I don’t want to play Chopin anymore.
I want to be Chopin.
Chopin was a noted improviser in his day. Many of my favorite classical composers were. They composed music to match their abilities, which was great for them and other pianists with similar abilities, but not so much for me. They had not only more training, but also bigger, stronger hands.
I never could play their work the way it’s meant to be played. My abilities weren’t quite suited to the task. That made me sad until I realized that my abilities weren’t inconsiderable. What I needed was to stop playing to my weaknesses and start playing to my strengths.
So I decided that I would learn to improvise. I forced myself to sit at the piano and just play. Eventually, I freed myself from the written note and learned to improvise music exactly suited to my abilities.
Now I’ve reached the limits of what I can teach myself to do. That’s why Berklee classes sound so appealing. If I could take just one class and be done, I’d go for it, but I don’t have the time or the money to invest in prerequisite classes and other nonsense. I can afford books, though, so when I found one that looked promising, I bought it.
So far, to my surprise, my new book hasn’t failed me. The exercises in it aren’t hard, but I understand the point of working on them past the point of basic mastery. They’re meant to wire my brain a particular way. Brain wiring takes time and practice. I know that, so I’m pushing myself not only to play the exercises repeatedly, but to play them in all the keys, not just the ones I’m comfortable with. Chopin mastered all the keys. So can I.
One downside of using a book rather than taking a class is that there’s no one to hold me accountable. My hubby sometimes reminds me to do my “homework,” but I’m sure he knows that if he pushes too hard, it will not have the desired affect. Ultimately I will have to depend on myself. Having just this month celebrated the 14th anniversary of my blog, I have to believe that I can stick to an open-ended task, and I am cautiously optimistic.