Personal Narrative: How Music Changed My Life

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The wooden legs make a scraping sound against the floor as I pull the bench into place. The old, yellowed pages murmur against each other. I sit before the crowd. A hush falls over the audience, the expectations rise in my gut-Will I mess it up? Can I make these people feel something? I place my hands over the black-and-white keys, take a breath, and begin. I start out slowly, pushing the keys deeply, trying to listen to the music that is in my imagination. What story do I want to tell today? In which direction can I turn the audience's hearts? My fingers pick up the pace, louder and louder, the music soars-don't mess up!-and dies back down again. I begin a new phrase, coaxing the notes out of the piano like the moon calls the waves back to the shore.…show more content…
It is crushing to realize that the hours of work, the sacrifices that brought me to this one moment, are useless. My fingers fumble, nerves overtake me. I should never have gotten up here. I should never have pressed a single key. As quickly as it comes, the instant is over, like a gasp. My fingers find their spot again and the melody picks up. The people in the crowd haven't noticed, it's all right, they don't know the piece like I do, and anyhow, the notes don't matter. I repeat it to myself: the notes don't matter. It's the music that

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