The young composer recounts his musical background: How he quit piano lessons as a young child because of mandatory enrollment in the theory curriculum. His playing and his subsequent persistence in following his ear indicate auditory sensitivity of the highest order--the only order there is, actually, because it is his own, matched only by its own intensity and integrity.
The theory canon persists because it makes music easier to teach. The mere existence of the piano makes it obsolete and irrelevant.
How many children quit piano (as I also did) because the sound does not match either the notation or the simplified concepts of tonal theory?
