I note with some amusement how different it is to train young people to be discerning amateurs than to be pretend professionals. Perfectionism is a dead-end street when it comes to music; pretend perfectionism is even deader. All too often pretense to perfection is the disease of professionalism.

A discerning amateurs is like the five-year-old who, when listening to Don Quixote read to him, burst out laughing at the second instance of Sancho Panza uttering his inimitable words of wisdom: "I know what he's going to say!" and then proceeded to get it.