What is more important: to be occupied with the surface of music--the tune that goes round and round in your head and you can't stop it from repeating--or to be so fascinated with tone that you can't get enough of it so you dream about it? For me, it's clearly the latter.

The "tune" is the easy part. The essence is the lasting part. I notice with children who are not attracted to (distracted by?) the mechanical aspects of music that they mature into a consciousness that is extremely refined by the time they are in late adolescence.

There are, of course, the children for whom the separation is impossible: children who live and breathe music, who play constantly, whether fooling around or preparing a lesson. The challenge with these children is to make sure that their music dreams are not nightmares.