Adult piano student Alan Rusbgidger works full time as the editor of the UK newspaper, The Guardian. In his recently published book, Play it Again: An Amateur Against the Impossible, he describes the year he dedicated to learn Chopin’s Ballade Number 1.
Rusbridger writes, “Perhaps if I’d known then what else would soon be happening in my day job, I might have had second thoughts. For it would transpire that, at the same time, I would be steering the Guardian through one of the most dramatic years in its history… there were the Japanese tsunami, the Arab Spring, the English riots . . . and the death of Osama Bin Laden”. He was determined to set aside time every day to do something completely unrelated to his work; hence his self-described “Chopin Year”.
Rusbridger discovered a serene calmness in his time spent at the piano, which lasted throughout his day. His music was his sanctuary in a world of urgent deadlines and details. “I feel my piano time helps my professional time. I hesitate to describe what it feels like – how it seems as if I’m using a different part of my brain when I’m doing my daily twenty minutes, and in some way it sets me up for the day. The chemistry has been altered.” Neuroscientist Ray Dolan explained how this phenomenon works and compared the experience Rusbridger describes to the sensation he feels (Dolan) when he goes skiing; “One of the things I notice when I ski is that I don’t think about other things, so all my anxieties and worries are gone out of the window.”