Bare Bones

I took piano on and off for seven years through my childhood and teenage years. Something never quite clicked in my brain. Of course, it probably didn’t help that I wasn’t the most devoted student of practice. I did try, but mostly I ended up frustrated. I wanted to play each piece perfectly, but I rarely did.

After all these years (and that’s a bunch), I’ve taken up playing the piano on a pretty regular basis again. Through the years, I’d sit down every so often and recall “Fur Elise,” the one song I’d memorized for recital in junior high school. (Funny how the brain retains unused information.) Other than that, I didn’t attempt to play often until about a year and a half ago. That’s when I decided I wanted to at least be able to play for my own pleasure and enough to write my own songs.

I tried to pick up where I’d left off from piano lessons some 25 years ago. And I’d get frustrated just like I did back then. I was trying to play notes from sheet music, and inevitably, I’d screw up. I have to admit that I never did quite memorize the notes above and below the staves so sight reading was a bit of a pain. And if I couldn’t get all the notes (all the details) right, I didn’t want to play at all. I’d inevitably walk away from the piano bench in defeat.

But I kept going back, and eventually decided to take a different approach. I started learning about chords, but they didn’t make much sense to me. I’d look at the chord chart and try to memorize the notes in each chord, but good gosh, there are just too many chords! Then, I started watching video tutorials on how to play songs on the piano just by playing chords. Slowly, the fog that permeated my brain started to dissipate.

Most recently, I watched a video about playing the “bare bones” of a song, i.e., the major chords. The teacher gave a very simplistic explanation of chords, and suggested eliminating the minor chords in a song. I gave it a whirl, and much to my surprise, the method of playing chords started clicking in my brain. I’ve not been this excited about playing the piano in years!

I thought about the “bare bones” analogy, and applied it to where I am in life. I’m a bit (or maybe a lot) of a perfectionist. I usually wind up frustrated with myself or others because, well, nothing and nobody is perfect. I have been so focused on getting the minor details right that I was missing the basics.

Over the past few months, my grip on details has slowly been loosening, especially when it comes to Christianity. Honestly, I think God has been prying my fingers open, one by one. And in the process, He’s removing all the excess in and around me.  I guess you could say I’m being stripped down to the bare bones: love God and love others. It sure does sound easy, but it’s hard to embrace when your hands and heart are full of clutter. I’ve still got a long way to go, but the bare bones are exposed, and I’m feeling freedom to bask in the simple, in childlike belief.

I’m finding joy in playing the piano, in lazy Sundays with my family, in connecting with new friends, in reading for pleasure, in developing my craft, in sunrises and sunsets, and in the emptying of myself. Yes, joy is creeping back into these bare bones.