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Getting to 'easy' is hard work

© Kelly L. Henderson

I've been preparing for a piano exam since the summer of 2000. When I first starting working on the repertoire I thought I might be ready within a year. At the one-year mark I realized I wasn't going to make it and started looking at 18 months as my deadline.

That seemed feasible at first but a death in the family and some other personal setbacks interfered with my concentration and I knew as the deadline approached it was still not enough time for me to be as prepared as I wanted to be.

I now have about five months left to prepare for the exam. I am not ready yet but I am getting there. My pieces are memorized and are now in the fine-tuning stage. My technique is improving daily. I work on sight reading and ear training regularly.

But even though I have a handle on everything now I can't relax yet. I still have hours of practising to do over the remaining days and weeks. My goal is to have everything feel "easy" so that it will flow out of me, through me, with no thought or effort. This is especially important during an exam when I am bound to be nervous and my hands will start to shake.

A few of the musical elements I have been working on feel this way so I know I can do it. But I still have weeks of work ahead of me and sometimes I feel quite overwhelmed by the work that still needs doing.

Not long ago I was fortunate to see a performance by the Jacques Loussier Trio. I remember thinking as I watched Monsieur Loussier play the piano how easy he made it look. His playing was graceful, musical, and effortless. I didn't hear a single wrong note. A glance at his biography tells the story however. The ease with which he plays piano is not some happy accident.

He started playing at the age of ten. He spent many years at a Paris Conservatory studying with a distinguished teacher. He then began playing all over the world and has continued to do so for several decades. He has also composed, recorded, experimented with many types of music, and played with many different musicians.

I guess you might say he has "paid his dues" and at the age of 67 his piano playing is both lush and spare, if that's possible, and absolutely effortless.

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