The Art of Grunt Work
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In early 2019 I started taking piano lessons again after a mostly-twelve year break from studying classical music. In the meantime I played in a pop band and wrote a bunch of songs under my Pink Feathers moniker. And got suuuuper into running, as you might have caught onto!
Going to graduate school for music was mostly a practical choice. I had this skill (playing piano) that I hadn’t honed in a while. Life as I knew it had been turned upside down, and I needed to figure out a long term plan to support myself.
For a while now I always thought of piano as something I used to be good at. I was rusty as I was making my return to classical music. Two of the three conservatories I applied to didn’t accept me, but thankfully Longy did, with a nice scholarship to boot, which I’m very grateful for. Looking back at one of my auditions, I was like a deer in headlights. I felt out of my league.
Even with my return to studying, I’ve continued to have this pesky mindset that I’ll never be as good as I used to be, that I’m lucky to even be here, that I’m inherently destined to be mediocre because I deviated from this career path many years ago. As long as I’m “good enough” at piano, dependable, show up on time, and I’m nice to work with, I should be able to find work and make a reasonable living.
While having this mindset has helped me cope and take the pressure off a bit from not being the world’s most amazing pianist, reflecting on it now I’m starting to see the lack of confidence I’ve had in myself. There’s nothing that I had fifteen years ago that I lack now. To be great, I’m realizing, simply means putting a lot of work and care into your craft.
To give an example: I am a good sight reader. As in, if you put a piece of sheet music in front of me, I can read it on the spot. If it’s a really hard piece of music, I can still somewhat “fake it” and play something that resembles what’s on the page. Where that starts to become dangerous is, if I don’t get something right away, I sort of accept that as, “Well, I just stink at [arpeggios],” skip them, and move on. No! What it actually means is, I might have to spend a stupid amount of time on that section, getting it just right. It doesn’t mean I’m bad. It means I need to spend extra time on that spot.
I’m starting to see this “grunt work” mentality paying off with the pieces I’m preparing for my culminating recital this spring. There are some passages that once seemed clunky, awkward, and impossible to play up to speed. Now they’re starting to feel like second nature in my fingers. It certainly didn’t start out that way. It just took time, consistency, and a lot of patience.
Seeing it this way has helped me to view myself differently. I’m not an inherently good or bad pianist (or runner, or person). I’m ever-evolving. There will always be more to learn, and there is always more to sharpen and polish. I just had a performance I feel really proud of, Amy Beach’s “Romance” for piano and violin, something I’ve been working toward for a while. I’m finally starting to see myself as quite good at what I do, because I’m actively working on it, and because I care.
💫
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