Twelve years old was the first time I had ever experienced a panic attack. It felt like a rush of adrenaline coupled with a racing heart going a million miles an hour. It was as if my mind was preparing my body to endure a serious car accident, or a parachute jump out of an airplane flying hundreds of thousands of feet up in the air. However, it was merely the event of a piano recital that sparked my sweaty palms and uncontrollable breathing.
I attempted to put aside my perpetual and persistent thoughts of failing miserably in front of hundreds of people and remember what my I had learned from my teacher, Mr. Piper. I remembered the first time I had walked into his office for a lesson I immediately sat down and whipped …show more content…
Recitals, auditions, and competitions became less of an enormous fearful endeavor, and became more of an opportunity to showcase to an audience my feelings, my emotions, and my story. The more I played from my heart, the more I understood the necessity for adding one’s own perspective to even the most classical of piano pieces. The melody, the harmony, and the beat must remain by the book, according to the original composer, but the pace, the volume, and the treble with which the piece is played in can vary from person to person. Although the musical key cannot be changed within a song, there is always room, in any piano piece, for reinterpretation. That day at the recital I learned that if you play something with the utmost passion, emotion, and zeal, the piece could never be played wrong because if a note or a chord was not played in the perfect spot according to the original composer, it only added to the unique stamp that I was putting on the piece.
Although my piano lessons and recitals halted after my high school career came to an end, the lessons I had learned from Mr. Piper and the many piano recitals and auditions I took part in remained a significant factor in my life. Although structure and discipline are important to achieving my goal of furthering my education, in order to obtain the most out of college, or law school, or any challenge I must incorporate my own feelings and passions into it in order to