How piano taught me to sing
Does piano playing help with singing?
I was around 4 years old when I first became interested in music, but it wasn’t singing that fired up my early musical imagination.
It was an antique, mysteriously looking upright piano with ornately carved lion paws for the legs and two quirky candle holders sticking out from the upper front board, as if they were overseeing everything that was taking place across the 88 white and black keys laid out in a harmonious order beneath.
The piano stood quietly in the corner of a relatively big room, but even as a 4-year-old child I could already tell it totally owned every bit of that space. It intrigued me with its enigmatic appearance, but it was the sound it made upon being played that drew me in completely. This old majestic piano didn’t just play the notes. It sang them. Every piece of music played on it was a storytelling and I listened to all those stories with my entire 4-year-old little self.
Soon, I too wanted to tell stories on the piano, so I learnt how pressing different keys makes different sounds and how combining certain keys together would make the sound happy or sad. I also learnt that the pace, intensity, and even my mood would influence the sound of the notes that I played. I was 4 years old and it was the beginning of a lifelong friendship and the best spiritual experience I would ever encounter.
