A student sat hunched over in concentration, tapping the white and black keys of a piano in the George Sherman Union lobby, stitching together a cheerful melody.

The piano is an omnipresent fixture of the GSU for any visitors to play, including the student who found free time to visit the GSU during his busy week.

“At a certain point, I thought ‘I’m getting pretty decent at this. Maybe I should try playing this at the public piano,’” said the student, Matthew Goldstein. “Now, I can get into it and forget that people are around.”

He stops at the GSU in between classes some days, churning out a tune for students wandering nearby. It isn’t intimidating to him anymore—he assumes people meander and pay him no mind. 

Goldstein is a first-year graduate student studying mathematics. He’s a Brookline native, and he takes inspiration from old Nintendo games and anime for his music. Whenever he has free time, he dedicates most of it to the piano.

He took piano lessons when he was younger, stopped for some years, then got back into it, and then stopped a bit more, and then got into it again. 

He recalled his decision to learn “Turkish March” by Mozart in high school, which dramatically increased his abilities on piano. Learning the songs he liked to listen to piqued his interest in piano after lulls in practicing.

However, once he completed learning a song, his productivity streak would end. That was when Goldstein started improvising piano pieces.

By creating improvisations, Goldstein felt more compelled to play the piano and wasn’t bored of replaying the same songs.

He has posted a few videos of his improvisations on YouTube and broadcasted his playing in voice chats for his friends even though he is critical of his own playing.

Goldstein emphasized that he will continue playing the piano (even when he isn’t as experienced or receptive to learning new music as other players).

“I don’t even try to incorporate [piano] into my schedule,” said Goldstein. “It’s natural for me. It’s like getting a snack. It’s like lying down to take a nap.”

Although Goldstein won’t be pursuing piano professionally, he truly values the piano and raves about the benefits he obtains from playing.

In fact, playing a musical instrument may decrease the need for antidepressants and be a “complementary alternative medicine,” according to a 2016 article in the Federal Practitioner, a peer-reviewed clinical journal serving medical professionals.

Goldstein wishes he could practice more and gain those sight reading and quick music reception skills; however, he also is focused on finding a job in mathematics, choosing to keep piano as a side hobby. 

“In the years of studying math, I’ve started to question, ‘Is this my passion?’ … I think I would still choose math,” said Goldstein. “But on any day, if you asked me, ‘Would you rather spend six hours doing math or spend six hours having fun on the piano, I would always choose piano.”