Pedal

by Jiyoo Kim-Jung
10/12/24

My mother’s right hand created a stream to flow over my left hand rocks, two hearts beating as one over the white and black checkerboard of the piano. As my technique flowered into something that surpassed my mother’s scarred fingers, the stream trickled dry and my clumsy left hand was left alone. I got so good at playing alone.

I died on the piano bench to step on the pedal, so let me bleed onto the sheets, let me ignore my forte, so that I can become the piano and absorb the science of pain. I am talentless in art, but I am determined to at least brush the feet of the talented.

My piano teacher is the one who breathes music into my machine, as I print the pages of notes into my eyes. Musicality is a visual art for her, nothing unable to be explained in frilly dresses and reefs and chickens on typewriters. I will be the body, and she will be the soul.

She tells me stories about composers whose identity was chosen for them (Debussy), about composers who devoted their lives to loving someone from the past (Liszt), about composers who were buried (Bach), about composers who refused to be buried (Shostakovich). I listen to everything she says breathlessly, because I become the composer when I give my body to the piano. I inhale them into my lungs and let my heart pump their essence into the tips of my fingers, the bones in my shoulders, the muscles in my toes. I listen breathlessly because in that sense. I am discovering something new about the piece. Correction: something new about myself.

It has been ages since I’ve played with another person. That’s not quite true. It has only been a few days, but I have catching up to do. My flower is green, but it has been peeled open from the tips down to its bud, and it turns out animals like opened flowers better than closed ones. I open the lid of my piano, which lets sound out, and swallows hungrily the sounds of others. I am honored that they still play with me.

Chopin broke his wrists; they rebelled against his dictatorship of them over the piano. I have been having more frequent pains against me, and my practice is punctuated by periods of silence. I pretentiously think about how it is the price of the pianist to pay, to change the makeup of their hands to protect against the abuse of hitting them against hard keys. My first teacher scoffed at Chopin as a cautionary tale every time I shook the tension from my arms. My teacher now doesn’t even mention him, cupping my hands with air and telling me to stop playing.

I died on the piano with the pedal still down; piano is a lonely instrument.

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(This piece is part of our yearlong series called Heart Beets that features the work of a group of teen writers, giving us a glimpse into their journey through the school year.)