When I was five, my parents bought me a piano. It was a very East Asian thing to do. East Asian parents tend to buy their children either a piano or violin and sign them up for lessons, and for me it was the piano. It was a dark mahogany Baldwin, and a novelty for me to sit on the bench and swing my legs, my feet just grazing the floor.
An ingrained memory: my piano teacher looking at me sternly as I started playing a tune I had heard. I could listen to songs such as “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” and then play the tune perfectly on the piano, but my teacher didn’t necessarily like that I didn’t play “by the book”, never mind that I might have been exhibiting signs of musical genius.
After a hiatus, I had a new piano teacher – an elderly woman who also led the church choir. My sister and I both took lessons from her and even performed at a concert held in her living room. But I disliked the metronome and found it somewhat scary (to me, it resembled an ancient device of torture). After I decided to disregard it and play instead to my own beat, my teacher suggested I find something else to my liking other than the piano. I was 11 – and I decided that I would play the piano in my own time and just the way I liked.
After my parents divorced, when I was 16, the piano disappeared (likely donated) and was never mentioned again. Yet, despite the litany of disapproving piano teachers who quit and the disappearance of my childhood piano, I never lost my love for the instrument.
I missed the weight of the keys and the syncing of the left and right hands that magically produced something beautiful. After a long day at work, I would listen to a piano piece on my smartphone and it would perk me up. At church, I secretly revelled in the hymns because they were accompanied by the piano.
Piano lessons have been a rite of passage for most of my East Asian friends, who either remember taking lessons or have signed their children up for them. While most who played no longer do and can offer no concrete reason except to say, “I really don’t have time for it”, they were adamant about their children learning.
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Talented Chinese girl plays piano and guzheng at the same time
Talented Chinese girl plays piano and guzheng at the same time
The truth was often unspoken. What they didn’t say is that piano and violin lessons are a status symbol, comparable to sailing and golf. There is nothing wrong with this if the child enjoys the lessons. Learning the piano fosters discipline and can help enhance memory; unsurprisingly, piano companies are keen to highlight even greater perks – Steinway & Sons says playing the piano can “improve the body”, “calm the mind” and foster “lifelong health, healthy life”.
All this may very well be true. But for young children, being forced to learn a musical instrument can also, sadly, strip them of a lifelong enjoyment of it. Perhaps it is no accident that most of my friends who were forced to play as children no longer do – not even a little.
And this should not be a surprise. There are plenty of cultural references to the dreaded piano concert from the child’s perspective. In Amy Tan’s bestselling book The Joy Luck Club, later made into a film, young June clashes with her strict mother over piano practice, declaring “you can’t make me”, only to fumble at the concert later.
Piano lessons and practice crop up often when the discussion turns to raising children the Chinese way. Amy Chua, author of Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother, recounted how she forced one daughter to perfect a piano piece, going so far as to threaten to donate her dollhouse to charity and instituting a no lunch, dinner or birthday party policy until it she mastered it. It worked but I’d be surprised if her daughter continues to play today.
Why not consider a cultural shift where playing a musical instrument becomes a personal choice and a hobby? Life only gets more stressful and it’s good to keep some things as a joyful distraction.
Fast forward to today and I have reclaimed the piano. It was a bit of serendipity that I found a piano teacher last summer. She has a special place in her heart for teaching adults. Considering our busy work schedules, she said we could practise whenever we had time. Twice a year, she hosts a piano soirée for her adult students. “It’s not a concert,” she said. “It’s a fun gathering with good food.”
And so, on a late autumn day, I played the piano with other adults (many retired and well into their 70s), and our teacher, who came with a piece too. Our significant others were the captive audience. Everyone fumbled a little and when that happened, we all paused patiently. We all received an ovation. After a delicious dinner, we were motivated to keep on practising and return for the next gathering. Most importantly, we were playing for ourselves.
Amy Wu is a Chinese-American journalist based in New York and California. A native New Yorker, she writes about cross-cultural issues
