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02.13.12 : My First Love

My first instrument was the piano. My mom signed me up for Suzuki lessons when I was three or four, in St Petersburg, FL, where I was born. I remember having to sit on phone books on the piano bench to be able to reach the keys. I quit taking lessons after a couple years, when my teacher forbade my mother to reward my practicing with candy anymore. I was like, “Peace!”

The only things I retained from those lessons were the ear training, which was the core of the Suzuki method, and a deep connection to and love for the piano.

When I was 10 or 11, in Wisconsin, I tried getting back into piano lessons. There was always a piano in our house — along with guitars, banjos, basses, drums, mandolins, violins, dulcimers, recorders, saxophones, trumpets, and pretty much every other kind of instrument in the world. The piano lessons didn’t last long; reading music was stressful and I nearly had a heart attack during my first and only recital. But it got me going again, and I wrote my first song when I was 12, called “Window Snow.” So emo, right?

Piano would continue to be my main songwriting instrument for years, though I played alto sax in the school band and taught myself to play bass (thank you, ear training!) when I was 14. I didn’t teach myself to play guitar until I was 17 or 18, and I can still only do a limited amount of stuff with that instrument.

There’s something about having a piano nearby that calms me down and makes me feel at home. When I was living in Los Angeles and couldn’t have a real piano, I got an 88-key digital piano with weighted keys, and that made me feel a little bit better, but it still wasn’t the same. There’s something about the character of a real piano, all that wood, the hammers and strings, the cold ivory keys. It’s an instrument that feels like it rose straight out of the ground. I feel connected to nature when I play it.

When I found out that there was a piano in the house I was going to be staying in during my “winter migration” here in Florida, I was beside myself. It had been years since I lived in a place with a real piano! When we got to the house, there was nothing in it but the piano. It has been sitting here for years, and is out of tune, but I don’t care. I love it anyway.

…

Today was really “off” for me, for some reason. I don’t know what was bothering me, but I just had a heavy heart. My stomach hurt all day and I felt truly out of it. I drank too much coffee and ate not-enough food, which I’m sure contributed, but it was more than that. I was totally caught up in my head, obsessing on all kinds of negative thoughts, feeling really bummed and trying to find something to blame for it. No matter what I tried — bike ride, Netflix, reading — I couldn’t shake it. I just wanted to go to sleep. At around 6:30 I decided that eating something might make me feel better, even though I had zero appetite. I finally decided on a frozen pizza, took it out of the freezer and set the oven to pre-heat, then walked back into the living room.

Suddenly, something came over me, and a voice in my head told me that I should go to the piano and start playing. I thought, “Well maybe this will burn some calories and get my appetite back.” I set up my laptop and opened Garageband. I couldn’t get a signal from the mics, so I restarted my laptop. Normally I wait to start playing anything until I can record it, but that voice in my head told me to start playing immediately.

If there is such a thing as channeling, then what happened next was almost four hours of musical channeling. It happened so fast that I forgot about the pre-heated oven, and food, and everything around me. I was working on the second piano part when I remembered, ran to the oven, turned it off, and ran back to the piano. I didn’t even put the frozen pizza back in the freezer. No time!

The lead piano line for this song came to me in one full blast of inspiration, and when it locked into place, my eyes welled up with tears. It was a moment of real, true, pure joy. I could barely see the keys for the three or four times it took me to nail the part. The rest of the song spilled out around the three core parts: piano chords, drums, and piano lead. Suddenly it was 10:30 and I was not only starving but shaking with adrenaline. My terrible day had dissolved into thin air. My blood was pumping, my heart was beating, I was smiling, and I couldn’t even remember anything that had happened before those hours at the piano.

If I had to describe True Love, I’d say it’s a lot like how I feel about the piano: it’s a connection, a longing, an appreciation. Something that has the power to erase a bad day. A release, a surge of adrenaline, a moment of bliss. Feeling like the entire universe is funneling all of its energy into your veins, giving you the strength to do anything and be anyone. These moments are fleeting, but they’re worth all the shit we have to go through to find them.

If I have ever doubted the existence of love, it’s because I wasn’t near a piano.

Happy Valentine’s Day!