You Can be a Musician: A Defense of Music
The Problems with Music Lessons Today, and How We Can Fix Them
Hellene Hiner, Nikolai Kurdyumov
Translation and editing by Valery Pinchuk
Illustrations by Nikolai Krutikov
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'When I was seven years old, I experienced my very first and most
bitter disappointment. I absolutely loved music. So much so, that I
even dreamed of going to music school and learning to play the piano.
How joyful I was when I found out that I’d get to go there! With eager
anticipation, I savored the image of my favorite preludes and waltzes
simply flowing out of my fingers. But things didn’t turn out so easily
at all… Music school turned out to be a total nightmare.
For hours, I was tormented by merciless sheet music, trudging
through the notes as if I were stumbling through dense jungles. My
fingers refused to do what I wished; music wasn’t being made. My teacher
didn’t notice all of this and commanded that I play with “expression
and beauty!” Oh, is that all there is to it? Where the heck
was the beauty that she was talking about? How could I hear the music I
was playing when I was just trying to make my fingers hit the right
keys on time?'...
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