March 2025 - These Hands

I always feel extremely impatient during March and April. We slowly emerge from the grip of a Western New York winter…only to be teased over, and over, and over again with tastes of spring. The days are brighter and longer, the grass turns green, cautious bulbs burst into daffodils, crocuses, and tulips, forsythia bushes explode into yellow streaks…only to be squashed under several inches of snow that often melts within a day or two. In order to survive in Rochester, whether plant or beast, one must have strength and fortitude.

In general, I think humans are becoming less capable of handling adversity. I recently finished reading “The Coddling of the American Mind: How Good Intentions and Bad Ideas Are Setting Up a Generation for Failure” written by Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt. In this book, the authors explore three terrible ideas dubbed the Great Untruths - what doesn’t kill you makes you weaker; always trust your feelings; and life is a battle between good people and evil people. The authors present a convincing case that a culture of safetyism - protecting ourselves against anything that could be considered dangerous - interferes with young people’s social, emotional, and intellectual development. Subsequently, these young people struggle to become autonomous, independent adults, in a society that increasingly isolates its members, even as we experience instantaneous connection through technology.

This morning, I was volunteering at the Bagel Cart fundraising table at the Hochstein School of Music, counting coins and bills over and over, making sure I hadn’t made any errors. I recalled the hours I spent as a kid doing a similar task after collecting money from my paper route customers. I had visions of the overstuffed shoebox on my bedroom carpet, coins scattered across the floor as I performed my middle school version of bookkeeping. The act of handling physical money - dollar bills, quarters, dimes, nickels - is rarely performed in my everyday life now. I’m quite sure that unless kids work some kind of retail job, the skill of making change will be lost, along with so many other tactile tasks that for centuries have helped define our humanity. What else are we abandoning in the name of progress and technology, efficiency and advancement? What work is there left to do with our hands, our bodies, our minds?

As a piano teacher, I work with my hands, my mind, and my heart. I teach other people how to use their hands, their minds, and their hearts. Sometimes that work is glorious, inspiring and restorative; other times it’s tedious, repetitive, and boring. You can’t have ecstasy without drudgery. It’s difficult to feel a sense of accomplishment without adversity. Playing an instrument for other people can be terrifying; it exposes our vulnerability, putting us out into the world for judgment, feedback, or criticism (or sometimes all three), and reveals our biggest fear - rejection. To shy away from danger is normal, and naturally we want to protect our children and keep them out of harm’s way. If we avoid those types of situations, however, we are not allowing ourselves the benefits of fully living the human experience, or teaching those who follow us to cope when life inevitably becomes challenging.

All this to say, I think piano is a terrific way to train those young people to deal with some mild adversity and fear, with a healthy dose of fine motor skills and hand-eye coordination. We are all made better by holding onto any small section of this unifying thread - music - that connects all humans, across thousands of years and cultures, ever since the beginning of time.