Music

My ancient, glorious Chinese culture with five thousand years experience, has fostered in the minds of billions of Chinese boys and girls, & edified the whole motherland of China, makingour heritage rich and plentiful.

Yet today, I am going to talk about something other than the culture of my motherland. That is the music. From six, the piano has been my partner for eleven years. I never knew my piano had affected me for eleven years until that day...

A friend came and when she saw the piano and insisted on hearing me play some tunes, so I did. I played a “Grand Valse Brillante” by Chopin which represents the romantic style of Chopin music. When I was playing, I vaguely saw the sea. I was standing by the sea, hearing the wind blowing by my ears, and the glistening ripple came into my sight quietly and softly. Those jumping notes on my book danced actively, and lively below the whispering sea wind. In an instant, the gamut of ordinary notes changed to the graceful notes, which was so funny and cute, that those grace notes were just like little tiny fishes kissing the surface of the water. Suddenly, I changed again, the octachords made me excited. The sea wind blew up hard, lifted the wave coldly, and smashed it onto the shore fiercely. Too cruel for me to watch this, I even felt pity for the waves. In two ticks, everything disappeared, the only notes left werefor the piano, and the echo in my heart.

I finished the tune, and I said, “Piano is just a common musical instrument after all. The player uses it to express himself, and spread the beauty of music. No matter what language you speak, you will always understand me through music.”

After that, I realized my heart was changed even though I did not realize it. Remembering when I was young, I learned piano only when my mom was beside me because of my beingnaughty and childish, which now became the most precious and valuable memory in my life. It made me laugh, it made me cry.

When I grew older, I needed more finger practice. In order to have very strong and deft fingers for harder music, I had to play harder and longer even if they became bloodied sometimes, because I played too hard. At that time, what stayed in my mind was I was too tired to pick up chopsticks rather than complaining about everything connected with thepiano.

In my youth, the piano was just like a follower who would always annoy and bother me. Until that day, a deep feeling from within my soul told me that I needed it.

Because Mozart was my speciality, I spent most of my time learning about him, and playing a lot of his tunes. However, once at a music hall, I heard, “You learned much about Mozart and Chopin, how about Chinese tunes? Are you Chinese?”

I was quite abashed about my behavior of playing mostly Mozart’s music. So I went to my piano teacher. He laughed, then he said: “There is no separation of nationality and originality in music, because it lives in every soul that lives.” I could not understand it. But some years later, I now totally understand.

When I was at my winter holiday, I went to the US. It was about midnight when I was walking in the hall of the hotel. I saw there was a party in the next room, and there was a piano in it. I went into it, and played some tunes. They seemed very happy after my show, and sang a song in return. Later the manager of the hotel told me that it was a German Jewish Party. I felt surprised that even without language, we could feel so happy together.

Back from America, I kept learning music. Those precious memories often come to my mind now, and I felt so proud of myself. I understand that music is a bridge which crosses the soulsof different people. We can mix our thoughts, spread our love and good wishes to every corner of this world. This is the very artistic cultural sovereign moment that affected me most.