When I was six-years-old, I started piano lessons. My teacher -- Irena -- trained at the conservatory in Moscow in the Soviet Union and was an incredibly talented pianist. I was trained not only how to play notes, but how to love and understand music. I was trained in theory. I was trained on the classics.
It came almost naturally. My wrists were straight, not floppy. Memorization was easy. I felt the waves of the music, and I guess it showed. I won superior ratings at every competition I attended.
When I was ten-years-old, Irena decided to go back to school for her doctorate degree and only planned to retain four (out of her many) students. I was one she wanted to keep. She thought I could be a pianist, a great one.
But one day when I was twelve I decided to sit at the piano. The music I was learning when I quit two years earlier was sitting at the piano. I looked at it with my fingers on the keys, and then I had one of the biggest surprises of my life -- I could not read the notes. I couldn't read music! From almost as early as I could remember, reading music was a part of daily life. It was like reading letters.
Over the next years, I re-taught myself how to read music and could pluck out some basic songs. After my freshman year of college, however, I wanted something more. Perhaps after spending a year in Music City, U.S.A. I fully realized how silly it had been to cold-turkey-quit the piano when I was ten. That summer, I was lucky enough -- through a connection from Irena -- to find a University of Miami professor to take me on as a student for the summer. It was enough to reignite my deeper understand of music and my love for it.
I still don't practice piano as much as I should, but at least I have the tools to play for real again. My next musical goal? The guitar.
"The pause is as important as the note." -Truman Fisher
