People are always complaining to me
about how they don’t like getting older. They complain mostly about physical
things like wrinkles, aches and pains, or less stamina. While there is some
truth to their complaints (don’t get me started on the value of exercise as we
get older!), it seems a shame that we seldom spend time looking at the benefits of getting older. Let’s look at
it from another perspective...
Perhaps the most important thing I have learned from studying difficult repertoire on the piano is that there are some things that cannot be accomplished in a short period of time, no matter how hard you work, or how talented you are. Some pieces of music are just so difficult that it may take a few months just to learn all the correct notes, to say nothing of the technique involved in bringing it to life. One of my best examples of this is a piece by Debussy called Jardins sous la pluie (Gardens in the Rain). It’s ten pages long, very difficult, and it took me a year and a half to learn. I should probably point out that between teaching, performing and writing, I am not able to practice every day and even then not usually more than about two hours. For a concert-level pianist who practices four to six hours every day, a piece like this would not take nearly so long. But that’s not my point. Most of us aren’t concert pianists. I’m talking about what can be achieved over a long period of time. Here's a youtube of it:
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zqO3fsWeTV0) Unfortunately, I don't know who the pianist is, but it's a good version.
My younger
students always want to finish practicing a piece so they can move on to a new
one. The idea of spending one and a half years working on the same piece would
seem like torture to them. They want to be finished and try the next thing.
They also want the satisfaction of their teacher’s approval. To me, and to many
of my older students, however, it’s not just about finishing something or about
approval anymore. It’s about a way of life. Playing the piano is simply what I
do, and as the years go by, and I keep practicing, I get better and better at
it. The individual pieces are just part of the process.
Much of what we
focus on from day to day is geared toward “what’s next?” There is very little attention
given to what happens when you spend forty years doing the same thing. I have been playing the piano now for fifty-three
years. That’s a really long time to do
the same thing. The opportunity to spend decades dedicated to my craft has made
it so much a part of me that there are aspects of it I don’t even have to think
about; they’ve become automatic. In fact, I barely even remember learning them.
This frees me to spend more detailed time on perfecting technique, or, better
yet, to focus on expressing the beauty of the music. I wouldn’t have had this opportunity
without getting older.
We can apply this perspective
not just to the arts, but to many aspects of how we live our lives. The craft
of getting along with people, playing tennis, gardening, or managing your time
well. As we get older and do these things over and over, we become more adept at
them and are free to think of things beyond “just getting all the notes right”.
Well, okay, not
always. I’m still working on the time management thing. But decades of life does have its rewards, whether it’s
becoming a master painter, or becoming a better teacher, knitter, gardener, or
cook.
Of course, you
have to apply yourself to these
skills over the decades, or the gift of time you’ve been given will be wasted.
Sadly, that is just what some people do. But if we put our minds to it, many
artistic skills and self-improvement endeavors are things that we can continue
to perfect over a lifetime; an ongoing process of growth that, we hope, will go
on for as long as we live. Getting older is an opportunity, a gift, a bonus. Hence
my mother’s lament at eighty-nine: “It’s not fair. I think I’m just starting to
get the hang of life, and now it’s almost over!”
If we do it right,
that’s what we’ll all say.
