Her grandmother was a piano teacher, both her parents played piano when they were kids and her younger brother started playing piano even before she did.

With this family background, maybe the fact that freshman Ella Lee plays piano is not surprising.

“We’re a musical family,” Lee said. “We have a lot of instruments in our house. Sometimes we even try to play each others’ instruments — it has definitely brought us closer together.”

She started playing piano when she was only seven years old, adding to a repertoire that today includes eight years of violin, four years of flute and one summer of guitar. But right now, Lee focuses on piano, while also singing A Cappella in school.

“Obviously I like the way piano sounds, but I think the best part is if you know that you sound good — not in a braggy way, but that you got it right,” Lee said.

But sometimes Lee hits sour notes with her piano playing: she finds the technical aspects of playing grinding.

Lee practices every day for around an hour, unless she has a grand piano-sized load of homework, in which case she only plays for half an hour.

“I don’t like the fact that you can’t really skip a day,” Lee said. “You lose a little bit of that muscle memory, and if you skip another day, it’s even worse.”

Lee began playing piano shortly after her little brother, now in seventh grade, took it up.

“It’s like friendly competition,” Lee said.

After short stints with several teachers, Lee headed to the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. Eventually, she began taking lessons under John McCarthy. Now, every Wednesday, she heads out to McCarthy’s home in San Francisco.

“It takes four hours to go to a lesson and come back, so it’s kind of an excursion,” Lee said.

In addition to technique, having to devote so much time to piano has taught Lee time management skills.

“My mom makes me practice before I get to homework, because when I’m tired practices aren’t productive at all,” Lee said. “You have to be aware of how much time you have.”

After a few minutes of relaxed chit-chat, Lee starts her lessons with scales to improve her technique, gradually increasing her speed until she moves onto playing pieces.

“Every so often, between pieces, [my teacher will] stop and just talk,” Lee said. “Sometimes it’s related, like he’ll give me the entire history a composer or something.”

Lee’s mother always records their lessons so Lee can listen back if she needs to for reference during her own practice.

“When he sits down and shows me how to do something better, sometimes it’s literally on a technical level, like you’re playing the wrong note,” Lee said. “But if he gives me a tip like, ‘The way you’re playing this is kind of boring, because there’s no dynamic,’ then the next piece I’ll amp it up way more.”

Lee’s long-time friend freshman Julie Huffaker remembers attending one of these lessons and being very impressed with Lee’s focus.

“I remember during play dates she used to have go to play piano and I was like, ‘What?’” Huffaker said.

Another friend, freshman Niki Roseborough, saw a similar focus in Lee both on and off of the piano bench.

“She’s really dedicated, which helps with her work ethic,” Roseborough said. “In projects, she works really hard, finishes early and does more than is needed.”

For Lee, that focus is just a necessary part of piano.

“Everybody assumes it’s one of the easiest instruments, because the notes are all there and you  don’t have to put your finger on a string or anything, but it’s not that easy,” Lee said.

To end, a fun story from Lee: “Once when we were at recital, during my brother’s piece my dad was sleeping, and then he knocked his phone off the side and it cracked.”