The romantic period in music spanned the early 19^th century until about the beginning of the 20^th century. Among the most significant romantic musicians and composers from that time period were Friedriech Chopin, Franz Liszt, Felix Mendelssohn, Peter Ilych Tchaikovsky, Richard Wagner, and Niccolo Paganini, and so much more that the list goes on and on just to show you how the richness and variety of the period. The main characteristic of the music of this period was the emphasis on the individuality of style and self-expression. It was known for the greater ranges of tone color, dynamics, and pitch, with more emphasis given to colorful unstable chords in a broader harmonic vocabulary.

These exactly were the directions my thoughts took as I continued reading the notes to Franz Liszt's Transcendental Etude no. 10. It was a virtuoso piece I have been working on these last two weeks for my mid-terms this semester. Franz Liszt was considered as the poet of the piano and for good reason too as his compositions were bold, bombastic, and almost vulgar in comparison to the more lyrical works of Chopin. Franz Liszt was a very extroverted pianist, and his Etudes demanded the same exertion from any student who was willing enough to attempt it.

“No, no, my dear, stop stop...”

My maestro's voice was soft but firm as he interrupted my playing. Gently, I lifted my fingers from the piano keys and laid them flat on my lap and turned to face him.

“You're over thinking again.” He said.

Maestro Arrau shook his head disapointedly once more. He was this aged pianist with a head and beard full of white hair. He was always soft-spoken and considerate when he spoke, even when he demanded much of you for a certain piece of music.

“The Etude is a very passionate and a very dazzling piece, see the Allegro agitato molto here?” He pointed at the corresponding meter on my sheet music, “Very agitated, Liszt likes to show off, he's very extroverted, this particular piece he wrote for his teacher, Czerny, he wanted to demonstrate his mastery of the piano.”

I understood what Maestro Arrau had said, I understood it, but somehow I didn't understand what he had wanted me to do. I knew I was far from being a master and this piece had been a small indulgent gift he had challenged me with, but what exactly was I doing wrong?

Maestro plucked the sheet music from the stand and replaced it with a book I've come to love and loathe at the same time. Franz Liszt's own teacher, Carl Czerny, and his virtuoso studies for finger dexterity. He turned to our last exercise and then leaned back on his seat.

I spent the rest of the morning button-smashing trying to ease off the tension in my system.

…

“Yewon Jjang!!!”

My best friend Yewon was already at the lobby waiting for me as soon as my morning session finished. Jang Yewon, or as she liked to call herself, Yewon Jjang, was a percussion major, the only female percussion major in our college and she was very proud of that fact.

“Esh...Where is Yoojin?” She asked, flipping her lime green phone open and checking the time. She shifted her Zildjian Adrian Young signature drumstick bag on her shoulder and the multitude of accessories and stuffed animals jingled as she did so. The same went for her wrists as they were covered in a myriad of bracelets and bangles.

I shrugged at her, and she shook her head, her high side-ponytail swaying with her full bangs. Sometimes I wonder why Yewon and I were friends when we weren't really very similar aside from our passion for music. Lee Yoojin was our other friend, and she was late. Again.

“So how was class?” I asked her, dropping my own bookbag on the floor.

“It was great, Minhyuk, Minhwan, Chansung, and Key, were crazy today. Bossa, very nice.”

I was expecting her to say more because Yewon usually never stops talking about her classes with her other best friend Key so I turned around to take a look at what caught her attention, and I frowned just as much as her. Her ex-boyfriend Kim Jonghyun, from Voice was parading his new girlfriend, also a Voice major, Shin Sekyung around.

“Aish...yah, are you blind? What's your problem?” She hissed, more to herself than to anyone else.

“Eh...Yewon-ah...let's meet with Yoojin elsewhere.” I suggested, pulling her away before she started a war in the middle of the lobby.

“Yah, that Shin Sekyung is really going to get it from me one of these days.” She scoffed.

I did not doubt her threats one bit. “Call Yoojin, tell her to meet us at our usual lunch table?”

“OMONA!!!”

...was not really the reply I was hoping for, especially when it involved Yewon slapping my arm like silly, her eyes wide as saucers as she hopped up and down. “What is it?” I asked, a little annoyed.

“Yah! Its your Mr. Movie Moment!”

I whirled around immediately to where she was pointing at and I my hands flew up to my face the moment I felt the heat rush up to them. My Mr. Movie Moment, Nichkhun Horvejkul was walking directly towards us!

“Yah, say hi when he passes by, okay?!” Yewon whispered, nudging me with her elbow.

“Are you crazy?! Why would I say hi? I don't even know him!”

“That's the point! Introduce yourself, you're just going to say hi!”

“Jang Yewon-”

The rest of the sentence was drowned out as Nichkhun drew closer to where Yewon and I were standing, I froze immediately on the spot as he neared us, and I swear I wanted to slap Yewon right now.

“Hi! Nichkhun-ssi, we're looking forward to the Piano Concerto tonight!” She beamed at him, waving as she spoke.

Nichkhun returned her smile and bowed slightly before thanking her and continuing towards his destination.

“Yah!” Yewon breathed, slapping my arm again, “Why didn't you say hi? That was your chance!”

“Yewon-ah...” I whined, “I can't just talk to him for no reason at all!”

“That's what Maestro Arrau has been telling you, you're too uptight. Let go! Relax! Be free! Feel the Seishun spirit!” She replied her hands flying off in in the air at every point she made.

Was I really that uptight? I was not. I was just...reserved. Yes, that's it. I was just a very reserved person. There was no need after all to present your emotions all over the place. I wasn't cute like Yewon, I could never pull off the accessories she loved wearing, or the cute outfits she came to school in. I wasn't as pretty or as popular as she was. I was just this plain, boring piano student that blended with the other hundreds of piano students in this college.

We met with Yoojin at our table, and she, like Yewon, was also such a character that you really would be left wondering why we were as close as we were. Granted, Yoojin and I probably argued more than we got along.

She sat with her legs crossed on the metal chair and this would have not been an issue if she wasn't wearing a mini-skirt.

“Lee Yoojin, sit properly.” I told her, slapping her leg.

“Shut up, I have long legs so I use them to my advantage.” She retorted. I had nothing else to say so I just took my seat, careful not to topple over Yoojin's guitar case.

She was a guitar major minoring in voice, and she was the other side our little trio. Like Yewon, she was one of the few females in her department, and this gained her a lot of popularity, especially when she was one of her Maestro's favorite students. That, and like Yewon, and unfortunately very much unlike me, Yoojin already had a string of competition wins and exhibitions under her roster.

Maestro Arrau stiil feels as if I wasn't ready for a competition yet. He says that while my technique was one of the best he had seen in his teaching years, there was something more that was lacking. And that one thing that lacked was the one thing he says sets a musician above the rest. The power to transpose your emotions and feelings into a piece was an artform of its own, and no matter how good of an instrumentalist you are, if you are unable to transcend the boundaries of just playing for ears and playing for hearts, then all your hardwork is meaningless.

In a way I knew exactly what the Maestro meant, I knew it, but it was still so hard to absorb. Again, my thoughts were filled with that one melody that had me frozen in time. The Adagio Cantabile movement of Beethoven's Pathetique was now permanently etched in my mind. It wasn't a romantic piece, it was classical through and through, yet it was unlike anything I ever ever heard. I have never ever heard anyone play that piece the way Nichkhun did that day almost a year ago. I could never forget that, and now I was stuck on him like glue.

What did it take for me to play the piano the way he does? What would it take for him to gaze at me the way he gazes so lovingly at a piano?