Every person has a creative side, and it can be expressed in many ways: problem solving, original and innovative thinking, and artistically, to name a few. Describe how you express your creative side.
Pianists have a way of effortlessly dancing on the keys. A decade ago, I watched as some of the older students at my music school performed. They played with a flurry of fingers, with precision, delicacy, and passion. I vowed that I would be able to play just as beautifully. Ten years later, I learned the pianists’ dance. Above all the technique and theory, I learned how to use every note, dripping richly with emotion, to connect people with the shared experience of music.
My teacher always described an image to inspire the music I played, recalling images of Russian soldiers stomping in the snow to describe sections of The Witches’ Dance or tiny diamonds twinkling on a chandelier to capture the softness of Schubert’s Impromptu Op. 142. No. 3. Through music, we experience these intensely human images and emotions.
When I play, my mind conjures images of a little boy running with a kite, of a tempestuous storm engulfing a city, or of a warrior standing heroically on the top of a hill that capture the essence of the music in me. While I play, I metaphorically hang these images across the concert hall, peppering the air with colors and free-flowing emotions. As I visualize the music, the placidity of Chopin’s nocturnes and the torrential flood of notes in the “Flight of the Bumblebee” resonates with people. We see and feel similar images and emotions through music and it is me, the performer, who “paints" these for all to experience. The sound-rich air is my canvas, the piano my paintbrush.
Music connects us in an ineffable way. I want to create a dream-like space where we can experience music collectively. Therefore, whether I am in front of a concert hall or huddled in a house with friends and family, I love to play the piano to spread the humanity, the cheer, and the joy of music.