Piano

Updated: 2023-05-20T20:50:54.863Z

My mom, who's really good at piano, got me piano lessons when I was growing up. We also had a Steinway stand-up piano in our house that I love. It's the one I'm playing on in the videos below.

I took more piano lessons at Kent School where I did piano as one of my extracurricular activities. I performed in a few recitals there too. These are some of the songs I performed:

Mozart - Rondo Alla Turca (Turkish March)
Chopin - Prelude Op 28 No 4
Chopin - Prelude Op 28 No 20
Debussy - Clair de Lune

Unfortunately, I don't remember how to play those songs anymore, and I'm slow at reading sheet music, so it wouldn't be easy for me to relearn them. Also, I never took a video or audio recording of me playing Mozart's Rondo Alla Turca or Chopin's Prelude Op 28 No 20. The former song I wasn't a huge fan of, but my piano teacher at Kent School picked it for me to learn. I do love Yuja Wang's variations on the Turkish March though. The latter song, also chosen by my piano teacher at Kent School, isn't a very difficult song, technically speaking, but I still think it's beautiful.

I also learned how to play a funky version of the song "Heart and Soul" (which my brother taught me after he learned it from a friend) and parts of a few other songs, such as the beginning of the second movement of Beethoven's Piano Sonata No 8 "Sonata Pathétique" and the piano arpeggios in the beginning of Coldplay's "Clocks".

I also was the first cellist in my middle school's orchestra. And I took one oboe lesson because I think it's a cool instrument.

Here I am at different times playing piano. I think I just recorded myself for each video by propping up my phone or camera on something.

Chopin - Prelude Op 28 No 4 - 2008 July 10

Debussy - Clair de Lune - 2010 April 15. By this time I had already forgotten a bunch of it, but when I was in high school I could play the whole song without any obvious mistakes.

Beethoven - Moonlight Sonata III - 2013 November 5. I never learned the whole song, only the beginning and end and some parts in between. This is such a badass song. I also learned the first few measures of the (very popular) first movement. It's beautiful.

Bach - Invention No 13 - 2013 November 5. I love this song, but I never learned the whole thing, only some of the beginning and this part, which I love so much because the hands are doing completely different things at the same time. Bach was a genius.