Catharsis
Sometimes you don't realize how much you've missed something until you bring it back. It has really been years since I've been actively studying the piano, but I kept it up on some level through most of that time. For the last few months, I haven't even had the keyboard set up in my apartment, and I haven't played at all. A few weeks ago when I was visiting my parents, I just felt drawn to the piano and played mostly Chopin and Schumann for hours. Just yesterday, I finally motivated myself to go through a corner of the stuff in our common space, (almost none of which is even mine), and make a space for my keyboard and amp. I played maybe 10 pieces out of Bach's well-tempered clavier as soon as it was set up. Today, I didn't even get home after choir practice until after 11, but within 10 or 15 minutes of arriving I was at the keyboard. (Nice thing about keyboards, I can plug in headphones and play at any time of the day or night.) I started by reading through a few more preludes and fugues from the Bach book, but eventually I just stopped READING music to just create my own. I sat there and played whatever came to my head, and it was a huge release of emotions that I...really needed to release. Even when I was playing regularly, I haven't played with no particular idea of WHAT I would play since my jazz piano lessons back in high school. And I tended to do it when my parents weren't around, because improvising like that is sort of like baring your soul, and even though a lot of it comes out sounding way better than you'd expect, I can be really bashful about letting anyone hear it. But when I have so many feelings running through me, I just wonder how (and why) I've done without this for so long.
I think I'm going to be playing a lot more piano in the near future.
I think I'm going to be playing a lot more piano in the near future.