The Body Project, Day 3

At some point in my musical journey (which started 29 years ago this summer), I went from hating piano lessons to genuinely loving them and obsessing about things like having pianists' hands.

Alas, I do not have the hands of a concert pianist. I have tiny, tiny hands.

Oh well, they're great hands. I don't really struggle with any sort of love/hate relationship. I didn't mind them when they were chubby, and only briefly worried about how they looked when I noticed they were losing weight. What's funny is that my hands were one of the last parts of my body to show a dramatic difference as the weight came off, and it was sometime in 2012, a few months before I hit goal weight, that I noticed they looked very thinned-out.

My hands do great things--they play the piano quite nicely, though you'd never know it from these two videos I made tonight because it's awkward to play and film yourself with an iPhone all at the same time. Plus, since school let out, my playing time has been minimal. (Same goes for singing.)



Maybe it's a silly thing, to love one's hands, but they're a big part of what I do--playing choir parts on the piano, leading my students in warm-ups, teaching young piano players. I use my hands to communicate when I'm conducting my choir. I use them to grip heavy weights at the gym (I wear gloves because otherwise, OUCH).

These hands play Beethoven.



These hands write this blog.

Why yes, I did pause, take a pic of my left hand in front of
the draft of this post, and upload it to the post. 

These hands are badass.