Our lives are so full of noise. It’s difficult to feel enough quiet to be able to be creative, or even simply to feel human. Quiet is a funny thing – it doesn’t mean absence of noise, does it? No, in fact, one can feel quiet in the midst of a cacophonous train station or even in a nightclub where the pounding music penetrates your very being. Quiet is related to peace of mind, everyone has a takes a different journey to achieve it. For some of us, that serenity is achieved through music. For me, it has always been whilst seated at the piano. I always start a little awkwardly. One feels naked, on the piano bench, faced with a great highway of black and white keys. When you first touch the keys, your fingers feel stiff and unresponsive. The music is halting and the notes don’t flow. Soon, however, your shoulders loosen, your fingers become limber and your mental machinery is tuned by the melodies and harmonies you are playing. Your eyes follow the notes on the paper in front of you automatically, and your fingers move. If you are learning a new piece, this can be a frustrating, iterative moment – repetition of an error at a certain phrase, but if you are ensconced in the music, you perceive the sound and as a master navigator reads the stars, and your fingers translate that reading into automatic responses, trying and trying again – improving the quality of your playing and bringing you closer to being one with the instrument. Once you know the piece well, you don’t even realise that you are doing something physical – rather, minutes turn into blissful hours and you lose yourself in the musical world you are creating. A place that is of your own creation, new territories and lands: some wild, some stormy, some open and smooth. You navigate the oceans of sound, textured by the dynamics of your playing. You build up to a crescendo, running up a great mountain and then tumble down in sequence after sequence of tinkling arpeggios. Before you know it, it is dark outside and you feel spent. You’ve played your heart out, and you feel as fresh to the world as the day you first became aware of its beauty and infinite possibilities.