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I took piano lessons as a kid through my late teens, and then didn't touch a piano until 20 years later...about a month ago. I've been on a work sabbatical, an

I took piano lessons as a kid through my late teens, and then didn't touch a piano until 20 years later...about a month ago. I've been on a work sabbatical, and realized that I really loved playing back then, and that part of bringing balance back to my life might involve bringing music back into the picture. When I got the piano, I started easing myself back into the basics. But occasionally, I'd try to play some of the very technical pieces I'd learned as a kid. It felt as if I'd forgotten everything about playing them. I stopped trying, and refocused on learning new things. About a week into this, I sat down, and just played the technical thing without thinking about it. It was always there, and I hadn't done anything to relearn it, it just was somewhere beyond the circuitry that typically fires. Shortly after this came flowing out of my fingers, a flood of memories surfaced that shed light on issues of my childhood. My memory of that time period is mostly non-existent (trauma/abuse that I've been working through for many years), so having any glimpse into it is pretty surprising. Also disturbing, as it turns out, but it gave me something to work with where before there had only been pain and a sense of feeling lost. There's something magical about closing your eyes, and feeling the keys, and the keys becoming an extension of your thoughts and feelings in that moment, and feeling like you can spill your emotions onto the keyboard, and these beautiful sounds come out. I don't doubt that music reconnected some pathways that haven't been active for awhile. I'm trying to be more careful about playing music I learned back then though...

dubeye 3y ago
Yeah this is cool. I took up classical Guitr again and was expecting this to happen, and it was really cool feeling my memory inbox ping
test1235 3y ago
That was a lovely comment to read - thanks for that. I've been trying to get into learning music lately, as a change from programming. I'd love to be as familiar with an instrument to be able to work as instinctively as you describe.
- haswell 3y ago
  Thank you! For all of the complications of that time in my life, I’m grateful for the piano lessons. I definitely think it’s a worthwhile thing to spend time on, and part of what got me to dive back in was looking at the amount of time I was spending on things like Factorio and Rocket League. Honing my aerial goal shooting skills endlessly was starting to feel not very useful, and I realized it was mostly the challenge that I enjoyed, and that I could find that challenge elsewhere. Playing instinctively started to happen once I had some good muscle memory established for basic scales/chords/progressions. I hated practicing these as a kid, but they really do unlock possibilities. From there, a few basic techniques can start an improvisation, and the chords/scales/progressions take over. A little bit every day adds up over time.
mandmandam 3y ago
Highly recommend the book 'The Body Keeps The Score', which touches on a lot of what you're bringing up here. Thanks for sharing that. https://www.besselvanderkolk.com/resources/the-body-keeps-the-score https://www.besselvanderkolk.com/resources/the-body-keeps-th...
- haswell 3y ago
  I’ve had this book for years, but had some difficulty confronting the subject matter until more recently. I’m a few chapters in now, and it has been very illuminating. I don’t think it’s coincidental that I started a yoga practice earlier this year, and it’s helped me move emotions through my body that I previously didn’t know how to handle. Thanks for mentioning it here. This is a good reminder to finish reading it.
djtango 3y ago
Took about 7 years out of the piano. After starting again I found the same issue. It was frustrating and awkward to try to play old pieces. I kept one because it was just the right level to re-engage. After a few weeks of playing things started to come back and old pieces would just flow from the fingertips if I let myself go and stopped overthinking things. If I rationalize it, there's what your brain thinks, what your eye sees, what you want to play and what your body is doing. And once I'm warmed up these are all connected better and when in the flow state I can dig out old muscle memory from 15-20 years ago
- haswell 3y ago
  The body knows how to do stuff. The more I pay attention, the more I realize that I (the thinking I) don’t get involved in most of it. This has been a very liberating realization. Really cool to hear that you’ve had a similar experience.
  - djtango 3y ago
    Yep. Don't know if you're a programmer but I think it's ultimately abstraction. When you watch kids learn to walk it's super difficult. It's a whole body act and requires a bunch of coordination/timing of the core with the legs and hips. Similarly with piano if you start having to do things like arpeggios or scales very fast, you no longer have time to be 100% cognizant of the minutiae of what you're doing and the higher level action takes over. As a programmer I love to analyze and overthink so I enjoy physical activities as they ground me and remind me to let go and trust myself.
    - haswell 3y ago
      Yeah, I've written code my whole life, and spent most of it focused almost exclusively on that analytical way of thinking. The thing that Piano (and Yoga) has helped me see is how much intelligence is not of the thinking/analytical variety. I've gradually transitioned from seeing analytical thought as the only "valid" way of looking at the world to analytical thought being another tool in a toolbox and just one aspect of intelligence. How does my heart know how fast to beat? How do my vital organs function? Certainly not because I'm thinking about it :)

dubeye 3y ago

Yeah this is cool. I took up classical Guitr again and was expecting this to happen, and it was really cool feeling my memory inbox ping

test1235 3y ago

That was a lovely comment to read - thanks for that. I've been trying to get into learning music lately, as a change from programming. I'd love to be as familiar with an instrument to be able to work as instinctively as you describe.

haswell 3y ago
Thank you! For all of the complications of that time in my life, I’m grateful for the piano lessons. I definitely think it’s a worthwhile thing to spend time on, and part of what got me to dive back in was looking at the amount of time I was spending on things like Factorio and Rocket League. Honing my aerial goal shooting skills endlessly was starting to feel not very useful, and I realized it was mostly the challenge that I enjoyed, and that I could find that challenge elsewhere. Playing instinctively started to happen once I had some good muscle memory established for basic scales/chords/progressions. I hated practicing these as a kid, but they really do unlock possibilities. From there, a few basic techniques can start an improvisation, and the chords/scales/progressions take over. A little bit every day adds up over time.

mandmandam 3y ago

Highly recommend the book 'The Body Keeps The Score', which touches on a lot of what you're bringing up here. Thanks for sharing that. https://www.besselvanderkolk.com/resources/the-body-keeps-the-score https://www.besselvanderkolk.com/resources/the-body-keeps-th...

haswell 3y ago
I’ve had this book for years, but had some difficulty confronting the subject matter until more recently. I’m a few chapters in now, and it has been very illuminating. I don’t think it’s coincidental that I started a yoga practice earlier this year, and it’s helped me move emotions through my body that I previously didn’t know how to handle. Thanks for mentioning it here. This is a good reminder to finish reading it.

djtango 3y ago

Took about 7 years out of the piano. After starting again I found the same issue. It was frustrating and awkward to try to play old pieces. I kept one because it was just the right level to re-engage. After a few weeks of playing things started to come back and old pieces would just flow from the fingertips if I let myself go and stopped overthinking things. If I rationalize it, there's what your brain thinks, what your eye sees, what you want to play and what your body is doing. And once I'm warmed up these are all connected better and when in the flow state I can dig out old muscle memory from 15-20 years ago

haswell 3y ago
The body knows how to do stuff. The more I pay attention, the more I realize that I (the thinking I) don’t get involved in most of it. This has been a very liberating realization. Really cool to hear that you’ve had a similar experience.
- djtango 3y ago
  Yep. Don't know if you're a programmer but I think it's ultimately abstraction. When you watch kids learn to walk it's super difficult. It's a whole body act and requires a bunch of coordination/timing of the core with the legs and hips. Similarly with piano if you start having to do things like arpeggios or scales very fast, you no longer have time to be 100% cognizant of the minutiae of what you're doing and the higher level action takes over. As a programmer I love to analyze and overthink so I enjoy physical activities as they ground me and remind me to let go and trust myself.
  - haswell 3y ago
    Yeah, I've written code my whole life, and spent most of it focused almost exclusively on that analytical way of thinking. The thing that Piano (and Yoga) has helped me see is how much intelligence is not of the thinking/analytical variety. I've gradually transitioned from seeing analytical thought as the only "valid" way of looking at the world to analytical thought being another tool in a toolbox and just one aspect of intelligence. How does my heart know how fast to beat? How do my vital organs function? Certainly not because I'm thinking about it :)