I wake up today pondering the expression "...with special needs." It's interesting how quickly our culture devises expressions to distinguish others from ourselves. Don't we all have special needs?

What's the difference between having a special need and having a secret? Don't we all have secrets?

Maybe the social pressure of the day is not to have secrets.

What is more secret than the music that plays in your head all the time--even when you sleep? Who is going to help you hear it?

Approaching a piece of music is like getting ready to go for a walk: you need to be wearing the right shoes depending on the weather, the terrain, and so on. Sometimes when I hear pianists play I think they own only one pair.

Can you imagine having a choice? How would it change your playing?

Many schooled musicians complain of inhibition: they can't improvise and it seems unbelievable that they might create music of their own.

One young woman in my studio is determined to make her own music. All she has to go on is a vision in her mind of how she wants it to sound--mostly, I think, how she wants it to feel. It's a song, patterned on a pop ballad. She keeps working at it. I am touched by her intent determination to make this music, her own music.

In a fascinating reversal of the usual teacher/student - who's in charge? scenario I have to pay attention to her. Why?

From what I know about courage and self-confidence I would go so far as to say it's because nothing could be more important.

One of my long-time students is a young man studying computer animation at the School for Visual Arts. We both know that he is not the usual piano student--whatever that is. He approaches the piano as a composer. In fact, I learn from him how Beethoven might have approached the instrument: that's how objective and responsive his ear is! A pretty high standard, wouldn't you say?

Why do I insist that we get involved with the smallest detail in his awareness of music, since we both know that when he plays for people it really doesn't matter that he will inevitably play wrong notes? He needs to know that composers write music one note at a time. Everything is there for a reason, though the reasons are not necessarily obvious, especially in the case of a truly great composer. Maybe that's how we know a composer is truly great.

This student is learning to respect the detail in his own creative work and in his reactions to the work of others.

Case in point: I heard a performance of improvisatory music the other day. I am haunted by a G# that had no business ending a piece in D except, perhaps, to haunt me.

So much music has been inspired by technology!

Where to start? Sewing machines, railroad trains, hurdy-gurdies, music boxes...the list goes on and on. A young person today finds a piece of music boring. Could it be that it's boring on purpose? What if it's imitating a quintessentially boring gizmo--like a spinning wheel? Isn't it amazing how quickly such devices become ancient history!

Can you tell the difference between a player imitating a machine and a player who has become one?

Look at No. 1 in Schumann's Album for the Young--be sure it's the Henle edition. Is there anything you don't understand?

"What is that hairpin in measure 5?"

It means you should listen for what happens to the quarter note when the left hand's eighth notes move within it. It means that in all probability you played the first four bars too fast to notice that all those off-beat eighth notes actually make a difference in the sound of the melody. In fact, it may be the reason why Schumann has not given a tempo indication for this piece: the hairpin is the indication.

Do you know of other markings that show what to listen for rather than what to do?

According to my scientist student, basic training for a scientist is scientific method. What is basic training for a piano student?

According to much pedagogical practice it is keeping a steady beat.

But if this were really so I and many others would have had to quit before we started. Keeping a beat is not so hard until it gets mixed with the piano sound. At that point either you turn off your ear and keep that beat come what may or you remain fascinated by the magical blend of in (the beat) and out of (the vibrations) control.

In a supermarket checkout line many years ago I overheard a conversation. A father unloading a well-filled cart offered his four-year-old son the choice of two candies. As the transaction neared completion the father asked for the verdict. The child asked "Which one lasts longer?"