An Open Letter to my Neglected Instrument

Dearest Yamaha Keyboard,

I know how you must feel right now, cloaked under a foamy plastic cover while renegade dusts settle in between your buttons and keys. I know you feel disused, forgotten, abandoned even, and I don't blame you for that. I admit, I have been busy with something else lately and it must be painful for you to watch me as I cuddle up with my laptop night after night while you stay sulking quietly beside me.

But please know that my love for you have not lessened over the years. I remember the time when we would spend time with each other for hours, me attempting to do the scales and rigorous finger bending Hanon routines at the start of every session. Sometimes, I would just jump straight to playing a piece but my hands would feel stiff and the keys foreign. After a few minutes of treading blindly did I only start to feel the familiarity of your ivory keys, and the composition would start to sound the way that it should.

I remember the hours and days of arduously studying a sheet music as well as the feeling of absolute freedom of trying to arrange my own version of a song. The best part of everything is performing a well-mastered piece, the feeling of my fingers gliding effortlessly across your vast expanse of musical possibilities.

I think you already have memorized my favorite ones so well, the ones that I would not fail to play every time we are together. Canon in C takes the cake, always the first of many classical and modern pieces that would follow after it. Its swaying melody and simple thrills relaxes me and makes me remember everything beautiful about music and you, my instrument. Valentine by Jim Brickman would probably follow afterwards, just because I know it so well I could probably play it blindfolded.

Later would the more articulate pieces follow. The Swan by Camille Saint Saens, Hungarian Dance No. 5 by Brahms, The Entertainer by Scott Joplin, Canon in D by Pachelbel, Gymnopedie by Erik Satie and Claire de Lune by Debussy (yes, regrettably Sparkly Edward's favorite) will flow from your speakers on those times I was feeling a bit peckish for the classical era. It doesn't make me think less of myself to know that most of the sheet music are simplified arrangements. Just as long as the heart and the melody is there, I am happy.

The rest I know by chords and playing these kinds of songs straight from my brain without notes and meters to follow was liberating. Sometimes, when I haven't played an arrangement for a while, since I don't have a piece of paper telling me which keys to press, I would struggle to remember the notes that followed and exasperation will grow on me until such time that I finally get a hold of it. And I always do. I always knew how to find my way back to you.

I guess all I want to say is that I've missed you and I hope that you and I can still make great music together even after all these months.

So you see, dearest friend, you have nothing to worry about, nothing to fear. For the dusts may accumulate but the music is never forgotten.