I'm sitting in class watching a sophomore play a Rachmaninoff Prelude and am suddenly struck by this instruments complexity. I feel like your brain is doing similar things to when playing any other instrument, but with a crazy rate of decisions per second. The ability of each finger to simultaneously play notes with entirely different musical nuance and expression from the other fingers....
It's all through your fingers. I'm used to thinking of the stream of air issuing from my lungs and my mouth controlling the shape and the speed of the air. I direct it where to go and train my embouchure to build up the muscles in my lips and jaw. My face actually feels strained when I hit practicing hard after taking a day off.
I can't imagine feeling that kind of strain in every one of my ten fingers....or in hitting a chord with all ten fingers having control over the way each finger encounters the key and relates to it. This actually makes so much sense to why it is so standard that pianists memorize their music. There is so much that must be muscle memory and just soaking into their hands--having to look at the music would be much too slow to make all of the decisions any given chord could require.
When I play piano, it can take me forever to move from chord to chord and note to note, but it feels like I am piecing the two sides of my brain together. It focuses the opposite ends of my energy and channels it together, weaving all of my thoughts and expressions together as I attempt to make eight separate decisions for which finger moves where, in one instant.
After five or ten minutes, I'm ready to go back to my flute or break out an art song and occupy myself with one note, one rhythm, and one decision at a time.
-lab
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