Several years ago, I bought a keyboard so that I could make music on my boat. I also had a guitar at one time, a flute, and a violin, but aside from the guitar, I never got into the other instruments, even though I had played the viola in school. After awhile, I even found playing the guitar too difficult. My fingers hurt pressing the strings and my hands were not big enough to grip the neck of the instrument to make well sounding chords. So the keyboard was brought on board and I downloaded some music to play. I used to have a baby grand and took lessons at the conservatory when I lived in Poland, so even though the keyboard is a good quality one, it never sounded like the real thing. And so, after a winter of struggling to make music, I gave up. I was not happy with my progress and I was not happy with the keyboard. I wanted to play at the level where I left off 30 years ago but I had forgotten many of the pieces I knew then. I didn't want to practice, I wanted to play.
And then, this past winter, I once listened to an old man play a very old piano in a bistro by a canal in Cieszyn, my hometown. The piano was out of tune and some of the keys were not even hitting the strings unless you struck them very hard. I tried playing it when the old man was outside on a smoke break and found it impossible. Yet the old man played the wreck and played it well. He played with such deep feeling that I felt envious. That evening unknowingly the old man taught me a big lesson. Play the instrument you have. Learn to manage its faults. Play as well as you can. And most importantly, play with feeling at the level you are. Make even the simplest melody into a concert piece.
I looked the old man up on the internet later on and found out that he was a distinguished music professor at a university.
And so, when I returned to my boat, I pulled out the keyboard, bought some new batteries for it and learned how to play with feeling.
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