Pictures from above the keyboard

To me, music is therapy, and a breather after a long, tiring day.
A double joy, for I not only hear the sounds, but also realise that I am the one bringing them to life. My fingers slowly drift around the keyboard, caressing the cool ebony and ivory.

Some treat a grand piano as little more than a piece of furniture – perhaps with additional functions, yet in actual fact not differing much from a wardrobe or a sofa.
To me, the piano is a member of the family. After all these years, I can honestly say that pianos share a range of features with people, metaphorically speaking – they have a soul: they get cross with their owners, show gratitude, and can prove their friendship. All you need is the right approach to them.

And so I sit down to the piano after a hard day full with everyday tasks. No, not to practise. I respect that method of achieving perfection, and I know that many pianists put themselves through a regime bordering on monastic discipline. They are like athletes: mastery depends on the number of hours spent in the gym, on the pitch and on the training ground. I only play for pleasure, overcoming tiredness, and releasing the pent-up emotions. I share the emotions with their audience. I draw them into shared experience. Rigorous practice would strip that gift – one that I have received and now extend to others – of its innocence and romantic charm.

My approach is not that of a craftsman. I tend to surrender to that profound and unflagging force that art is vested with. I flow with it, trusting that the journey will take me to good and safe places.

I often reflect on the power that an artist gains over the audience. It is a particular type of dependence: during a concert, the listeners and I form a single organism. This state continues until the last chord has faded. The artist controls the emotions of the listeners, and channels their feelings. By casting a spell and guiding their thoughts, the artist leads the listener into the innermost, intimate world. This power is nigh on absolute.

And yet this power also has its boundaries, which are the personal experiences of the audience, filtering the sound through their own sensitivity, memories, and emotions. This is where the true magic happens! The listeners interpret the artist’s work for themselves and in their own way. The audience are no passive consumers, as they become participants and co-creators of experiences.

The piano was not my first instrument at school. It is a later, more mature fascination. When I confess that I sat down to a piano at the age of 45, people find it hard to believe me. Many believe it to be a calculated strategy to stir the audience’s curiosity.
But it is pure unadulterated truth.

I like improvising. It is an unpredictable adventure. It is like setting off to an unknown destination: we know where we started, but nobody, ourselves included, knows where we will arrive. If we lose our way, all the better. All the more emotions. My audience react similarly. Perhaps they realise that our only guide during the concert is the sounds that arrange themselves into an unpredictable whole.

Asked about the concert’s setlist, I often answer, absolutely truthfully: I don’t know it. It will all come out, everything will fall into place. I used to compose programmes carefully, considering what should follow what. Today I know I have to follow a different approach, giving more credence to the moment and what the music I am performing suggests.

My every work is a page in the diary. I record the events I participated in, my reactions, myself. The power of music lies in sincerity.

Once, while in a car, I heard the term “content provider” on the radio. It made me laugh. Yet I soon thought that there may be something true and captivating in it. Am I, myself, not a provider of content known as emotions? I make content available and I invite people to share it. A provider of emotions. This is how I often see myself.

My experience tells me that music is capable of changing lives. Not only soothing frayed nerves, but simply inspiring you to be a better person. Talking to people after concerts, I’ve met some whom music helped to solve long-mounting problems.
And anyone who has experienced this beauty therapy even once will return to it forever.