Piano Practice
By David Drury
As I was walking through the hallways of our church on Monday
morning I heard the faint sounds of someone playing classical piano in our main
worship center. From time to time people
do this here: worship leaders putting a service together or students practicing
for their next recital. I cannot play
the piano myself but I love to listen to a good pianist. So I grabbed the book I’m currently reading
for “devotions” (A Dictionary of Early
Church Beliefs) and headed into the worship center to read while listening.
She didn’t know I was there because I came from the entrance
behind her. I sat down in the dark
sanctuary to her back, clipped on my book light and dug in. She was practicing a quite complicated piece
with many different moods and shifts in pace.
For a good two minutes she played so flawlessly and beautifully that I
couldn’t keep my mind on the “Baptism” section of my book. I set it down and just watched this girl I
had not ever met.
When you watch a great classical pianist move across the
ivories it can be mesmerizing. It was a
syncopated orchestra of ten-fingered beauty.
She played much better than I supposed a young woman her age would. I was obviously getting a sneak peek into the
practice of an aspiring master. Whenever
I’m around such skill I secretly start to distance myself, thinking, “I just
can’t relate to someone that good.” I
marveled at her apparently innate ability.
She wasn’t even looking at any music sheets—this was all from memory. She was playing by ear.
As soon as I thought this she missed a note, and then a
whole cord, and then an entire melodic sequence turned into a shambles of
off-key mistakes. My left eye cringed a
bit as she immediately went back to her right and started down the sequence
again, faltering at exactly the same point.
Four times through she came in at the same spot and in the same rhythm
and each time she missed it, leaving the wrong notes out there in the air to
fill the room. She stopped and put her
hands in her lap. Reaching over the top
of the piano she opened up the sheet music to this particular section and laid
it out flat. After reviewing she went
into the sequence again.
Again she messed up and 15 rows behind her in the dark I
heard her first muttered words of frustration.
It wasn’t working at all. So, she
played the sequence again slowing it down to about half of the speed, even
one-fourth of the speed in the especially hard switch where both of her hands
moved into an awkward contortion of coordinated twisting digits. Then she tried it at full speed again and
messed up yet another time. I began
losing count of the times she stopped herself, unsatisfied and slouching at the
black and white beast.
She then isolated her right hand, the one doing most of the
scale and apparently the source of the problem.
She played the entire thing and again slowed it down in the hard
part. Then she played it all full speed
and mostly had it right. But as she put
it all together there were still problems.
She isolated just the left hand then—going through the tough part with
particular attention. She took a look at
the music sheets one last time then closed them all up, setting them
aside. For a moment I thought she was
quitting on this section and taking a break.
I think I would have. Pausing
with her finger tips above the keys, seemingly sensing an invisible heat before
she disturbed their rest, she played the whole sequence again at half speed
perfectly.
The pace built each time through until she did the sequence
at full speed with only one error that I could hear. That was followed by several times through
with no mistakes my untrained ear could make out. Then she turned back a page or two in her
mind and replayed music I remembered. As
she approached the portion that had caused her trouble I cringed a bit again
and wrinkles formed on my forehead. I
wanted her to get it this time so badly. I was her biggest fan in that moment. She had deconstructed the thing so dutifully
and diligently—so earnestly—I wanted her to get it right.
She did. The music
lifted off the strings of the piano and filled the empty sanctuary. A thin but certain smile came across her lips
as she charged into the next portion. I
smiled with her. New music was played
and filled my empty heart that morning just as it filled the empty sanctuary.
Life, as well, can be much like piano practice. So often we play by ear and things are going
so well. Others may even look at us and
marvel—wondering how we do it. But like
even the best artists we all have sections that we mess up. Things get off-key. Our fingers get tangled. We forget the music.
That’s when we get frustrated and even have to stop and
start over. We slow down. We isolate the problem areas. Try this hand and see if that’s the
trouble. If not then the other hand gets
a try. We have to rebuild that part of
life one note at a time. Then once we’ve
got the right notes down we work on the speed.
Then when we think we’ve got it down we lap back a few pages and charge
into the problem area knowing, or at least hoping,
that we have it right this time. When we get it—and the music of life becomes
something beautiful to fill the room and our hearts—we smile.
What’s more God is sitting to the rear of us about 15 rows
back where we can’t see Him listening in all the time. There He is cringing and wrinkling His forehead
as we approach that difficult section.
He’s hoping we make it and even helping
us somehow—in a way I could not help the pianist and never could. When we make it through the hard part, no one
in the room is smiling more than Him. It
fills His heart with pride because He’s the one who taught us to play this part
in the first place.
I wanted so badly to stand up at the end and shock that girl
with applause. Instead I slunk out of
the side door and she never knew I was there.
I now wish I had the boldness to applaud her practice. Because I know and I’m sure she does: it’s
the practice that makes us perfect. But
sometimes we just need a little clapping in the empty room to remind us.
_________
© 2006 by David Drury
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