What I've Learned Since Adamant

This summer marks the one-year anniversary since I studied at the Adamant Music School. Adamant is an intense 3-week program for pianists, located in the Green Mountains of Vermont, just outside the capital of Montpelier. Unlike many other music festivals in the country, it operates in a non-competitive learning environment, and emphasizes community. Although we were a small group of 30 students, the diversity was staggering: the youngest was 14 and the oldest 26, there were Americans, Quebecois, Chinese, South African, British and Iranian participants, some were advanced high-schoolers, some pursuing masters degrees, and others were undergrads like me.

It was an incredibly stimulating place for me, and the way I play and think about music has changed in ways that I couldn’t have predicted. At the same time, it was also a reality check: My teachers and peers showed me what I was doing well, but also what I needed to improve upon, and if there was any better time to take action, it was then. So, here are a few things that I learned from Adamant.

            1. Playing music for the sake of music is liberating.

I was surrounded by phenomenally talented people 24/7.  But being in studio classes, eating dinner, exploring Montpelier, and hanging out during practice breaks made it clear that nobody was trying to one-up each other, we were only concerned about making music that was beautiful, music that challenged us and challenged audiences to think and experience deeply. Classical music if rife with a competitive atmosphere that can be torturous to performers. While Adamant challenged us to play to our utmost potential, it was always in the service of the music, not the ego of a performer or teacher.

2. Nothing can replace hard work.

Playing piano (or any other instrument) isn’t like riding a bike; it’s like lifting weights. You can’t stop for a couple days and expect everything to be just how you left it. If practice isn’t fun and challenging anymore, then you have to figure out a way to make fun again.

3. Take good notes!

Make your score look like a 5 year old’s art project so that you remember fingering, dynamics, new articulations—all the things we think we’ll never forget until our mind goes blank onstage. I now put in boxes to check for every section that I memorize, jot words down to describe mood changes in a piece, and sometimes just a simple “You can do it!” You paid a lot for that Urtext edition of the Well-Tempered Clavier, so scribble everywhere so that it ultimately helps you communicate the music more clearly.

4. Comparisons get you nowhere.

Everybody I met would play at such a high level, yet I’d still hear them beat themselves up about their performances. It was shocking for me to realize that these were normal human beings, and that they thought the same things I did. To get compliments and criticism from these players was a privilege, and even if I didn’t consider it a good performance, there was always someone pointing out something positive that I—being too distracted by the illusion of perfection—hadn’t noticed in my playing.