For someone who claims to love music, I had a remarkably terrible introduction to the art in my childhood. My parents, who thought I had a decent ear for a toddler, immediately labeled me a “musical genius.” They ushered me into piano lessons when my fingers were still half the size of the keys. The structure of my lessons is probably alien to anyone outside of India: instead of the renowned Suzuki Method, with sight reading and music theory, I was taught piano through what I term the “Bollywood” Method, which entails learning a catalog of individual Bollywood songs one by one, playing the lead melody with both hands.
Music notation was supplied in the form of letters. If I were to learn “Happy Birthday,” for instance, the music would be written out in my notebook as “C C D C F E” with the boldface indicating I had to hold the note for longer. Music theory was never taught. Key signatures marched stubbornly around middle C. Sight reading wasn’t a skill my teacher had ever learned. I was given a progressively interminable alphabet soup in every lesson to memorize and regurgitate. Naturally, this was not what a six-year-old wanted to do, so I rebelled. I refused to practice.
When I was 10, my family moved to the United States. My parents re-enrolled me in piano lessons, this time with an old Dutchman who chose North Carolina’s warmth for his retirement. His repertoire was legendary. My progress was glacial. Perhaps it was the frustration of having to play different melodies—and chords—with different hands. Perhaps it was because I found sight reading so difficult. In the past, I’d learned the pieces by ear after convincing my teacher to play them over and over again. Perhaps it was the dated selection (what 10-year-old wants to play “Danse Macabre” for Halloween?). One way or another, it was inevitable that my time with the Dutchman would end. At least I learned an abridged version of “Für Elise”—the hallmark of “easy songs that sound hard”—that I used to impress my parents.
You might expect that my music journey would end there, but my reluctance was more than matched by my mother’s determination. She blamed the Dutchman for my lack of progress. After a not-so-teary goodbye, I found myself at the piano of my new instructor: a retired nurse with two cats and a dog, out of sight, but always howling in accompaniment to my music. My progress was marginally better under her, though my poor practice habits did not improve with age. Still, I played at recitals for the National Piano Guild (I still wear my Elementary D certification I earned my freshman year of high school with pride), at retirement homes for sleepy octogenarians, and in churches for musically untrained audiences who thought I was a star. I’d stuck with the piano this long out of love for my mother, but as I grew older, my patience began to grow thin.
The final nail in this sonic coffin was my acceptance into a public boarding school for my junior and senior years of high school. Breaking this news to my piano teacher wasn’t easy: despite my mediocrity, I’d become a sort of pseudo-grandson to her. I wasn’t sure how to tell her that I was leaving for good. After a truly tearful goodbye at her house, we attempted to continue phone lessons at school, but these pitiful efforts did not last.
At first, I felt like I’d been freed from the cycle of fumbling through lessons, being assigned more practice, refusing to do it, and atrophying even more. It felt like I’d won the decades-long battle with my parents, successfully making it out of the box of “musical genius,” emerging as a rebel. Unfortunately, this soaring feeling of freedom was short-lived. I found myself missing the piano. Perhaps it was watching my friends skillfully practice and perform for rapturous crowds. Perhaps it was the looming thought of college applications and the tractability of musical supplements. One way or another, I found myself back in dark practice rooms, fingers on the keys.
I started my re-exploration of the piano by attempting to play older pieces I’d learned. None of these went as well as I’d hoped. I tried, instead, to play things I liked. I found sheet music for various movie soundtracks, pop ballads, and ragtime jaunts, anything my classical education forbade me from playing. The more I played, the more I realized that I hadn’t won that battle against my mom: damn it if I didn’t find a genuine love for the melodies that emanated from the ebony lid.
I should preface that this is not a magical story of transformation. I did not, overnight, become a piano sensation. I remained quite mediocre. But the piano was now making me happier than it had ever done during my years of instruction, solely because I was finding my own path through it. My happiest moment on the piano was a talent show in my senior year of high school. Like the peers I’d looked up to, I put on a performance, pouring out the “Interstellar” theme to a cheering audience. Was it another piece in the “easy songs that sound hard” repertoire? Yes. But did it make me much happier than “Für Elise” ever did? Absolutely.
I don’t look at those initial years with bitterness anymore. I now recognize their importance in my ever-changing relationship with music. They gave me the ability to pick up on rich melodic anisotropies and bouncy undertones in everything I listened to; they also gave me the ability to play complex Indian classical standards on my grandmother’s harmonium in the waning days of her dementia. If it weren’t for my initial exposure to music, I never would have picked up the guitar, finding new love in vibrant strings and jangly barre chords. I never would have turned to music production, inventing new sounds on the computer that I could have never dreamed of in real life. I never would have found joy in singing, belting in the shower and on long walks.
It’s become clear to me that, while I am not a musical genius, I could have been far better at piano had I taken more rigorous lessons or practiced more. This thought used to trouble me; had I given up an avenue of excellence because of my childishness? It took two years for me to dispel that thought and understand the truth. Had I grinded at the instrument more when I was younger, I am confident that I would not have the love for music that I have now: organic, multifaceted, and truly my own.
