You know that scene at the end the Matrix where Neo finally “gets it” and suddenly sees the world in binary code? I had one of those moments this weekend when it comes to playing music, and it caused me to spend almost all of Saturday and Sunday inside my apartment at a piano. Luckily it rained the ENTIRE TIME, which made me feel better about not leaving the house.
As a kid I took piano lessons for years, spending hours reading page after page of sheet music, playing each song a million times until I had it memorized. If I wanted to learn a new song, I’d buy the sheet music, spend four weeks playing it until it would get stuck in my head. If I forgot a song then I had no chance of recovering it unless I relearned it.
About three months ago, I borrowed a book from my roommate Evan (who is an amazing piano player himself) called “How to Play the Piano Despite Years of Lessons.“ Because I’ve been so busy over the past few months with work, I’ve only been reading a page here and there; on Friday I got to the good part of the book, where it explains the language of music and its structure. If you have any aspirations of learning to play the piano, this book is beyond valuable. Buy it.
Back to this weekend: I set out to learn a few songs on piano and guitar, because I haven’t played either one in a long time and Cayamo left me quite inspired. Two songs I wanted to learn: “4th of July” by Stephen Kellogg & the Sixers (a song I can’t stop singing) and “Wagon Wheel” by the Old Crow Medicine Show (ever since A.P. from Oakhurst sang it in the casino on Cayamo). I learned the the chords for both songs on guitar…and then I tried to play them on piano. Once I got the chord transitions down and figured out what key to play them in, I had this profound realization that had previously escaped me for the first 24 years of my life: learning the basic language of music is so much more important than learning to JUST read sheet music.
A light bulb went on in my head, and I spent the next six hours looking up songs I’ve always wanted to learn but couldn’t find sheet music for…within minutes I was learning some of my favorites. I honestly felt like Neo, “seeing” and “hearing” music for the first time instead of just “reading” it.
To equate my discovery to an introductory Spanish class, I had spent YEARS learning individual words to build my vocabulary, and this weekend I finally learned the structure of the language; I can now carry on a basic conversation with somebody in another language. (Does that analogy make sense for anybody else besides me?). 15 years after learning to play music, I’ve finally learned what it is. I imagine this is what Ben Franklin felt like when he discovered electricity; we’ll let history decide which discovery is more significant.
The tips of my fingers are raw from playing too much guitar, the rest of my fingers are sore from playing too much piano, but I am grinning from ear to ear. I haven’t been this excited about playing music in a long long time. I think I’m most excited for my co-workers who no longer have to hear me playing the same eight songs on the piano over and over again.
Now I just need to learn how to sing…Anybody know the name of a good voice/singing teacher here in Atlanta?
-Steve
PS. that was a serious question. I’d like to think there are things I can do to get better (and I can only go up from here!); that’d be more fun than having to buy my roommates ear plugs.