Music is Life: What Chopin’s Polonaise-Fantaisie, Op. 61 Has Taught Me About Being Human

(Wherein I reveal that I am, indeed, a music nerd, and maybe I think too much, and I most definitely feel too much… but I wouldn’t have it any other way.)

It has been said that life imitates art... and art imitates life.

For me, it's a bit different. For me, it's more that music sometimes helps us make sense of life, when nothing else does.

When I was growing up, I had a cassette tape of Vladimir Horowitz playing Chopin pieces. The second song on side two was the piece I was working on at the time. It’s a famous Nocturne: Op. 9 No. 2. Everyone recognizes it when those first notes echo from the keys.

But getting to the second song on side B meant I had to fast forward through or listen to the first piece: Polonaise-Fantaisie, Op. 61.

The piece is 13 minutes long, so I really didn’t want to listen to it.

Ever.

In fact, I hated this piece. I loathed it so much that I actually ended up recording the nocturne I needed on a different tape, just so I wouldn’t have to constantly fast-forward through this annoying 13 minute piece that just seemed like it noodled on forever and ever.

But since I occasionally listened to other pieces on that cassette, I would run across those 13 minutes now and again.

And I caught myself, over time, listening to snippets of this monstrosity.

And slowly, I found that maybe I didn’t really hate it.

It really confused me, though.

It started out with a bang… even sounded a bit grandiose in parts, and playful in other parts, with some great melodies—some chord progressions that evoked feelings of sadness and tragedy within me—and a few fun passages here and there, all within the first seven and a half minutes.

The main problem, though, was that aside from the interesting bits, it mostly noodled around and seemed to have no real purpose. It felt those notes and phrases were lost, waiting to be put into some type of order. That was incredibly frustrating, and I realized that’s what drove me mad about the piece.

It just didn’t make any sense.

And then…

Then, I heard the silence for the first time. In that silence, around 7 minutes, 45 seconds* into the piece, Chopin stops to take a breath, so that it’s ever-so-gently pronounced that he’s brilliantly introducing an entirely new melody.

Chopin was a rule breaker, indeed. Between Chopin and Beethoven breaking all the rules of composition back in the day, I’m surprised Classical music remained “Classical” for as long as it did.

This melody captivates me. It takes my breath away, every time.

What moves me even more, though, is how close it is to the end of the piece.

It’s almost as if the first two thirds of the piece is this frustrated build-up so that by the time you hear this melody, nothing in the world sounds more beautiful.

From this point forward, the piece is a brewing, barely-bridled pool of passion that begins to ooze out and then explode across the remaining pages. This piece turns into the most romantic love story for about three minutes… and then the ending is just… berserk.

This piece is strong. It makes a statement. You’re either going to love it, or hate it… or hate it and then love it, like me.

Because the ending of this piece is nothing short of absolute, 100% brilliance. It’s almost impossible to play accurately at the speed you’re supposed to play it, with the amount of conviction it takes to pull it off. You’ve just been playing for nearly 13 minutes, so your hands and arms are tired. But Chopin didn’t care… he had a story to tell (there's a lesson there).

The last two minutes of this piece are gushing with the most unadulterated, pure JOY spilling off the page, across the piano, onto the floor, splashing your face, and every time I hear it, I want to get up from whatever I’m doing and live the life that exists within this music.

It’s just that compelling to me… but maybe because I’ve heard it hundreds of times over the years, and it’s grown on me. I actually sat down and analyzed the entire piece one time, chord by chord, phrase by phrase, because it confused me so much why I feel such a visceral reaction every time I listen to it.

And through all of that analysis, I came to realize something.

This piece represents life.

My life.

I felt so lost for the first part of my life. I felt like I was just noodling around, without any real purpose. I had some amazing moments of intense joy and conversely, deep sorrow. But mostly it was full of noodling seemingly pointlessly from day to day (or note to note).

And then, I woke up… about 7 minutes, 45 seconds in…

And I have been living a life of learning… struggling with how to be in the moment, and be truly open to feeling, even when it hurts… even when it’s hard… even when the pain is so intense I want to claw my eyes out because that would hurt less, and at least then I could point to the tangible cause.

But the moments of joy I have are deeply satisfying and real. The moments of pain are pivotal for me, and my life is richer because of them.

And my ending?

Well… I already know I’m going out with a bang. I already know that the ending of my life is going to be the best…

Don’t ask me how I know… it’s more a feeling I get, I guess, rather than knowledge.

So when I have days like I’ve had today… and weeks like I’ve had this week… when all I want is to hide under the covers until the pain is gone… the pain I feel because my very soul—open and exposed, was gazed upon and then ultimately rejected…

I have to listen to the Polonaise-Fantaisie a few times.

Loud enough to (probably) annoy my neighbors.

Because there are times when lying on the hardwood floor in a crying heap, then banging on the piano keys just to express some emotion I haven’t felt in entirely too long, and then listening to, of all things, Classical music, as loud as I can stand it (which still isn’t loud enough in this case)… there are times like these when I just need to be reminded that it’s okay to be a living, breathing, human being.

Because there is a greater purpose for all of this, and I’m not yet privy to it, and I may never be… and that’s ok. Most of the time, I don’t mind feeling small… we are all small.

But it’s connecting with people who are like-minded… and it’s sharing and being vulnerable that makes life richer and worth living, but when the unexpected happens and The Real Me ™ is absolutely, unequivocally rejected…

Sometimes it helps me to know that someone from centuries ago, named Frederic Chopin, had already felt these feelings, too. He put passion on paper in a way that no other composer ever has, in my opinion. He was someone who felt deeply, someone who lived a life of passion and often great despair. He was a real person. 

And I am, too.

And so are you.

And what does it all matter? I don’t know… but I do know that we can’t do this thing all alone. I do know that if we all continue putting energy into things that just don’t matter… our lives, inevitably, won’t matter.

And even sometimes when we do invest in things that matter, and the result is, at best, confusing, and painful, and defeating… I guess what I’m trying to say is… try to remember that you’re not the first person who’s ever felt that way, and you won’t be the last.

We need each other, to get through these times…

*In the recording I linked to, the silence and new melody occur at approx. 8:28. I would rather have linked to Horowitz, because he plays this piece better than anyone can, but it's split between two videos and that... just doesn't work.

Rebuilding a Dream, Note by Note

“Let’s start at the very beginning,A very good place to start” - Maria in Sound of Music (“Do-Re-Mi” song)

It’s like I’m starting all over.

If you’ve been reading this blog for any time, you know I have a very special relationship with playing the piano. You know it got me into college. You probably know I abruptly walked away from playing during my second year in college, although I haven’t been terribly explicit as to why.

I guess it was a combination of things. I was starting to shut down, emotionally. Playing was my main emotional outlet, and to be graded and judged for my emotional outlet, to be required to practice 3-4 hours a day, and on top of that, to be required to accompany other musicians (something I abhorred) was all too much.

Me with my niece Leigha. I was home after my freshman year in college.

Worst of all, I was intimidated by other musicians who could sight read far better than I could. Sight reading was my greatest weakness as a pianist. It took me forever to learn a piece, but once I could comfortably get through the whole piece of music, I had it memorized.

That didn’t matter at school, though. The practice rooms at school were crammed in one wing. Two floors of tiny rooms with paper-thin walls, all with windows so you could see who sounded awesome and who sounded horrible.

No one sounded worse than I did when first learning a piece. I wish I were exaggerating, but in a small music school with only one area of thinly-walled rooms for practicing, you know what everyone sounds like, whether you want to or not.

Most people sounded at about halfway to performance level when they practiced. But I always sounded like I’d just learned how to read music that very day, until I had a piece “under my fingers”, at which point I had the thing memorized.

I hated anyone listening to me practice. It was something I hated about practicing when I was growing up, too. My mom and grandmother always loved listening to me practice, and I hated that. I wanted to be left alone, so I could fumble and struggle as much as I needed to, without anyone around to hear it.

And in college, I was surrounded by lots of sets of ears who were half-listening to others around them while practicing. It was so competitive that it overwhelmed me, and my need to play piano got lost in the shuffle of intense competition, pressure to sound perfect in practice, and the even greater pressure to sight read perfectly.

I quit. 

Cold turkey.

And I switched out of the music school (and then told my parents. I don't recommend that approach). 

I would say that I never looked back, but that would be a lie. I looked back plenty of times, wondering what really went wrong, why I failed as a music student, and why it seemed so impossible to sit down and play the piano.

The old 1900s piano I bought back in 2002.

I thought about playing on an almost daily basis. In the beginning, I had no piano, and that was my excuse.

But then I met a man and we ended up buying a house together and then getting married. Very soon after buying the house, I bought a piano.

It was a sad, run-down thing from the very early 1900s that needed a ton of work. It had all original parts, and that was a big part of the problem. The case needed to be completely refinished—the wood was so dry and cracked that no amount of lemon oil would help.

The strings needed to be replaced. The hammers needed to be replaced. The felts… and even some of the key action needed attention as well.

The only great thing about the piano was that even with the rough condition of the wood case, it still looked great. And, it had all original real ivory keys.

I was excited at first, but that excitement quickly dwindled when I got the piano tuned and the tuner said it wasn’t really going to sound any better once he was done with it, because of all this work it needed.

Each time I tried sitting down at that piano, all I saw was a giant to-do list, and all I heard was a sad box of keys in disrepair. The case looked good enough, but what was going on inside was a whole lot of discord.

(Yes, one might equate that to the life I was leading...)

I could never just sit and play. I could never just “be” with the keys. There was always a nagging inside. This instrument was begging me to take care of it. 

I played that piano only a handful of times from the time I bought it, in 2002, until March of this year, when I moved out of the house and into my apartment.

In talking with my best friend, it occurred to me that the piano was a giant to-do list, and that I craved simplification and authenticity in my life. I thought that a digital piano made more sense. Since I now live in an apartment, I could always put on headphones or turn the volume down so no one would hear me.

The only challenge was finding one that sounded close enough to a real piano and felt enough like playing a real piano that I would really love it… and really want to play.

 

I found myself researching digital pianos.

I narrowed the list down to several that sounded appealing, and off to Guitar Center I went.

I played every piano they had multiple times, across two visits. (I assure you, that's a lot of pianos.) I fell in love with one that hadn’t even been on my list before: the Yamaha Arius YDP181, or the piano now simply named Arius.

I was amazed at how much it felt like a real piano. The weighting on it is incredibly accurate.

But even more amazing was the sound. It sounded real and it felt real.

I knew this was the one.

I crunched the numbers and put it on layaway.

On Saturday, just a few days after my birthday, I went in to pick it up. I ended up getting 15% off the entire purchase, thanks to a coupon I had gotten in the mail. I asked the sales guy who had sold me the piano if he could help me get it to my apartment and up the one flight of stairs, and I’d give him some cash.  He obliged, and together, we lifted this human-sized box from my car and up the one flight of stairs.

The box weighed about 130 pounds, by the way.

The box stayed on the front porch, and I opened it up, and piece by piece, and hauled it inside, put it together, and plugged it in.

I identified a new fear, too.

I bought this thing (and it wasn’t really THAT cheap, either)… I hauled it upstairs, put it together, and it fits so perfectly in the space I’d left for it… but…

What if I never played it?

All day yesterday, I sat in my apartment, doing very little. I occasionally gazed across the room at the piano, wondering if I was ever going to really practice and try to learn some new pieces, relearn some old pieces, and get back some of the dexterity and technique I once had... or if I was just going to let it become a piece of unused furniture.

Well… I think I broke through that fear today.

My new Arius.

See... I live alone.

And finally, it occurred to me that no one ever has to hear me practice. No one but me will ever have to hear how bad I sound, how terrible my sight reading is, how my fingers fumble with the wrong keys and the wrong fingerings.

I do feel like I’m starting from scratch. I’m practically relearning how to read music, having to count up from notes I know on the page just to make sure I’m not playing an E when I should be playing a G… it’s bad, y’all. Really bad.

I dug out some old music that I’ve played a thousand times… and I dug out some new stuff that I’d had for years but had literally never opened, even to thumb through the pages.

I’m relearning scales and arpeggios, starting with the good old key of C. I’m quickly becoming friends with my metronome.

It really feels like I’m in some distant, far-away land where I used to be fluent in the language, even if I had to think about it a lot at first… and now I’m searching for any word I might remember.

But the wonderful part is that I know no one has to listen to it. Even I don’t have to listen to it, because I’m concentrating on finding the notes, not paying attention to how I sound.

I have never lived alone with a piano in the house. This is the first time, ever.

I am so glad… so glad to have this time to myself, to reacquaint myself with my old friend… on a brand new set of keys that will never have a giant and expensive to-do list associated with it.

I smiled so much while practicing, today. Amazed at how much I remember, and equally amazed at how much I have forgotten. I’d forgotten how to break down a piece so I can learn it, but after thinking about it for a while, I remembered. I remembered how to do a turn and a trill, without having to look at the notes. I have muscle memory and can place my hands on certain keys without looking at the keyboard, and yet, I can’t look at the bass clef and tell which line is for E and which line is for G (or is it one of the spaces?) without counting out, “Great Big Dogs Fight Alligators” for the lines (G-B-D-F-A) or “All Cars Eat Gas” for the spaces (A-C-E-G).

I truly am beginning again. Starting at the very beginning.

A very good place to start…

How I Got Into College

I was so clueless as a senior in high school. All of my friends were gearing up for college, and getting early acceptance letters to Texas A&M, UT Austin, Texas Tech, Baylor, or any of the other Texas schools.

Not me.

I had to get out. I was absolutely clueless, though. All of my friends had taken the SAT months before, and here it was—November of my senior year in high school, and I was forced to sign up for the latest date the SAT was offered.

On top of that, my parents wouldn’t let me take an SAT prep course. They wouldn’t even let me buy an SAT prep book—because after all, they thought the SAT was meant to test my actual abilities, and any prep course or book I used would unnaturally “enhance” my scores.

Of course it would, and that was the whole point. But my parents didn’t like the sound of that. So, in December of 1992, I walked into the SAT test classroom, cold. I had no idea what would be on the test—I didn’t even know the format.

I opened the test and immediately thought I was screwed. I finished each section of the test before a lot of others in the room did. I found myself going back over my answers, questioning what I’d chosen on some questions. Sometimes I’d change the answer and other times I didn’t. I was frustrated and anxious. I wanted out of that room as fast as possible. 

And then, just like that—the test was over.

All I could do was wait. I knew I had done poorly. I figured I would easily get in to A&M, but I wanted something different. I wanted to go out of state. I looked at my sister and the life she had chosen, and I knew that didn't feel right for me. I looked at my parents, at the life they’d chosen, and I knew that wasn't the right fit for me, either. 

I had no clue what I wanted, but I knew I was different and would have to find my own way.

I got my test results a few weeks later, and sure enough—I had done pretty poorly. I was fortunate to at least break 1000, but I knew this would make it tough for me to get into any school, especially out of state.

Still clueless, I strolled college hall—the hall of my high school where all the college posters resided. I grabbed a card from each poster, mailed them all in, and waited.

Brochures and packets peppered the mailbox daily. I had several tall stacks of brochures when it was all said and done. I read through all of them, and I narrowed my choices down to three: Marquette, Tulane, and Vanderbilt.

I don’t even remember why at this point. I guess I thought Marquette’s English program sounded good, and I have no clue why I selected Tulane—probably because I knew it was a good school. And Vandy? Well, I certainly had no idea it was a Top 20 university. I chose Vanderbilt because of the Blair School of Music. It was growing, so I knew they’d be more likely to admit someone with lower test scores (even though I had straight A’s in high school) because they wanted to grow the program exponentially over the next couple of years.

And I thought to myself… music school. Perhaps I could be the next Van Cliburn. The next Horowitz. I could be a concert pianist.

I talked to my piano teacher at length to help me make this decision. I could only apply to one school, because my grandmother could only afford to give me the money for one application fee. So I had to choose carefully.

I probed Mrs. Hansen about my chances for getting a repertoire ready for audition by the end of February. I had to play pieces from the four different genres—Baroque, Romantic, Classical, and Contemporary. We took up an entire lesson time going over the requirements and what pieces I could use for the audition. I was already in preparation for the Lois Boyer competition: a competition that only high school seniors are allowed to enter, and you have to play 30 minutes of music representing the four genres. So… I already had music picked out for that, it was just a matter of accelerating my ready time by three months.

My piano teacher knew me quite well. She’d taught me since third grade, and she knew what drove me, she knew my favorite composers, she knew my discipline issues.

Mrs. Hansen also knew that I could pull a performance out of my ass like none of her other students could. At the end of our conversation, we had set out a plan for how I was going to prepare myself for my February 20th audition.

I had two months. Two months to prepare about 30 minutes worth of music: to learn, memorize, and perfect my entire program.

I left Mrs. Hansen’s house filled with absolute determination. Up to that point I had never worked so hard for anything in my life. I was driven by the notion of getting out of Texas and away from everything and everyone. I wanted to start over. I wanted a clean slate.

The idea crept into my mind that I could actually pull it off. I gained more confidence as the days passed and I learned my music better than I’d ever thought possible. My progress was excellent. I practiced at least two hours every single day—and for a high school senior with a very strong case of senioritis, this was a pretty amazing feat.

The time came for my trip to Nashville for the audition. Everything inside of me seemed to be colliding all at once, and the adrenaline was pumping in overdrive. My skin felt like a loose shell that might explode and expose all of my uncertainties at any given moment.

My mom and I arrived at the Blair School of Music. I was ushered to one of the professor’s studios to warm up. I couldn’t get over what I saw—a room twice as big as my bedroom, with windows and two grand pianos. Two! I could hardly believe it.

I sat down and started warming up. A wave of confidence and subsequent calm washed over me and formed a protective shell around me.

I warmed up. I went over some potential trouble spots in my music.

Then, I sat and stared out the window, fighting back tears. I had already fallen in love with the campus. I fell into a daydream about starting my life here and never turning back.

Then, a knock on the door—a messenger, letting me know it was time.

The nerves and sweaty palms instantly take me over as I’m writing this. It was the most important audition, the most important performance, of my entire young life.

I quietly stood while the judges (all professors) introduced themselves to me. There were four: two men, two women. I immediately forgot their names. I made my way to the auditorium’s stage. I carefully adjusted the bench to the appropriate height.

And I sat, hands in my lap, thinking about my first piece. I closed my eyes. I tried to forget about the four judges in the back of the room.

I opened my eyes and the lights focusing on me nearly blinded me. I could already feel myself sweating under their heat. And my hands were sweaty.

None of this fazed me.

I took a deep breath, rubbed my hands against my dress, and placed them on the keys.

I played.

The magic that poured out of my fingers and into that room still amazes me to this day. I had never performed so well and with so few mistakes. I wish my whole family could have been there to hear that performance. I wish my friends could have heard the expression from deep within my soul, finding its way to ivory keys, hammers, strings, and finally—the emotion bursting into the air, embracing the judges and taking them on my journey.

A journey filled with pain I had yet to realize, a journey filled with anger deeply seated in my heart, a journey filled with promise and desire and passion.

My journey.

I nailed every piece but one, and even in that one, I only had a couple of small “bobbles” as Mrs. Hansen always called them.

But I’m convinced the piece that won over the judges was Toccata by Jack Hawes (Disclaimer: that's not me in the video. I figured you knew that, but just in case...). None of them had ever heard it before, and I played it absolutely brilliantly. I was in my comfort zone by the time I got to that piece, and I literally flew through it. I played it faster than I’d ever played it before, and my fingers found their home on those keys. I surprised myself with my performance on this piece.

I never wanted that performance to end. My favorite part of playing piano was performing. I loved to show off. I loved showing off my ability, my dexterity, my emotional expression, my posture, my hand position—everything. I loved performing.

When those moments were over, I sat on the bench for a pregnant moment before giving the room one last glance from the stage and making my exit. The judges thanked me for coming, and I strolled out of the auditorium feeling myself walking tall, with a big goofy grin on my face.

I knew I’d done well.

I knew I’d get in.

And, three weeks later, I got that letter in the mail. 

The letter that changed my life.

A Dream Deferred

What happens to a dream deferred?

Does it dry up

like a raisin in the sun?

Or fester like a sore—

And then run?

Does it stink like rotten meat?

Or crust and sugar over—

like a syrupy sweet?

Maybe it just sags

like a heavy load.

Or does it explode?

(Poem by Langston Hughes, from the Dream Deferred Montage: Harlem) 

I strolled through the mall the other day and paused when I passed the piano store.

I’ve passed it many times. Usually I toss a quick glance across the name brands facing the windows, and I move on without slowing my pace.

But Saturday was different.

They had a Steinway in the window.

It was used. A five foot grand in perfect condition, with ebony lacquer finish—the only finish to get, in my opinion.

I had nothing else pressing to do, so I slipped inside and made my way to the bench without a sound.

I touched the keys.

Pressed down on a few.

Played a few chords, then a few arpeggios.

But it was calling me to really play it.

I relented.

Sitting down, my fingers fumbled over keys that long ago, I had spent so many years trying to know. For the first few minutes, I felt truly foolish sitting there, trying so hard to deserve the gorgeous sounds the keys made when pressed.

I took a deep breath.

All the memories came flooding back, in an instant. The memories of winning piano competitions, of auditioning for the Blair School of Music at Vanderbilt, of sitting on the bench of Mrs. Hansen’s Steinway as she showed me her latest find at the music store—a piece called Toccata that I would instantly fall in love with…

It’s the first time I’ve actually sat at a Steinway in years, and I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: there is no piano like a Steinway. No piano feels the way a Steinway feels when you press the keys. No piano makes music the way a Steinway does. When I sit at a Steinway, I never want to stop playing, and the Steinway never wants me to stop, either.

I soon forgot I was sitting in a piano store in the mall. I became deaf to the voices mocking the huge price tag on this very piano as shoppers strolled by the window.

So quickly, I enveloped into my own little world, where only I and this perfect combination of black and white keys existed.

I played one of the only pieces I can still play—my own—a sort of half-piece I wrote many years ago, and never finished.

I can’t help but look at how many things I’ve started and never finished, and wonder where I may be standing if I actually had.

Those things don’t matter anymore. They’re in the past, and the past is all but forgotten.

I’m not a concert pianist as I once dreamed of being. I don’t even play anymore, except on a rare occasion here and there, where playing piano is akin to satisfying a need I can’t even describe—a need that absolutely nothing else will quench. Sometimes, playing is the only thing on my mind.

And sometimes, words fail. My emotions run too deep, and the only way to let them all out is through the keys.

It’s still my dream, though… one day, I want to own a Steinway.

Preferably a full concert grand. Nine long feet of piano, with its own room that I can close off and keep a constant perfect temperature so the piano stays as healthy as possible… and of course it would have to have its own room because of the cats.

Ideally, I’d like to buy it brand new. Order it to my customization and make trips to the factory to see it in its various stages.

It takes months to build a piano, you know.

I’d travel with it on the long journey home, and I’d celebrate its arrival with an in-home concert.

This is a big dream of mine, as a nine foot concert grand costs well over $100,000, and most folks don’t buy a Steinway brand new because of that.

But... you never know.

I may win the lottery someday. And if I do… a Steinway is most definitely on my list.

Until then, I’ll settle for stealing a few moments on a beautiful five footer at the piano store in the mall.

(If I close my eyes while I’m playing, I imagine myself on stage, about ready to give the performance of a lifetime…)