I started teaching myself piano.

I started teaching myself piano.

Why? Lots of reasons. Here are a few:

• I always had music in my heart but there wasn’t space for it growing up the way I did.

• Music has always been a language I understood intuitively but roughly. Now I’d like to dive in and learn the grammar, the syntax, become fluent.

• Piano is the ur-instrument. It’s as close as you can get to ground contact with the underlying framework of music itself. Every key plunk a new line of code in the musical matrix of your divination.

Music can speak across languages.

Everyone knows what it means when a major chord modulates into a minor chord: trouble ahead.

Everyone feels the calm, contemplative serenity of Satie’s Gymnopédie No. 2.

Music speaks in ways words can’t.

I’m a word guy, yes. But mainly for the way words can help us communicate.

I’m actually a connection guy. And I realized I ought to have another way to connect.

Music is as good a choice as any. Piano is as good an instrument as there is to start with.

I’ll see you around, fellow travelers. Until then, may you have music in your hearts and in your homes.

Jacob