https://www.jeromeleroy.com/complog-content/2022/10/31/my-first-piano-a-story-of-hurt-healing-and-joy Jerome Leroy Composer * About * Credits * Music + Albums + Licensing * Featured + The Housemaid + Impressions + Unsurpassed Team * Blog + Latest News + Complog + Scoring Talks * Connect * About * Credits * [ ] Music + Albums + Licensing * [ ] Featured + The Housemaid + Impressions + Unsurpassed Team * [ ] Blog + Latest News + Complog + Scoring Talks * Connect My First Piano: A Story of Hurt, Healing and Joy /October 31, 2022 by Jerome Leroy [IMG_0484] [TW: SA, MH] I'm 41, and I just bought my first piano. (Here it is to the right.) Being a trained pianist brings its own interesting challenge when it comes to your instrument... because it's actually quite rare that the piano you play on is actually your instrument. Keyboard players are amongst the few musicians who rarely choose the instrument they play on. Whether at home, at music school, on in the concert hall, we seldom play our instrument of choice; rather, we play the one that's made available to us. My relationship with the instrument is complicated. I started playing the piano at age 6; I was the fourth child in my family to do so, and as such the piano I learned on was the family piano (a brown Gaveau upright). After a few years of practice and becoming half decent, I had the chance to play on my aunt's piano, a Yamaha upright. That's when I realized that I didn't like the piano I played on at home, which was, I felt, too bright, very difficult to play softly on it, with harsh action, and consistently out of tune. To the contrary, my aunt's piano was lively but warm, with precise action and a beautiful tone. (It also looked gorgeous in ebony black.) Additionally, the piano at home had the unfortunate particularity of being used as a piece of furniture on which my parents displayed a bunch of trinkets, including a 19th-century clock made entirely out of metal which vibrated as soon as you played anything from middle C up to two octaves above. In short, playing on that instrument soon became, for me, mostly an unpleasant experience. And so I learned to play the piano on an instrument I never liked. An instrument that was forced upon me because it made practical and financial sense, not because I had any kind of emotional connection with it. --------------------------------------------------------------------- It didn't help that, for many decades, my feelings about the piano were mostly overshadowed by trauma, guilt and failure: of being the victim of sexual assault by my piano teacher when I was a teenager; of seemingly never being able to impress my parents with my playing, because I didn't practice hard or long enough; of refusing to play in front of my friends and family without a score because of crippling memory deficiencies; of stopping in the middle of performing Bach's Partita No. 6 at a Berklee recital after my brain inexplicably went blank, and crying uncontrollably afterwards. But the piano was also the source of some the greatest joys of my childhood. As a listener, its music made me feel safe, content and at peace when I needed it the most, from the days my father's and older brother's playing rocked me to sleep when I was a child, to the days I discovered Glenn Gould and Maria Joao Pires performing Bach's and Mozart's blissful works. As a player, it showed me the gift and emotional rewards of performing music for yourself and for others. And as a budding composer, it allowed me to look inward to find my voice and share my truth. Within these formative years, the piano allowed me to feel, to live and to breathe emotions I had never encountered in my life. [116297542] [0002112792] [71NVPEbi8C] [brendell] This dichotomy between hurt and joy at the piano is a baggage I have been carrying with me for close to 30 years, and even more acutely so when I moved to Los Angeles in my mid twenties to start my music career. It explains why for so long I was hesitant to buy a piano. I had always known I wanted to own a piano one day, but for most of my adult life I didn't believe I ever could. I was silently hoping that I would, some day, come to believe that the joy I knew I'd get from owning a piano would outweigh my past traumas. And I also hoped that if I ever were to overcome my past, I would be able to find the right instrument for me, one which I truly loved, one which I felt was my own, one where my musical personality--in fact, my entire being--could feel free to live and express itself. The instrument would, in some ways, represent both the journey (what it took to get there) and its destination (who I am today). --------------------------------------------------------------------- [csm_C_BECH] I first heard about Bechstein pianos in my late teens. After decades of trying to regrow their brand, the company was showing off their latest models at a music exhibition in Paris. I tried their grand pianos, of course, but, playing it safe, I mostly spent time in their upright section. They blew me away immediately--the balance of brightness, body, warmth and projection wasn't what I was used to from an upright. It was closer in tone, sound and action to a grand piano--yet in a much smaller package, which (for a Parisian, at least) was by far the most practical choice. [e820bf3a59] I started reading about the brand, and quickly learned that Bechstein had some serious cred when it came to endorsements, from a time when the very idea of "endorsements" was only starting to make sense. In fact, some of my favorite composers swore by Bechstein pianos, including Franz Liszt, Alexander Scriabin and, more importantly, Claude Debussy, who famously stated, "Piano music should only be written for the Bechstein." By then I already considered Debussy to be one of the two most important composers of Western music (along with J.S. Bach); thus a century-old statement from the God of piano music and my own brief experience with the instrument was all I needed. I was sold. Yet I knew for this to become a reality, I would have to be patient. First, for obvious financial reasons (Bechstein pianos are in the upscale range of piano ownership). Second, for practical considerations (in the early 2000s, there weren't many Bechstein resellers in North America). And third, because I needed time to heal. A lot of time. Last month, about 23 years after I discovered the Bechstein brand, I visited the only Bechstein reseller in Los Angeles County and tried all of their pianos available on the floor. The model I found the most to my liking was the C. Bechstein A124 Academy. The reseller had two of them on the floor, which allowed me to witness how two models--in theory identical--can sound different, especially when they are made by hand (which is the case of all C. Bechstein pianos). It became obvious that it was absolutely critical to try the piano I was interested in before buying it. To wit, one of their model felt too warm and mellow in the low end, to the point of being "mushy" and losing clarity, while the other was much better balanced. This being a purchase at a significant price tag, I decided to make the most of free market economics and found another Bechstein reseller in Orange County, about an hour away from my house. After visiting that store, I fell in love with the A124 they had on the floor. It was exactly the sound I was looking for, excelling at maximal and minimal volume, adept at warm harmonies yet able to allow repeated staccato chords to pierce through in the upper register. Multiple voices in the low register where shining with independence from each other, and--most importantly--improvising at length felt natural and freeing. I knew then that it was the one. [IMG_0146] [IMG_0474] [IMG_0487] And so, 35 years after starting to learn the piano; 29 years after deciding that I wanted to have a career in music; 17 years after moving to Los Angeles and becoming a professional composer; and 18 months of therapy later--I was done waiting. I was finally going to own my first piano. And it turned out to be the one I've always dreamed of. After such a long and tumultuous journey, I can safely say it was well worth the wait. [IMG_0483] Posted in Thoughts Tags: home studio, studio, hindsights, instruments, thoughts My Creative Process: Sound Designing "The Lift" - To receive my Latest News by email, subscribe below! Subscribe Subscribe by Email Name [ ] First Name [ ] Last Name Email Address * [ ] Subscription Type * ( ) Latest News only ( ) Seasonal Newsletter only ( ) Latest News + Seasonal Newsletter [Sign Up] Thank you for subscribing! 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Thanks again! :) --------------------------------------------------------------------- * Behind The Scenes + Apr 12, 2021 The Instruments of 'Shifting Perspectives' Apr 12, 2021 * My Creative Process + Jan 13, 2022 My Creative Process: Sound Designing "The Lift" Jan 13, 2022 + Oct 12, 2019 My Creative Process: Writing a "Boss Battle" Video Game Track Oct 12, 2019 + Aug 8, 2018 My Creative Process: Writing a Library Track Aug 8, 2018 * Technology + Dec 19, 2018 Media Composers: How To Organize (And Back Up) Your Data Dec 19, 2018 * Thoughts + Oct 31, 2022 My First Piano: A Story of Hurt, Healing and Joy Oct 31, 2022 + Jul 19, 2021 Scoring for Animation Jul 19, 2021 + Mar 8, 2021 What Living, and Working, Through a Pandemic Taught Me Mar 8, 2021 + Jun 7, 2018 Welcome To My Complog Jun 7, 2018 ---------------------------------------------------------------------