Supporting Your Piano Pathway
Reflection by Andrew Eales
“Every river has its banks, every ocean has its shores. Constant expansion is not possible. Everything reaches its limits, and the wise always try to identify these limits.”
Deng Ming-Dao, 365 Tao Daily Meditations
I love this metaphor of the river: it is the banks which give it direction, focus its energetic flow, and encourage it towards its destination. It doesn’t want to burst its banks, and quickly dissipates when flooding causes it to. How much better to flow where its banks lead.
The shores of the ocean, meanwhile, are ultimately the boundaries which define it. The shoreline is a point of safety, security, a haven from the deep. And while I often remind students that piano playing is the journey of a lifetime, without destination, we all need to spend time in port, resupplying our vessels and finding refreshment.
The desire to push beyond our natural limits may have become an endemic demand in every field of human endeavour, but there is surely little doubt this attitude is responsible for many of the problems we face. So how can we come to terms with our limitations and leverage them to our advantage?
Into the tempest
Some years ago, a highly successful banker approached me for lessons. Essentially a beginner, he had previously tried a few lessons with another local teacher, and I enquired why it hadn’t worked out. His explanation amounted to a cautionary tale:
“I told her that I was only interested in learning Beethoven’s Tempest Sonata, but she insisted on trying to teach me dull grade one pieces. I had no interest in learning them, felt unmotivated and annoyed, and made no progress.”
I tried to explain, as no doubt had his previous teacher, that the Tempest is an incredibly difficult work, requiring a range of highly advanced musical and technical skills. It is possible to admire and be inspired by the achievements of the world’s greatest players while enjoying working at our own level.
Alas, unwilling to hear and accept this advice, he terminated his lessons, my name presumably added to a list of those unable to teleport him directly into the Tempest without his needing to follow in the footsteps of pianists who have previously made the journey with success.
Teaching with a sense of structured progression should never be dismissed as a matter of professional hubris or a money-spinning scam; it is the means by which learners can progress towards their goals, realising their potential.
Nor is it lacking in faith to recognise that as players we all have our limitations. On the contrary: it is self-defeating to pretend or convince ourselves otherwise.
Following the flow
Keeping in mind the metaphor of the river, the surest way to reach our destination without our early enthusiasm evaporating is to allow ourselves to be mentored by a guide who has at least seen the ocean for themselves, grasping its significance and scope, while of course acknowledging that none of us have swum its full distance.
The struggle some have is that course correction can involve fortifying the banks, taking time and care to address the very limitations they would prefer to ignore. Progress does not always look like progress, especially in a bucket-list, tick-box, grade-obsessed, conquer-all culture.
Here are some of the wins we can enjoy if we recognise and embrace our limits, allowing them to positively inform and shape our course:
- We can enjoy a steady flow of wonderful repertoire that we are capable of playing with expression and confidence.
- We can learn pieces which are suitable for us, with more ease and less frustration.
- We can develop our technical skills securely, and our musical communication with a more rewarding sense of accomplishment.
- We can gain knowledge, understanding and a love of more music.
- We can enjoy an active repertoire of pieces that are within our gift to play any time, any place, from memory.
Of course, our limits are not ultimately fixed, but simply our present reality. With patience and persevering practice, we naturally erode them over time, cutting a new path that reshapes the course of our journey, just as rivers change theirs.
This is what natural success looks like.
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