World Pianist Day 2025 includes Kathy Broady

This is an old picture, but it’s World Pianist Day, and yep I’m gonna claim it.  

“Hi, my name is Kathy.  I’m a pianist and it’s my world day today.”  🙂  

(hahaha, how’s that for sassy, lol)

You may know me as the consultant/peer-support lady who writes about Dissociative Identity Disorder, the bloggist of 17-years who founded the DD Forums, and the cray-cray lady who leads the 10-day retreat for Dissociative Survivors, and yes, I’ve done all that for many years as well, but… working with DID was not my first love — not at all.

Oh, and while we’re on this path of telling early true-stories, dogs were not my first love either!  As a young girl, and for years of time, I was horse-girl, through and through but that’s a whole different story for a different day.

Piano and organ were my first keyboards– many, many years before the computer even entered my home.

I didn’t exactly pick the piano — it was something my parents decided I should learn to play.  

I grew up as a pastor’s kid, and I started taking organ/piano lessons at age 8.

By age 9, I was playing in church services.

By age 12, I was playing professionally at weddings.

It didn’t take long — I practiced lots and lots, hours every day.  I enjoyed piano, absolutely.

Even as I grew older, I continued with taking piano/organ lessons, and playing everywhere-anywhere I could.  I was part of all kinds of musical groups in high school and college.  My Senior Honors Recital was playing on a large pipe organ.  OH, the loud massive volume you make while playing the pipe organ is fantastic!  The power!!!  If only we had the same methods to video in those days as we do now.  I sure wish I could hear that recital again.

While I loved the pipe organ, it was a much more complex instrument than the piano.  It felt more serious to play the organ, and the piano was much more fun!  I’ll say it this way — I was blessed with a God-given gift of music improvisation, and that is where my heart began to shine!  Those weekends out on the tour bus were packed full of fun, that’s for sure.

Needless to say, my college classical music instructors weren’t always impressed with my natural inclination to improvise those classic Bach or Beethoven masterpieces, and thankfully, other music venues were far more impressed that I played in fun, bouncy, unique ways.

One of my favorite uncles took me to see Jerry Lee Lewis play “Great Balls of Fire” for a little musical education in Branson Missouri.  Playing the honky tonk blues is certainly more fun than some of that old soft boring church music! 

I enjoyed playing in the swing bands in high school. We were a talented group, and won several awards, played on telethons, eventually recorded a cassette tape, ha.  That’s how far back this story goes.  One of these days, I’ll re-release my piano CD, Broken into Pieces, that was recorded in 2003.  Slightly newer, but it’s time to move into the world of digital platforms, right?!  I continued to play professionally in weddings, churches, for choir groups, or individual vocalists, and various gigs for many years.  

Musical performance was one career path I could have easily followed.  For decades I played and certainly could have dedicated my life to that. I seriously considered it, but… in the end, I obviously chose the path of working in the fields of trauma and abuse.

 

Where do pianos fit into my life now?

Well, thank goodness, I do have a piano now.  YAY.

I wasn’t able to bring my piano from Australia back to Texas, but I am happy to say I now have a lovely antique upright, that is a piece of art as much as it is a musical instrument.

There’s more to that story, and for now, I want to thank the friendly guys from Red Carpet Moving from Tyler Texas who raced along ahead of the game, getting up extra early in the morning….

Just to make sure my piano arrived safe and sound (and dry!), before one massive, giant, Texas full on down-pouring thunderstorm began.  

Awesome timing, guys!  You did it!  Whew!  That was a close one!

And now, once again, I can play, whenever my heart needs to play.

Of course the more musically inspired I am, the more it’s going to fit into my role with dissociative trauma survivors.  Music is really good for healing, emotional expression and body movement.

According to Google:

“National Pianists Day is celebrated on World Pianist Day on November 8th, which honors pianists, keyboardists, composers, and piano lovers worldwide. The date is significant as it corresponds to the 88 keys on a standard piano. 

• Date: November 8, 2025
• Significance: Celebrates the 88 keys of a piano and honors everyone involved in the piano community
• Celebrations: People often share performances, collaborate on projects, or host events to celebrate the day” 

 

Sharing Performances

I do get requests to share some music with folks, and today, in honor of National Pianists Day, I’m going to do just that.

Pianist DISCLAIMER!
These are not fancy, prepared piano performances.  Not at all.  Two of these videos, I was playing along, improvising, just enjoying the piano (an old, out of tune piano in Moose Jaw Saskatchewan), completely unaware of the video happening. Thankful, yes, but unaware at the time.  This old piano sat in a church building that was near and dear to my mother and father.  This was my first time back to Moose Jaw since my father’s passing, and I had a lot of emotional moments during that visit.  It was more than wonderful to have a piano to play, and have a place to put the millions of feelings I was carrying.

First Day to Sit at this Old Piano.

 

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A Different Evening.

Practicing one evening with Mom, who was playing the organ while I stayed on the piano.

Not only has it been incredibly special for Mom to be the House Mom at the P4 Retreats, and to work alongside her during the weeks of cooking she does, it is so much of heart-filled moment to join her in musical expression.  Playing together, blending, joining in — that kind of musical union has always created its own magical connection.  I wish I could play duel instruments with my mother every week.   Oh, and bring my son in, rocking on the drums, of course!  🙂 

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And, the Sunday Morning Service

This time, I’m playing with Mary of Moose Jaw.  Mary has her violin and has joined in with the prelude.  Mary has been one of Mom’s best friends for over 50 years, and what a real joy to have the honor to play with her.  Thank you, Mary, for playing along with me.  🙂 

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How does music impact you?

Sitting IN music has been one of my best coping skills for a very long time.  

It’s the place I go when my spirit needs comfort, or when my heart is hurt, or when I want to dance from happiness.  

Music is spirit-filled.  It’s the place to go when your soul needs to cry out.  Music holds my tears, my pain, my fear, my joy.

Since music has always been such a powerful force in my healing, I of course, want to offer music to the dissociative population.

 

Music at the Retreats

Oh, most certainly, we bring music to the retreats.  We’ve only dabbled a bit into the music world at retreats, but enough to have a bunch of fun.

Some of the littles sang a beautiful and loud rendition of Frozen’s ‘Let it Go’ while we were in Montana.  ha.  We’ll never forget that one.

At North Carolina 2023, we had a keyboard, and there was a whole lot of fun going on the evening we brought that out.  AND, several more renditions of Frozen’s “Let it Go”, lol.  Yep, it was so good, it had to happen again!

In Texas, 2024, we gathered around the piano for a kids sing-a-long and some good ol’ Heart and Soul.  And we did some creative writing to some of the “Broken Into Pieces” songs.

And in 2025, we did a new thing.  We used the piano in a musical expression activity.  How does your body move to this sound?  And to this one?  And what do you feel when you hear this one?  It was an interesting new element to the retreat experience.

OH, and let’s not forget the dances!  At the retreats, we’ve now had a couple years of dancing, with all kinds of music.  Not with piano music — there’s much better boot-scooting dancing music out there to play at dances, but still, the power of music is seen there as well.

 

 

Sometimes, I really miss my piano days.  I miss the joys of spending an entire evening (or an entire weekend) playing in a band, going through the long list of songs, and feeling the impact of the whole audience enjoying the music, singing their heart out.  What’s better than being surrounded in good sound so loud you can feel it in your bones, losing yourself in a peace-filled no-chaos setting, and enjoying those heart-helping, uplifting, inspirational songs?  It’s just indescribable how awesome that is. Music heals in places where words can’t go. That professional music life-career would have been rewarding for sure.  

And then, I realize, I’ve got it pretty good where I am, and I just need to bring my piano back into my day, my week, and our DD activities.  I’m not really missing the performance, I’m missing the music.  And it’s time to sit there for a few hours.  Because my choice to not be a career musician didn’t mean that I left music behind.  Absolutely not.  It comes with, and has its own healing impact as well.

So here we are, on World Pianist Day, talking about exactly that! 

 

I wish you the best, and may more of your days be music-filled, and trauma-free.

Warmly, 

Kathy

 

Copyright © 2008-2026 Kathy Broady and Discussing Dissociation