Nicholas Scott Cote Analysis

Nicholas Scott Cote
Twelve years old was the first time I had ever experienced a panic attack. It felt like a rush of adrenaline coupled with a racing heart going a million miles an hour. It was as if my mind was preparing my body to endure a serious car accident, or a parachute jump out of an airplane flying hundreds of thousands of feet up in the air. However, it was merely the event of a piano recital that sparked my sweaty palms and uncontrollable breathing.
I attempted to put aside my perpetual and persistent thoughts of failing miserably in front of hundreds of people and remember what my I had learned from my teacher, Mr. Piper. I remembered the first time I had walked into his office for a lesson I immediately sat down and whipped
out my own unique version of “Hot Crossed Buns” that I had been practicing days in advance. “We are not playing Hot Crossed Buns until week three” I remember him stating with a slight smile. I was to first read through the Book of Piano Theory; learn to read the basic notes of the treble and bass clefs, and practice for hours playing one note at a time. After I had mastered the note of “F”, he promised, I could then move on to “G”.
“Practice and repetition, practice and repetition”, he would say over and over to me whenever I begged him to move onto the next lesson in the book. It wasn’t until now that I realized why we had not moved on until I had practiced for hours mastering one note, one chord, and eventually one song at a time. Playing at home by yourself or in the presence of a single instructor feels much different than playing in front of hundreds of strangers staring at you all at once. I was never one to strive
Nicholas Scott Cote to be the center of attention, and growing up with two other siblings and parents who worked 60 to 70 hours a week always afforded me the opportunity to be timid, to blend in, to fade into the background. My constant anxiety issues forced me to avoid any resemblance of a stressful situation. Once when I was eight I even tried to run away from home in order to avoid telling my parents that I had received a less than substantial grade on a test. Although I only made it to the end of the driveway, running away from problematic, stressful, and fearful situations became almost second nature to me. But not tonight, for the first time in my life I was the center of attention, the star of the show, and there was nowhere to run or hide if I felt like backing out. Everyone was waiting, waiting for me.
I decided earlier on in the day to take a technical approach to my upcoming recital performance. I fervently convinced myself that if I remained technically sound, trusted my training, and hit every string of notes with the utmost precision and accuracy; there was no chance of failure. As I explained this seemingly flawless approach to my piano instructor, Mr. Piper, he said something to me that has stuck with me to this day whenever I am faced with a daunting and difficult challenge. “Music is not simply about flawless technique or perfect memorization”, he insisted, “Its about playing from the heart, its about transferring your feelings and your emotions onto the keyboard to create a passionate and unique melody. You do not tell the story of the piece you are playing, the piece you are playing should tell a story about you”.
Nicholas Scott Cote
That was when I discovered how to use passion to overcome fear.
From then on I began experimenting coupling different chords with different melodies in order to display the unique side of myself in every piece that I played.
Recitals, auditions, and competitions became less of an enormous fearful endeavor, and became more of an opportunity to showcase to an audience my feelings, my emotions, and my story. The more I played from my heart, the more I understood the necessity for adding one’s own perspective to even the most classical of piano pieces. The melody, the harmony, and the beat must remain by the book, according to the original composer, but the pace, the volume, and the treble with which the piece is played in can vary from person to person. Although the musical key cannot be changed within a song, there is always room, in any piano piece, for reinterpretation. That day at the recital I learned that if you play something with the utmost passion, emotion, and zeal, the piece could never be played wrong because if a note or a chord was not played in the perfect spot according to the original composer, it only added to the unique stamp that I was putting on the piece.
Although my piano lessons and recitals halted after my high school career came to an end, the lessons I had learned from Mr. Piper and the many piano recitals and auditions I took part in remained a significant factor in my life. Although structure and discipline are important to achieving my goal of furthering my education, in order to obtain the most out of college, or law school, or any challenge I must incorporate my own feelings and passions into it in order to
become
Nicholas Scott Cote successful. I understand the importance of having structured study habits and improving on my test-taking skills, while never forgetting that in order to accomplish anything in life, one must possess passion and enthusiasm for the thing that they are trying to achieve. In short, music has taught me that while graduating law school would most certainly enable me to have a good and stable career for the rest of my life, the reason I want to attend Syracuse Law school is to put my own passionate and unique stamp on the world, just as Mr. Piper instructed me to do years ago.