What I believed then — wrongly, as it turns out — was that, given the circumstances, studying music would dilute my focus. I thought I had to choose between a future career and something I loved, to either listen to my head or follow my heart.
That day, I listened to my head.
Louis Wang playing a concert aged 15, and playing the same song as an adult at a school reunion.
To others, it might have appeared an easy decision. I was not a prodigy. And yet, stopping piano sounded a deeper dissonance than giving up other subjects I enjoyed, like history and geography. Music was a refuge when life grew hard. Walking away from the piano was like muting an intrinsic part of myself.
To stop then was also to stop short of independence. Once formal lessons ended, I knew my skills would regress quickly. I understood that I was moving from making music to listening to it. Maybe forever.
“Don’t worry, just remember to keep listening. That way, you’ll never really stop being a music student,” my teacher said.
As we said our goodbyes, I vowed to return. But the pursuit of a place in medical school quickly became all-consuming.
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Yet my teacher’s lessons followed me far beyond the piano. She taught me the importance of listening to others, but also to myself. From her, I learnt to trust instinct, a confidence forged through practice and rehearsal. Even now, when seeing patients, it can surface as a sense that something is off, before it is clear on paper — a recognition shaped by patterns I have seen many times before. In this way, my years at the piano became a way of practising for life.
And when life grew busy, and the days stormy, listening to music became a much-needed elixir. I came to see that my decision that day was less final than it had felt — a rest mistaken for an ending.
Decades later, after working in the clinic, and as the late afternoon melts into dusk, I sometimes find myself standing at the doorway of another piano studio. I’m late, but it’s not my lesson. In the soft glow of tungsten-yellow lights, I see two grand pianos, not one. And there are no dogs. At the closest piano, still in her high school uniform, sits a younger version of me, midway through a fast passage I don’t recognise and can barely even read. I recognise a familiar sway. Her teacher, seated at the other piano, smiles as I enter and gives me a knowing look. Trying not to interrupt, I plonk, like one of my old teacher’s shih tzus, onto the nearest sofa.
And while I sit in silent attention, closing my eyes and letting the wash of my daughter’s latest musical adventure soften the colours of my day, I hear my teacher’s parting words from all those years ago.
She had been right all along. I had never really left.
Louis Wang is a cardiologist and a medical educator.
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