MEZZO FORTE

I stopped taking piano lessons last March. And now I miss it sorely.


I miss the harshness of practicing for hours each day, the pain of swallowing my teacher’s cruel criticism on my hard work, and the warmth that seeped in each ventricular of my heart when she was feeling generous enough to say something as itty-bitty as “Your playing is not too bad.”


I started learning to play around the age of 10. I’d had many teachers, one of which I don’t even remember the name. I’d had my share of nice teachers, vicious teachers, Indonesian ones, foreign ones. I can safely conclude that all of them thought I was too doubtful as a person, and I wasn’t brave enough to express myself fully. They all said that more or less, those two characters were reflected in my playing.

All of my teachers said I played too softly, too safely. My last teacher’s comment was the one that shocked me. She said, playing softly was more difficult than playing loudly (a.k.a just bang on your piano), so she wondered why I could play softly (gradually named piano, pianissimo, pianissimo assai) but I couldn’t even play moderately softly (mezzo-piano) let alone loudly (forte, fortessimo, fortessimo assai).

Upon hearing that comment, not only I practiced to play forte, I practiced to speak more articulately too.
Because I agree that the way you are will really be reflected in your playing.
Because I want to think that I am worth listening to, if not as a piano player, then as a humble human being.
And because I want that to be reflected in my playing.


That was how much the piano lessons could affect me.


When I told my last teacher that I wanted to quit, she went hysterical. At that time the school had just raised the tuition fee, so she thought I quit because I could no longer afford the fee. “I tell you what,” she said, “Each month, I’ll return the fee to you. Nobody needs to know about this. If you agree, then you can have the lessons as usual.”

I almost wept at her kindness, and I told her I simply wasn’t worth it. She was right, I was so close to conservatory level, but it was high time to admit that I wasn’t good enough to be there. And if she didn’t want to admit it, then I would.

Then she screamed at me because she really thought I could finish studying, and that I was just lacking the gigantic-confidence needed to finish the hardest last step towards conservatory. “I’ll do anything to reject bad students, and I’ll do anything to keep good ones,” she said. “And now I’m willing to pay for your fees so that you can continue studying.”

“You will miss studying classical,” she said. “You might play pop music for the rest of your life, but you will miss classical music and you will come back for lessons. But by then your skills will have deteriorated, and you’ll end up at the middle of the steps once again. Take my words. I’m no inexperienced teacher, I’ve been teaching for 20 years, I know you’ll come back one day.”

These are what I know so far:

1. Playing forte is easier than playing pianissimo
2. In music, and in life, I should not play safe in all the time, some forte is needed here and there
3. I miss studying classical music
4. I try to play pop songs but always end up playing Heller’s
5. My skills have deteriorated
6. Already I’ve been toying with the idea to enroll in my old music school
7. She has been right all along.