I play piano. It’s fun, I have a great teacher, and it honestly improves my brain. I also have to practice a lot, because I play in competitions! I’m actually in a competition today (nervous!) so that is why I am writing this.

First off, I always manage to play better than I usually would when practising at home. There’s something about being on a stage with lights shining down on me that makes my brain go ‘okay, NOW we’re actually gonna play well.’ I honestly have mixed feelings about this. I play better and perform better, but… there’s something about it that makes me feel unsatisfied. Imagine training for the Cross Country hour after hour, exhausted every single day, then waking up doing it better than you’ve ever done it before. It makes you feel like all your practice didn’t matter. This probably doesn’t make sense.

Piano does sometimes HURT. I do end up with cramps in my elbows, wrists and fingers. And it is VERY annoying when it’s winter. Your fingers are cold/numb and the piano keys are even colder. It hurts a lot. Like, you know when your hands are really cold and they feel so vulnerable? Yeah, well imagine trying to karate chopping something that’s frozen with your hands like that.  I know that’s a terrible comparison, but it’s the only one I can think of for anyone that doesn’t necessarily play an instrument. Granted, I don’t actually do karate, so… sorry if that is offensive or unfair to anyone that does karate.

Even in winter, your hands sweat so much. This is honestly really funny. In the last competition I did, my hands were so sweaty afterwards that I literally couldn’t pick up a plastic cup without it slipping out of my grasp. At least I didn’t get really sweaty in my performance!

One time when I was performing, there was something wrong with the piano. No, I’m not trying to make excuses for not getting anything. The keys were sticking down longer than they should have. If I tried to play a short light note, it ended up really deep and long. The sounds all clashed and it sounded really terrible. It was pretty annoying because pretty much all of my piece was short light notes. AND if that isn’t enough, the long notes weren’t even consistent! They were just random keys that I had to keep coming back to! (they were C G and A, which was the entire range of the left hand). I am pretty salty.

The feeling when you’ve finished is overwhelming. Taking a bow and smiling at the people applauding you just feels so great. I always feel so confident after. And then I get to listen to everyone else play while I wait for the awards ceremony.

This year, I’m doing two pieces. I have already done one of them (and got Highly Commended- yay), but I was playing second last. So I waited two hours for everyone else to play, then I did my piece. At least there was only about 10 minutes until they gave out awards. Today, I’m playing second. There’s forty five minutes to go! Wish me luck!