The piano is a beautiful instrument. Playing the piano is a wonderful privilege that I have been blessed to have had since I was a child. Although the piano is mostly deemed as an independent instrument, usually performed solo, piano players do have their own perks and matters that no other instrument player in this world will understand. Honestly. Here are several.
1. You love yet you despise this book (or some version of it). I mean, it's fun and awesome when you can finally play your assigned exercises.
2. Your piano binder is always a point of dilemma: Should I protect my music but can't write on it, or should I not protect my music and end up with ripped binder holes in my music?
3. Your memory is seriously on fleek from all those pieces you've memorized for your performances.
4. But then, when you see a random piano and some of your friends tell you to start playing, you forget every single piece of decent repetoire you have memorized in your entire piano career.
5. People expect you to be able to sight-read music like it's no one's business and you're like:
6. Or even better, when someone asks for you to play a music that they've just given to you on the spot, at actual tempo, in front of everybody (even worse, in front of a chorus). *Sweats*
7. People ask how I manage to play two different sets of notes on my two hands all the time, and you feel flattered but you don't know how to explain exactly how it works -- it's about muscle memory or something like that...
8. So you practically end up admitting that you're a special person with special ambidexterity and you kind of feel good.
9. When you perform or practice on a crappy piano, you mourn for your finger pains and the loss of wasted performance quality potential that you could have on that particular run-through of your pieces.
10. In general, when you perform on a crappy piano, you die a little inside.
11. When you perform on a Shiny Steinway&Sons Grand Piano:
12. Before or when you're about to perform, you get this strange phenomenon in which your hands start to profusely sweat and you don't know what to do.
13. You've messed up a performance at least once in your life due to your fingers slipping on your own finger sweat.
14. You tend to have a dislike for Bach fugues with three or more parts.
15. But, most importantly, you find yourself in random moments of euphoria while playing the piano, and it's these moments that make you thankful that you play a pretty darn cool instrument.
