Chantal Noelle von Maltitz
The piano in the centre
I was born in September 1995 in Isny. Our piano existed even before I did. I was always surrounded by piano music: From time to time my father played pieces from his childhood and my two brothers took piano lessons. In the beginning I mostly sat at the piano just for fun and strummed on it. Just like children do. At the age of five I joined the Lindau Choir together with my brother. I also accompanied him to his piano and his violin lessons often. From that my interests in learning an instrument myself emerged. So I went to cello lessons with my other brother when I was around 7 years old. Two years later I also started playing the saxophone and added the e-guitar to my repertoire at the age of 12. My greatest favorite remained playing the piano, although it rather happened as a sideline. I did not have any lessons which brought some freedom. I could be completely in the moment or just daydream. I could try various styles and develop own melodies. Playing the piano was always without pressure and that allowed me to develop my creativity and my skill in composition. This way of learning the piano was influencial to me: I did not learn to play at sight, but to express my own feelings and ideas in music.
How everything started
In retrospective, I consider it quite amusing how everything started. One of my brothers had just started learning the piano. During that time, he showed me one of the pieces he had to learn.I was around 4 to 5 years old then. When I wanted to play something more advanced, I asked my other brother whether he could show me something. He already played the piano for some years. By doing so, I learned two new pieces from him. I am still able to play these three pieces today and they are a great memory of that time.
These foundations provided a starting point for me. Afterwards, I tried to learn further pieces autodidactically. But it took quite a while to make some progress. The long time of acquiring pieces inspired me to compose music myself. It always allowed me to directly start playing.
The way to my own compositions
I could easily observe how I improved in composition. Soon, I was not able anymore to memorize all of them. Short recordings using the computer or the smartphone make it easy to save my drafts. When listening to them again, my fingers are quite fast in remembering how to move. I can then directly start working on the piece again. Nobody knows my composition better than my father. I always played my new pieces to him first. And this is true until today.
Something I really like about playing the piano: I can spend hours with it without losing joy and enthusiasm. It accompanies me through my whole life and even make one or another situation easier for me. It is great to have a repertoire which you have created yourself.