It had been a month since my hands had touched its keys. Yet, the music flows through as if they had never been separated. I play without referencing the music, and it’s the most liberating feeling in the whole world.

I have always loved being able to play almost on cue, but have always hated how forced memorization often took all feeling out of the piece. Unfortunately, much of my piano experience has been composed of exactly that: forced memorization. It is simply something that needs to be done, whether for competition or simply for a holiday recital.

The key to becoming successful when it comes to memorization of course is to repeat, replay, and then redo the process a million times more. Thus, by the end, one gets a product composed of pristine crescendos and crisp staccatos. But what is lost is the “feeling”. The player no longer gets that rush upon hearing the key change because there is no longer that element of surprise. When memorizing, the piece no longer catches the player’s breath because it’s like reading a book twice within the same day– you end up waiting for “it”.

But something I realized while playing tonight was that the raw emotion that I had once felt when I was first introduced to the piece never died. After the hours of practicing, I had thought that I had dried the piece of its vigor. But the life of the piece never really died. I just needed to give it time.

Sitting here at the piano, I play a piece I had played for competition six months ago. It is a piece I had once been able to visualize in my sleep; one in which each rest had once been engrained into the rhythm of my own breath. Yet, today the staccatos take me by surprise. The key change gives me goose bumps and I am back. I can once again feel the piece.