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Nancy Williams, author of Reflections of a Grand Passion, uses some interesting words to describe her piano experiences. To avoid coloring the responses, I'll save them for later.

For now, I'd like to know what words, what adjectives, what feelings, you might use to describe your time spent playing the piano.

haha - Frustration

Well, of course I could use ju5t1n-h's ... I think all of us have those moments!

However, how about that moment when you nail a tricky bar - or when you first recognize that OP 122 N 987, the piece you've been reading and stumbling through, is actually something you've heard a zillion times...and now YOU are playing it!!!!

In a word: Delighted.

I think I'd use 'Relieved'

haha I'm not actually a pessimist but I have to be up in 5 hours for work and I'm not the slightest bit tired! Need to buy a concrete pillow

I will separate "practicing" from "playing". When I am practicing I am focussed, getting work done. When I sit down and just play, I am emoting and just letting the music take me where ever it goes. It is liberating and thrilling.

I'll tag along with Cheryl here, "delighted". Hearing myself play some of the music I love, even if just a few bars, fills me with delight and makes me want to learn more and more.

I play like lightning - I never hit the same note twice

Unless it's a wrong'un.

Sheer joy! I try to avoid piano when I'm getting ready to go to work. I forget about everything once I sit in front of the piano. In fact after reading you guys post I wandered to piano and missed my 1:1 with my boss.

Hmmm....I want to know what Nancy said...I don't like to describe my playing for two reasons. One I don't think I would pick the right words and two I don't know what others are feeling but I can share their words....distinctive, delicate, relaxing. I can agree with those words.

rada

Amazed and delighted.

It always amazes me that I can actually make music, even when it is flawed music, from looking at notes on the page.


Awed and challenged.

I am awed at how difficult this thing is that we have chosen to learn. There is no doubt that learning to play the piano is way, way harder than anything I have ever undertaken.

edit to add that on further reflection I'm having trouble coming up with an emotion that I have not had at the piano bench!

Okay enough suspense, Nancy Williams uses the word rapture to describe her piano experience in a recent blog post.
http://www.nancywilliamspiano.com/2012/12/31/reckoning-2012-new-years-resolutions/

In another blog entry, she uses the word blissful.

Personally, I have used the word transcendent to describe my music experience. When I get that feeling in front of an audience, it becomes connection, a feeling of being at peace with the world. Another analogy, it is as if people are like tuning forks, and when we hit the right note, or sequence of notes, our bodies, minds and spirits resonate with the music. This fits with a goal I derived from a John Coltrane quote:
My music is a spiritual expression of who I am

Like JimF writes, my range of emotions is wide. I expect it is that way for a lot of people. Some writers say they like having the completed work, but the actual process of producing that work can be tedious, discouraging, frustrating, headache producing and worse.

When I'm practicing, I feel fullfilled, more at peace with myself and my place in the world than at any other time in my day. At the keys, I feel I'm where I belong and doing what I'm supposed to be doing. All's right with my world. I feel righteous.

When I play music, I think about the music I'm playing.

When practicing, I can feel focused, searching, questioning, amazed, energized. Sometimes calm and almost meditative; I feel a softening, like I'm sinking into the sound, my mind coming to a state of rest and the only sound is the piano, everything else is silent. (That's a very hard state for me to ever achieve, for a variety of reasons. There's a lot of noise in my life, and in my mind.) Sometimes I'm simply thrilled by the fact that my fingers are starting to feel like the movement is natural, or that I got the cross-over without thinking about it, or the right fingering, or the tempo. That feeling that I think most of you mean by playing. I always feel like I'm still just practicing, not really playing yet. But I see/feel glimmers of what I will achieve!

I can also feel frustrated, lost, confused, confounded, groping in the dark, fumble-fingered, 10-thumbed, aghast at my ability to repeat the same ($&^^@!! mistakes over and over. Also, tired, stupid and lame-brained.

But — and I think it's important to say this — I never, ever feel completely fed-up with it all. I never despair. Even in my worst moments, I know that I'm only feeling a momentary frustration and that, no matter how many times I feel it, that's not the overall experience. Playing/practicing is more positive than negative. I know I'm making progress, albeit slowly, and that one day I will truly play the piano with pleasure and power and understanding.

I would say "relaxed". Like this is supposed to be where I am and I'm home.

I don't think I'm good enough to experience any piano playing rapture yet... Kind of hard when playing "there's a hole in my bucket". I do still get a lot of happiness from it though.

Patience is a virtue,
Virtue is a grace,
And Grace is a little girl who does not wash her face.

What's up with the bold italics?

Who is this Nancy Williams?

I might be an oddball here. I don't play well but feel good by just pressing the keys to make sound. Don't you guys feel certain amount of sensual pleasure by just playing. I mean pressing the key, feeling the vibration of the strings beyond...