The ear is many times faster than any other perception system--in fact, hundreds of times faster. I think of musicians as people who aspire to that almost immeasurable rate of speed. Musical children experience music at that speed. Everything in my experience supports this observation.

My question: Why is so much time spent slowing their ear responses down to the level at which they can control their motor function? Shouldn't it be the other way around? Shouldn't the motor function be left free to respond at the -- here we go! -- speed of sound?

This observation applies mostly to learning at the piano. It's completely different with stringed instruments which come in child sizes, and where the feedback in sound is directly connected to motor skills--a whole different ball of wax.

In between hearing music the way a child hears it (which adults can only dimly imagine) and reading it the way standard notation presents it (which any sensible musician will tell you doesn't make much musical sense) there is a huge gap.

Which is more important: to be able to read music or to be able to make music?

Don't misunderstand me: I value reading music enormously. But I respect the distance between these two very different skills -- so much so that I will work with anyone who has trouble reading for whatever reason. As a result I keep learning more and more about the life of sound itself, without an interface of notation or of theory or of any other system of indirect reference.

Last night I attended a session on Surrealist poets Paul Eluard and Rene Char at the Philoctetes Center. (The session will be viewable on-line in about three days--I recommend it.) I was struck by how the most ordinary words were so charged for the scholars/translators presenting the poetry that they had trouble speaking. At one point one of them said, after confessing that she did not understand the poem she had just translated, "After all, I have a doctorate!"

A person playing the piano--even, or perhaps most especially a child--pronounces with their fingers. Think about it. If a word can be reduced to its pronunciation or its dictionary definition an esteemed Ph.D. will never be caught in public confessing awe at its power. If a tone on the piano could really be reduced to its fingering you might not have had to quit taking piano lessons.

Think about it.

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.