Grow and Persist

My first piano lesson began when I was four. What I love the most about piano is being able to recreate music with my hands. What I like the least about piano is having to spend more practice time on the harder techniques. But it has shaped the way I think because it helps me to focus on growth and to build persistence.

I look back to the moment when I first struggled to get the legato technique needed for Chopin’s Revolutionary Etude. Legato means you play with a smooth flowing movement between notes, with minimal articulation. When playing legato, you almost slightly overlap the notes by milliseconds so that the articulation of the second note is covered by the sound of the first. It’s a difficult technique for me. I struggled to make it sound light but I knew I will continue to improve it.

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Learning music also helps to build my persistence. My mom told me about Angela Duckworth, a psychologist and professor at the University of Pennsylvania that wrote a famous book about grit. I try to persevere with challenging piano techniques despite it making me feel like I am bad at piano. Any time I reach the last weeks of my competition preparations, I set a timer to track my daily practice time. I also do not play the whole piece. I only spend practice time on my weak areas even though that’s the least fun part of piano. Mrs. Duckworth said this is called deliberate practice and that is how some Olympic athletes train too.