want. Actually running in the opposite direction would have meant receiving an F when Wednesday 6 PM rolled around. An F that would bleed through the next three pages of my notebook and be engraved in the next 40. And those were only the visual repercussions. There were auditory and emotional ones as well.
While I've never felt more accomplished than when I received a compliment from my piano teacher, the stress and borderline trauma that went into the "means" made me question whether all's really well that ends well. Forced (by parents and fear) to practice only made me dread the baby grand that seemed to stick out like a sore thumb in my living room.
Fast forward to today when I find myself voluntarily adjusting the bench and dusting off some Bach, when my "Practice now, homework later" mother is telling me to stop, when the black and white keys unlock my emotions, allowing me to recuperate and de-stress, rather than being the cause for my needing to do so.
Most of my knowledge regarding force (which isn't very much to being with) has to do with springs. I know that you can press the ends of the spring together, but when you press too hard, it just springs out of your hand. To force someone to do something is often a waste of energy and occasionally illegal. After a certain point, it just has to come from within. Passion is not a transitive property. You can't force yourself to be a musical genius. It's not just the arts. You can't force yourself to have fun. You can't force a person to be friends with you. You can't force yourself to be good at math. It's academia, it's choices, it's interpersonal relations, it's life.
When we're forced to do it, it is lackluster. It is void of our natural sparkle. It is not worth it, and we are arguably worse at it.
Last semester in my linguistics class, we broke language all the way down to the smallest unit of sound. In one exercise, we were to create a rule for the plural of different words. I was sitting with my TA mulling over the word "sheep." "Okay," she said, "Now draw the form of its plural." It's not everyday I sit around thinking about the plural of sheep. I looked down at my paper for a minute, then penciled the tree and handed it to her. She looked at me questioningly. "How do you pronounce the plural of sheep?" "Sheep plus s...so sheeps?" I muttered. "Really? Think about it!" After some chin stroking and eye rubbing, I realized...and felt rather sheepish. Being forced to think about these intricate phonological rules, I simply couldn't bring myself to see the big picture, and one that I know like the back of my hand at that. The plural of sheep is well, sheep.
Not so obviously, I'm glad my parents forced me through those initial years. But I'm also glad they knew when to stop. I was given a proper formation but also the choice as to how I would go about utilizing it. And it's the template for every single one of my choices and decisions today.
You can lead a horse to the water. You can gently pull his head down towards the water. But that's about it. You pull anymore and he will be splashing around or gasping for air trying not to drown. Both ways, he still won't be drinking.
While I've never felt more accomplished than when I received a compliment from my piano teacher, the stress and borderline trauma that went into the "means" made me question whether all's really well that ends well. Forced (by parents and fear) to practice only made me dread the baby grand that seemed to stick out like a sore thumb in my living room.
Fast forward to today when I find myself voluntarily adjusting the bench and dusting off some Bach, when my "Practice now, homework later" mother is telling me to stop, when the black and white keys unlock my emotions, allowing me to recuperate and de-stress, rather than being the cause for my needing to do so.
Most of my knowledge regarding force (which isn't very much to being with) has to do with springs. I know that you can press the ends of the spring together, but when you press too hard, it just springs out of your hand. To force someone to do something is often a waste of energy and occasionally illegal. After a certain point, it just has to come from within. Passion is not a transitive property. You can't force yourself to be a musical genius. It's not just the arts. You can't force yourself to have fun. You can't force a person to be friends with you. You can't force yourself to be good at math. It's academia, it's choices, it's interpersonal relations, it's life.
When we're forced to do it, it is lackluster. It is void of our natural sparkle. It is not worth it, and we are arguably worse at it.
Last semester in my linguistics class, we broke language all the way down to the smallest unit of sound. In one exercise, we were to create a rule for the plural of different words. I was sitting with my TA mulling over the word "sheep." "Okay," she said, "Now draw the form of its plural." It's not everyday I sit around thinking about the plural of sheep. I looked down at my paper for a minute, then penciled the tree and handed it to her. She looked at me questioningly. "How do you pronounce the plural of sheep?" "Sheep plus s...so sheeps?" I muttered. "Really? Think about it!" After some chin stroking and eye rubbing, I realized...and felt rather sheepish. Being forced to think about these intricate phonological rules, I simply couldn't bring myself to see the big picture, and one that I know like the back of my hand at that. The plural of sheep is well, sheep.
Not so obviously, I'm glad my parents forced me through those initial years. But I'm also glad they knew when to stop. I was given a proper formation but also the choice as to how I would go about utilizing it. And it's the template for every single one of my choices and decisions today.
You can lead a horse to the water. You can gently pull his head down towards the water. But that's about it. You pull anymore and he will be splashing around or gasping for air trying not to drown. Both ways, he still won't be drinking.
Comments