My suggestion to anyone struggling with rhythm is to work on Bartok's For Children, of which there are two volumes. In these pieces he indicates all types of rhythmic order, some metric, some not. Learning the meaning of the various signs can do a lot to make the student aware of the difference between metronomic regularity and other ways of getting from one bar to the next, or from one beat to the next. Becoming aware of one's power to control this element is the key to fixing the problem.

This morning a young woman felt and identified her rhythmic idiosyncrasy not as a flaw but as an expressive tool that she can integrate into all of her musical life, especially into her composition. We had previously had occasion to discuss her basic rhythm, which is anxiety-driven, so today's observation didn't come out of nothing. Still it was wonderful to observe her reading a Bartok composition, noting the discrepancies between metered motion and that other specific source of impulse.

I know from personal experience that it is an area of extreme difficulty.

To be a musician is to be a linguist. Every acoustical setup is a different language root--strings, brass, wooden flutes, voice. The piano, while its own acoustical setup, is also an excellent ventriloquist's dummy, admirably suited to imitate attributes of other sound sources.

I have noticed that string players who play exceptionally well in tune with other instruments have invariably studied other instruments: their ears are open to the differences, therefore they can meet.

It was remarkable at one moment to hear an adult student's touch suddenly improve in subtlety. It turned out he had been working with singers on a daily basis.

In the first and last analysis music is a deeply personal experience. This was made clear in recent one-on-one exchange with a very great musician to whom I was a complete stranger until we began talking about specific tones. The look of recognition was instant and profound.

I once told the mother of a new student who was obviously a big achiever that music is not about achievement but about one's heart and one's soul. What does that mean?

It means that music is about paying attention in the way that attentiveness is the center of a thoughtful life. Being aware; caring about the aliveness of every sound, every reaction.

The student in question is thoroughly involved with music still, after more than twenty-five years.

Last night I heard Mozart's Piano Concerto in G in an unbelievably great performance by Piotr Anderszewski, whose aliveness in every tone, every possible connotation of every tone is as fresh as one imagines Mozart's to have been.

I told him afterward that that is the greatness of his playing: he plays one sound at a time with complete openness and honesty. "Of course," he replied.

Taking a hint from Mozart in G major I went to play Schumann's Kinderszenen, a cycle I have always found troubling, in the way that I find many Schumann cycles troubling--some of the pieces have ambiguous tonality and some are difficult to begin and/or end.

What do I find? It is all about relationships within the family of G major. Did Schumann have reactions to G major when he was a child? Do those reactions set the scene for the pieces in this cycle? Interesting to speculate.

My reason for recalling childhood reactions to Mozart has to do with how much more difficult it is to articulate troubled responses than to pretend that everything is okay. How many children are given permission to express negative reactions to things that are supposed to be "great" or "beautiful?"