Piano & Music

When I was younger, my mom always tried to get me into music and wanted me to play an instrument. I was a science kid - I wanted to learn about space instead of music. I was also very stubborn, and thought that piano was “only for girls.” I took guitar lessons for a month and quit.

Fast forward about 10 years, I watch a video on YouTube of a girl playing the Interstellar theme on a public piano (Link). Everyone is going about their day, but stops to listen to the music. From 3:20-3:30, when the music climaxes, you can see a man walking in the background turn around, touched by the piece. Something about the way everyone (including me) was touched made me want to try it myself.

I think classical music is a form of storytelling. I recently watched Vivaldi’s Four Seasons performed live, and learned that the suite was based off of a series of poems. The lead violinist described the music they were about to play and what we should expect as listeners, I was very intrigued by her in-depth understanding of the piece. As the show went on, the orchestra was able to write an entire book with nothing but music. I could not just hear, but I could see, smell, and feel the piece. It is impossible to explain, but is part of the reason why I think everyone should see live music at least once in their lifetime.

A good example of storytelling would be Chopin’s Nocturne in F Minor Op. 55 No. 1 (Link). The majority of the piece is quite depressing, it feels like Chopin is longing for something he once had. It’s nostalgic. Towards the climax, the piece gets more intense and you feel despair as well as increased tension. The end of the piece includes a run up the keyboard, where the key switches from F minor to F major. Major keys are often regarded as “happier,” and the end of the piece feels like a light at the end of a tunnel.

This is simply my interpretation of the piece. Classical music is very open-ended and down to interpretation, which is something modern music does not offer. It takes much more effort to understand classical music and how it works, but once you do it’s very difficult to go back to pop, rap, or most modern music genres. Some of this effort is understanding music theory, and some of it may be doing research on the piece, the composer, and understanding their intentions when writing it. This is more applicable when learning a piece than listening to it, but it’s exciting to be able to do it whenever you want.

Music in general is something I never thought would take up so much of my time. We live in a society that does not value exploration of unpopular fields enough, and as a result of that I feel that classical music does not get the recognition in modern society it deserves. Perhaps there’s a way to change that.